ITIF Analysis of FCC Broadband Deployment Report
Information Technology & Innovation Foundation
Richard Bennett & Robert Atkinson
July 21, 2010

The FCC Broadband Report is a yearly report on the advancement of broadband throughout the United States.  The point of this report is so that Congress and the FCC can analyze potential barriers to investment or deployment and used regulation or deregulation to improve the situation.

Bennett and Atkinson review the report and start off by noting that this years report had some changes including the increase of the minimum standard of Internet access determined to be “broadband” to a speed of 4Mbps.  The unfortunately side effect of this, as they point out, is that it removes most wireless access like 3G as a type of broadband that can be counted toward deployment goals.

The two scholars believe that while the data shows that broadband access is becoming more readily available, that universal service has not yet come to fruition in the United States.  But they strongly feel that a major contributor to this years report showing a lack of progress was the leap from defining broadband as 200Kbps to 4Mbps.  They feel that this is a good goal to set for wireline access but much to high for wireless access.  And many individuals will have access to wireless speeds that previously met the old definition for broadband or even greatly exceeded it, but that falls under 4Mbps.

The authors point out that the United States broadband deployment goals may never be reachable or at least reasonable.  They point to Australia for example.  Australia’s broadband plan calls for 93% of the population to be reached by 100Mbps wireline service, 2% will then be reached via terrestrial wireless, and the final 5% of the population would have broadband access via satellite.  They feel that this type of plan is much more reasonable and realistic because, as they put it, “It’s very difficult to justify a ten mile trench or hundreds of new telephone poles just to reach a single cattle ranch…”.

In closing Bennett and Atkinson discuss the fact that “barriers and lack of competition” are not always the problem.  And that the fact that the “Telecommunications Act was written 15 years ago, long before we understood how to correctly diagnose the deployment problem” is a major contributor to potentially inefficient planning or incorrect diagnosis.  The authors call for the Universal Service Fund to be replaced by a Universal Broadband Fund.

You can read the full analysis here.