In its annual broadband status report, the Federal Communications Commission determined U.S. broadband deployments are not happening in a “reasonable and timely fashion.” The commission says the 34 million residents still without quality broadband is not acceptable.
The study found 10% of the U.S. population “still lack access to fixed broadband at the FCC’s benchmark speed of 25 [megabits per second] for downloads, 3 Mbps for uploads” and two-thirds of the country still only have one broadband provider capable of providing 25 Mbps speeds or better. U.S. schools are also not hitting broadband targets. According to the report, 41% of schools have not hit the FCC’s watermark of providing 100 Mbps speeds to students.
“While the nation continues to make progress in broadband deployment, advanced telecommunications capability is not being deployed in a reasonable and timely fashion to all Americans,” the FCC said in the report.
The FCC says the U.S. ranks No. 16 out of 34 developed countries in broadband penetration. The FCC admits the sheer size of the U.S. makes it difficult to compete with smaller countries, but it still believes the ranking is subpar.
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Unsurprisingly, the areas with the worst coverage were rural and tribal areas. According to the FCC’s numbers, 39% of rural residents and 41% of those living on tribal lands did not have access to sufficient fixed broadband in 2014.
In August 2015, the FCC began providing $1.5 billion in annual funding from the Connect America Fund to 10 U.S. carriers in order to expand rural broadband deployments. The FCC also authorized $34 million to go toward rural broadband experiments in 12 states across the country, according to the Chairman’s 2016 Broadband Progress Report.
The latest report also addressed the need for mobile broadband to go along with the fixed broadband to meet future needs, noting mobile capabilities “are especially useful for real-time two-way interactions, mapping applications and social media.” However, the FCC has yet to set mobile speed benchmarks.