A new report from the Federal Communications Commission about broadband access is sure to ruffle feathers. In fact, it already has. Between 14 million and 24 million Americans still lack access to high speed Internet, "and the immediate prospects for deployment to them are bleak," declares the agency's press release. These consumers live in "expensive-to-serve areas with low population density," noted FCC Chair Julius Genachowski following the study's release.

The survey highlights "the great broadband successes in the United States, including as many as 290 million Americans who have gained access to broadband over the past decade," Genachowski acknowledged. But the law calling for the annual assessment "requires more. It requires the agency to reach a conclusion about whether all—not some, not most—Americans are being served in a reasonable and timely fashion."

This sixth version of the agency's Broadband Deployment Report also breaks new ground by raising the definition of broadband from 200Kbps (downloads and uploads), the benchmark for the first report released in 1999, to 4Mbps uploads and 1Mbps downloads. 4Mbps is the "minimum speed required to stream a high-quality—even if not high-definition—video while leaving sufficient bandwidth for basic web browsing and e-mail, a common mode of broadband usage today," the document notes.

"It is by this benchmark that we find that broadband remains unavailable to approximately 14 to 24 million Americans."

Unsettling reversal

All of this was strongly denounced by the Commission's Republican minority, who questioned the benchmark hike and the report's stronger emphasis on subscribership. Prior surveys had followed Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act's instructions to study "whether advanced telecommunications capability is being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion," noted Commissioner Robert M. McDowell (he added the italics). That is, whether networks were being rolled out at what the government regarded as a sufficient rate of speed.

"In all previous reports dating back to 1999, the FCC has answered 'yes' to that question," McDowell observed. "In this Report, however, the answer is 'no' for the first time. This 180 degree reversal is unsettling considering that since the issuance of the Commission's first Section 706 Report, America has made impressive improvements in developing and deploying broadband infrastructure and services."

"Previous reports," however, were as controversial to Democrat Michael Copps as this one is to McDowell. As Copps noted in his response, earlier assessments assumed that if a single broadband subscriber could be found in a given zip code, broadband access was available to everyone in the area.

"I still fail to see how anyone ever viewed this approach as indicative of anything useful," Copps observed. "The false impression left by that approach was that everyone in a zip code was fully connected to high-speed broadband when all we really knew was that one person or business somewhere—perhaps on the very fringe of a zip code—subscribed to a minimum-speed service."

If we stay the course

The latest assessment is still pretty lenient. It determines broadband as available in a county if at least one percent of the households in that area subscribe to high-speed Internet. But apparently even this mild upping of the statistical ante, combined with the Commission's new broadband benchmarks, identified 1,024 out of 3,230 US counties as unserved.

Most of those counties are populated by consumers poorer than the national average by about $6,000 a year, the FCC found. Not surprisingly, they're also far more rural.

Thus, for the first time, this report concludes that "that broadband is not being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion." And:

nor does it appear that we will achieve success without changes to present policies. The evidence further indicates that market forces alone are unlikely to ensure that the unserved minority of Americans will be able to obtain the benefits of broadband anytime in the near future. Therefore, if we remain on our current course, a large number of Americans likely will remain excluded from the significant benefits of broadband that most other Americans can access today.

The survey urges the government to transition the FCC's Universal Service Fund towards broadband deployment, get more spectrum to the wireless sector, and to encourage more infrastructure investment.

Failing grades

None of this sat well with Commissioner Meredith A. Baker. "I cannot support this decision," she declared. "Broadband infrastructure deployment and investment are a remarkable and continuing success story, and I am troubled by giving such significant efforts a failing grade."

Ditto, said Verizon in a statement sent to us. "It makes no sense that, after the National Broadband Plan concluded that 95 percent of Americans have access to wireline broadband, the FCC majority now suggests broadband deployment is not reasonable and timely," the wireless giant declared. "The report's conclusion is hard to understand, given America's extraordinary progress in deploying broadband, fueled by hundreds of billions of dollars in private investment."

But it's worth noting the National Broadband Plan's exact language here:

"Today, 290 million Americans—95 percent of the US population—live in housing units with access to terrestrial, fixed broadband infrastructure capable of supporting actual download speeds of at least 4Mbps. Of those, more than 80 percent live in markets with more than one provider capable of offering actual download speeds of at least 4Mbps." (Emphasis ours).

Saying that most consumers "have access" to broadband and saying they have access to infrastructure "capable" of supporting a certain download speed aren't quite the same thing. Language parsing aside, it's clear the Commission is divided on how to evaluate broadband progress. Should it be measured by physical network or subscriber growth? And what constitutes an adequate download speed?

"Collecting granular data, including subscribership numbers, is important," McDowell insisted. "But, subscribership data does not equate to the 'availability' of broadband, which is what Congress requires the Commission to assess under Section 706."

Commissioner Mignon L. Clyburn saw the matter differently.

"For those Americans who lack access, it does not matter to them that 95 percent of Americans have access," she observed. "What matters to them is that they do not have access in their homes."