Public Knowledge Commends the FCC for Recognizing Users’ Changing Needs for Broadband

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The FCC's reevaluation of the broadband marketplace is long overdue. The law directs the FCC to periodically revisit and update its standards for broadband to take into account advances in technology, consumer behavior, and the marketplace. For too long, the FCC has gotten by with an outdated standard for broadband, and as a result its analysis of the marketplace grew increasingly antiquated. As a result, discussions around broadband policy have been muddied. Because broadband is so essential to free expression, health, jobs, education, and many other things, it is important to take a clear-eyed view of the state of broadband deployment and competition.

The National Broadband Plan set a goal stating that, by 2020, ‘at least 100 million U.S. homes should have affordable access to actual download speeds of at least 100 megabits per second.’ Today’s report is an important finding of fact that can help the FCC more accurately assess our progress toward that goal, and one that is relevant to a number of other FCC proceedings. Updating its standards after such a long time means that there is a substantial jump -- from 4 Mbps downstream to 25 Mbps. We encourage the FCC to gradually improve its standards in the future to keep pace with the state of the art in broadband, including taking into account billing and network management practices, such as data caps.


Public Knowledge Commends the FCC for Recognizing Users’ Changing Needs for Broadband