Broadband Internet service "has steadily shifted from an optional amenity to a core utility" and is now "taking its place alongside water, sewer, and electricity as essential infrastructure for communities," says a report released by the White House yesterday.

The report was written by the Broadband Opportunity Council, which was created by President Obama and is chaired by the heads of the Commerce and Agriculture departments. In an accompanying blog post, the White House touted Obama's "leadership" in expanding broadband access but said that nearly 51 million Americans still cannot purchase wired broadband with download speeds of at least 25Mbps.

The statistic was based on data from 2013, so things may have improved since then. But it's time for a government-wide effort to expand broadband deployment and adoption, the White House blog post said. The Council "review[ed] every major Federal program that provides support for broadband, from the Department of Housing and Urban Development and Health and Human Services to the Department of Justice," noted the Obama administration. The report made several recommendations, and federal agencies have committed to the following:

Modernizing Federal programs valued at approximately $10 billion to include broadband as an eligible program expenditure, such as the Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Community Facilities (CF) program, which will help communities around the country bring broadband to health clinics and recreation centers;

Creating an online inventory of data on Federal assets, such as Department of the Interior (DOI) telecommunications towers that can help support faster and more economical broadband deployments to remote areas of the country;

Streamlining the applications for programs and broadband permitting processes to support broadband deployment and foster competition; and

Creating a portal for information on Federal broadband funding and loan programs to help communities easily identify resources as they seek to expand access to broadband.

Some federal programs that can support broadband "lack specific guidelines to promote its use," while others should put more money into broadband, the Council report said. The report also recommended that federal agencies promote "dig once" policies that put fiber or fiber conduit underground when streets are dug up for other purposes. The White House said it will implement the recommendations over the next 18 months.

Obama previously urged the Federal Communications Commission to regulate broadband providers as common carriers, a designation traditionally applied to utilities. The FCC did so, but it stressed that its new rules aren't utility-style regulation because they don't include the strictest regulations traditionally applied to phone service.

The FCC has also been trying to promote broadband deployment and adoption in poor and rural communities by using the Lifeline program to give discounts on Internet service to low-income residents and by distributing billions of dollars to carriers for construction in rural areas. The FCC raised the speed that carriers must provide when they accept funding, but it's still stuck at 10Mbps down and 1Mbps up, short of the new 25Mbps/3Mbps definition of broadband.