Disclaimer: I’ve known a lot of people, both personally and professionally, that work for various carriers. They’re hardworking people that take pride in their work, and they go above and beyond for their customers. This is not a critic of their work. This is an examination of the providers behavior, performance, and actions.

The COVID pandemic has exposed something that we already knew was a problem, and that is Internet coverage and competition in America. It’s especially problematic in rural areas, and even some not so rural areas. We’ve known this was a looming issue for a while now, but when workers and students were forced to work from home, it became a glaring and immediate issue.

This has been further complicated by recent carrier actions, making the new work-from-home norm more difficult or impossible. In June, about two or three months into the pandemic, Cox throttled the bandwidth of an entire neighborhood due to the bandwidth use of one user. One thing to note is that the user was scheduling their high data use at off-peak hours(between 1 AM and 8 AM), and they were paying an additional monthly fee for “unlimited data”. Cox has also given notice to their users that they will be limiting their upload bandwidth to 10Mbps on their plans.

At the beginning of October, AT&T announced they were ceasing sales of DSL, along with other carriers. This is a major problem for rural areas where DSL was the only option. DSL has been a sub-par option for broadband Internet, but it’s a better option than nothing at all.

In a lot of markets consumers only have one option, and now may not have an option at all. I live in an area with about 320,000 people between the two main counties. That certainly doesn’t qualify as a major metropolis, but we’re also not talking about a one traffic light town in the middle of nowhere, yet roughly 97% of those 320,000 have one option for broadband internet. AT&T has a small fiber footprint, but it’s very small.

I get that expanding a provider’s service area isn’t cheap. I was talking to an acquaintance with a cable internet provider and asking about their plans to push their footprint out beyond our two most populous counties. They flat out told me they weren’t planning anything. They’d thought about it, but aerial fiber costs them about $40k a mile. When they crunched the numbers the population density just wasn’t high enough to justify the cost, and like any business, if they can’t turn a profit then they aren’t going to do it.

So, you may say to yourself “maybe the state or federal government could subsidize that buildout to make it more feasible for the provider.” That would accomplish a few things 1) it would bring stable broadband internet to underserved areas and 2) it would, theoretically, create some jobs. The only problem with that idea is that it’s already been tried. The FCC has given subsidies to providers to do just what was just described. Do you know what happened? The providers half-ass the expansion, fudged the numbers, and pocketed the cash, even though ISPs are claiming that they can’t afford to expand unless the government antees up more cash. They’ve done such a stellar job so far, why not?

Maybe Internet access should be treated like a public utility. That would make it easier to regulate and the government could oversee its rollout. That would solve some of the problems, right? The ISPs think that’s a great idea too, but don’t make it a real utility. Give them all the benefits of a public utility, but don’t make them conform to any of those pesky requirements like pricing regulation or coverage requirements.

Ok, here’s another thought, let municipalities roll out their own service. If ISPs don’t want to spend the money to provide service to an area, then let the city deploy their own solution. A lot of cities have done just that, and we’re not talking about major metro areas either. Ammon, ID(pop 16,000), Monticello, MN(pop 14,000), and Bristol, TN(pop 27,000) all have successful municipal Internet offerings. However, in 22 states there are legislative roadblocks, or outright bans, on cities creating their own broadband solution.

When municipal broadband is available studies show that access is more affordable and reliable. It’s time to put an end to letting the lobbyist for big carriers stifle the expansion for broadband services to underserved areas of the country. They’ve clearly demonstrated that they don’t see it being worth their time.

I’d prefer a solution that isn’t heavily regulated. I’d prefer a competitive market that keeps pricing fair and sees the superior service excel. However, if the commercial providers don’t want to service an area, then we have no choice but to look at alternatives.

A few years ago I was attending my first Inman Connect San Franciso. This was 2015, I believe. During that conference, Climb hosted a networking event at their offices for the conference attendees. At the time, Climb was an up and coming indy brokerage in the bay area that prided itself on its unique culture and offices. As a member of the indy brokerage segment, it was great to see a new, vibrant brokerage and brand thriving in an ultra-competitive market.

Let’s fast forward to the fall of 2016 when Realogy/NRT announced they had acquired Climb for an undisclosed amount in order to add that brand to it’s stable that includes Coldwell Banker, Better Homes and Gardens, and Corcoran. After the acquisition, things fell silent and no big public statements were made about what was going on with Climb. What were the plans, if any, for Climb? Realogy’s stock had been struggling, so was the purchase of Climb a play to make it appear as though Realogy was preparing to make some innovative changes or position a brand to appeal to a younger demographic?

Let’s jump again to the fall of 2018 when Realogy announces that they are going to begin franchising the Climb and Corcoran brands along with their other franchise opportunities, stating that both brands are critical to Realogy’s growth. So, after 2 years of relative silence about the brand, we finally have confirmation of what the plan for Climb is, and this makes perfect sense. Some of the other Realogy brands, like Coldwell Banker, haven’t been seen as a hip, urban, progressive brand. Climb looked like Realogy’s option to tap into not only younger buyers, also younger agents entering the industry. We were all on the same page now.

Let’s move the calendar forward a mere 14 months or so. We haven’t seen any Climb franchises, and all has been quiet. Realogy then makes a surprise announcement that they will be making a 180-degree turn. It will not be franchising Climb, it will actually be shuttering the brand and will be absorbing all Climb’s agents into the local Coldwell Banker offices. Ummmm…..Huh? Furthermore, Ryan Gorman goes on to say that Climb’s DNA is all over the new Realogy. Really? After basically a year Climb’s culture, which is vastly different from Realogy, has been integrated into Realogy’s corporate DNA? Yeah, no. Not buying it.

Climb was a great, urban, progressive brand that had a lot of potential and appealed to a younger agent demographic that Realogy could use. Only time will tell if they can replace that brand with one of their other lines, but I doubt it. Climb was a wonderfully unique option that could’ve been a great asset for Realogy that was abandoned too soon.