Broadband Gap May Be Widening, 706 Report Finds
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s staff has concluded that the nation’s broadband gap may be widening, with up to 26 million Americans lacking access to high-speed Internet, FCC officials told us. But critics are already lining up to condemn the report’s methodology and implications. The report, which began circulating earlier this month, said broadband is still not reaching Americans “reasonably” or “timely” (CD April 26 p11). Like last year’s report, the so-called section 706 report relies on subscribership data from form 477 to set the lowest end of the broadband gap range. Unlike last year’s report, Genachowski’s staff uses data from NTIA’s broadband map to determine the high end of the range -- 26 million Americans, FCC officials told us. Last year, the commission used data from models in the National Broadband Plan to determine that up to 24 million Americans were without high-speed broadband.
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Some House Republicans view this year’s report as another excuse for future regulation. “I am not surprised about the report and I doubt Chairman Genachowski is either,” Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said in an email statement. “ISPs know better than to invest in assets the FCC has virtually nationalized. Chairman Genachowski spent years ensuring that the specter of government control would create a disincentive to invest in broadband architecture. Now his very own study affirms his work.” Last year’s report found for the first time that advanced technology wasn’t reaching Americans quickly or efficiently enough. That conclusion has since become a mainstay of arguments in defense of net neutrality, data roaming and the pending Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation regime overhauls.
To Genachowski, the broadband report is “a victory lap that opens the door to additional government control,” Blackburn said. “To me, this report is a wake up call; warning Congress and the marketplace of what the future holds if we don’t complete our work overturning net neutrality.” An FCC spokesman declined comment.
This year’s 706 report shows that the low end of the “gap” has increased slightly from last year, an FCC official said. Subscribership data in last year’s report showed that at least 14 million Americans couldn’t obtain broadband at 4 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload. That’s not surprising, in part because a census tract is covered statistically if at least 1 percent of the tract’s households have access to broadband, one eighth floor official said.
But it’s the NTIA map that some think will generate the most controversy. RT Communications Director of Government Relations Jason Hendricks told us at an FCC hearing earlier this week that he didn’t trust the NTIA’s data. Several tracts listed as “unserved” already have broadband, he said. “I think it’s more than just random error,” Hendricks said after a USF panel Wednesday. “I would be very careful with that map as far as policy is concerned."
This year’s report has a technical appendix acknowledging and describing problems with data collection at both ends of the gap’s range, an FCC official said. There are several caveats in the report referring to the technical appendix. The NTIA map relies on data collected by regulators in the states and not every broadband provider has handed information over to state regulators, the commission official said.
The FCC should expect questions at Tuesday’s House Communications Subcommittee hearing (CD April 27) “about how they hold free enterprise hostage to their own political ends,” said a House Republican staffer. GOP Commerce Committee members appear less concerned about the switch in data sets. “Regardless of which map is used,” Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., “remains concerned that rural America is being left behind in the deployment of broadband services,” a Shimkus spokesman said.