Vote on FCC Annual Broadband Report May Split 3-2
Democratic commissioners will likely dissent when the FCC declares broadband is deployed in a reasonable and timely manner, current and former officials predicted in interviews this week. The Communications Act Section 706 report's statutory deadline is Monday (see 2004030074) and a vote isn't expected much sooner. An official said this report follows methodology used in last year's, with updated deployment figures and a few other changes. Commissioners' aides are determining whether there's opportunity to revise the language.
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Officials said it's too early to say how commissioner statements will address the current public health and economic crises. Senior Fellow Gigi Sohn of the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society said the pandemic "will certainly play into the dissents." The agency didn't comment Wednesday.
The annual report is one of the most-cited FCC documents each year, an official said. Both political sides acknowledge inaccuracies in the mapping data. Congress and the FCC have acted to improve it. Sohn and others said asymmetric, 25/3 Mbps should no longer define advanced telecoms. Gigabit speed is a good target, and 100 Mbps should be baseline, Sohn said.
"The National Broadband Plan called for gigabit broadband to every community anchor institution in the country by this year, and yet the FCC doesn't even collect mapping data about anchor connectivity," emailed Schools, Health and Libraries Broadband Coalition Executive Director John Windhausen. "Given this discrepancy, and the fact that millions of Americans are suffering on a daily basis because they don't have home internet access during this physically-disconnected time, I don't see how the Commission could conclude that broadband is being deployed in a reasonable and timely fashion."
Providing network stability and reliability during the pandemic "is the broadband industry's finest hour," said Phoenix Center President Larry Spiwak. "The network has been resilient." He credited the FCC for working to get more spectrum out to support broadband during COVID-19. During this administration, FCC deregulatory steps have encouraged more investment in broadband, Spiwak said. He expects the commission to declare broadband is being deployed in a reasonable and timely manner and to use statistics to back that up. He predicted "the Democrats will complain and say this isn't wonderful, but then again, it is an election year."
Residential network usage patterns changed through stay-at-home orders (see 2004150073), said Benton Senior Fellow Jon Sallet, noting the increased use in residential videoconferencing that requires symmetric upload and download speeds. "I don't know how a judgment can be made without taking into account what's happening in America now."
"Democrats will use the opportunity to say the benchmarks should be much, much higher," predicted Free State Foundation President Randolph May. "There's a difference between an aspiration for advances that we all hope and expect we'll have in the future and the current reality." He said everyone wants ubiquitous deployment and faster speeds. Networks are "robust and performing well," he said. The expected report declaring broadband deployment reasonable and timely is appropriate, he said. May hopes the FCC soon decides wireless broadband can be a reasonable substitute for fixed.
Hughes doesn't want satellite broadband "relegated to an appendix in the Section 706 report," said an ex parte filing posted Wednesday in docket 19-285. The company's two filings are the only recent ones in the docket. It lobbied aides to Commissioners Mike O'Rielly and Geoffrey Starks.