Comments to the FCC Regarding Its Inquiry on Deployment of Advanced Telecommunications Capability

Contents

Introduction and Summary 1

The Commission Should Recognize the Broadband Market's Dramatic Evolution. 2

The Commission Should Define Broadband Based on User Experience, Not Arbitrary Numbers 2

The Commission Should Incorporate Committed Deployment Funding Into Its Analysis 3

Deployment Success Is Cause to Prioritize Remaining Causes of the Digital Divide. 3

Endnotes 3

Introduction and Summary

The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) appreciates the opportunity to comment on the Commission's 2025 Section 706 Report Notice of Inquiry ("NOI" or "Notice").[1]The broadband marketplace has evolved significantly in recent years, with new technologies supplementing and competing alongside traditional deployments, and federal programs poised to achieve near-universal service. As the Commission evaluates broadband deployment, it should recognize this dynamic environment, ground its analysis in consumer experience rather than arbitrary thresholds, and recognize that it is time to recalibrate its priorities to address adoption and affordability barriers that remain the primary drivers of the digital divide.

The Commission Should Recognize the Broadband Market's Dramatic Evolution

Private investment and technological developments have driven massive change in the broadband market in recent years, expanding both broadband availability and competition. Traditional wireline deployments have continued apace while new technologies, especially fixed-wireless 5G access (FWA) and low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites, have layered new types of networks on top of old ones.[2]These new technologies have also made broadband available in remote locations that previously lacked broadband. Since all these technologies can now provide reliable, scalable, high-speed Internet, the Commission should consider them all in its evaluation of broadband availability.

The Commission Should Define Broadband Based on User Experience, Not Arbitrary Numbers

Past 706 Reports have excluded certain technologies (such as LEO satellite) from broadband availability data on the grounds that they are not up to par with other technologies.[3]The Commission has proved a poor judge of future technological developments and of the bandwidth required for participation in modern society.

The definition of broadband used by the Commission in the past has been at best arbitrary and at worst gerrymandered to inject a policy judgment in favor of some technologies over others. The Notice rightly proposes not to pursue a further arbitrary threshold of 1,000 megabits per second (Mbps) download and 500 Mbps upload. Any cardinal numerical throughput benchmarks used to define broadband are necessarily divorced from consumer use cases and needs. Reasonable and timely deployment of advanced telecommunications capabilities should be judged based on the match between those capabilities and consumer demand, not arbitrary numerical benchmarks. The inherent bias of the FCC for more speed would be like automotive regulators saying that cars that only can drive 90 miles an hour are not as good as cars that can drive 300 mph.[4]

This functional definition is especially important if the Commission is using the cardinal definition to exclude certain technologies. For example, while fiber often provides symmetrical speeds well in excess of 100 Mbps, technologies that provide asymmetrical speeds to support consumers' asymmetrical use cases are just as viable. For example, a service with 19 Mbps upload can support four simultaneous video calls, more than an average household is likely to undertake.[5]An FCC definition that assumes such a connection is not broadband is out of step with technical realities and will paint a falsely pessimistic vision of broadband deployment. The Notice correctly points out that such a dynamic amounts to "skewing the market by unnecessarily potentially picking technological winners and losers."[6]

Furthermore, the bottleneck for consumers' broadband use is increasingly their home network setup rather than the bandwidth their ISP delivers to the home.[7]Pushing for ever thicker pipes to the building only to have consumer experience limited by a poorly configured Wi-Fi network misses the mark. It will incentivize costly misallocations of resources that increase bandwidth to the home without benefiting the consumers inside.

The Commission Should Incorporate Committed Deployment Funding Into Its Analysis

The Commission should identify areas that are unserved but subject to enforceable commitments across federal broadband deployment funding programs. In particular, the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program has an explicit goal of providing 100/20 service to every location in the country. This program is thus a direct step to fulfill the outcome the 706 report seeks to measure.

Federal broadband funding programs in general should share information to prevent wasteful overlaps and identify when efforts to fund universal deployment have been successful, rather than preserving the disjointed collection of parochial broadband subsidies to prop up rural ISPs with no end in sight.[8]Given the immense sums spent to subsidize broadband deployment over past decades, it is likely that, after BEAD, any location that can be served by a federal subsidy will be. The Commission should thus recalibrate its evaluation of the market and of deployment funding for a country in which the goals have been achieved.

Deployment Success Is Cause to Prioritize Remaining Causes of the Digital Divide

While the statute enabling the 706 Report may narrowly focus on broadband deployment, the Commission should note and address the fact that other barriers to universal broadband access are still significant. Indeed, according to NTIA data, lack of available service accounts for less than 3 percent of the digital divide. Lack of interest and affordability together account for 71 percent of it.[9]

Therefore, the Commission should not confuse successful universal broadband deployment with closing the digital divide. Instead, it should take deployment success as a reason to shift its priorities to addressing adoption and affordability barriers to universal connectivity. Whether or not these topics are proper for inclusion in the 706 Report, they are proper and necessary topics for Commission attention, and a positive outcome from the report is strong evidence that it is time to reevaluate Commission priorities.

The Commission should work with federal agencies such as NTIA to collect timely, detailed, and accurate data on remaining causes of the digital divide and work with Congress to recalibrate the tools at its disposal to address them.[10]In particular, Congress and the FCC should reform the Universal Service Fund to focus far more on affordability and far less on rural broadband deployment.

Thank you for your consideration.

Endnotes