Hearing Recap: Deploying Quality Broadband Services to the Last Mile

The House Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet held a hearing entitled "The National Broadband Plan: Deploying Quality Broadband Services to the Last Mile" on Wednesday, April 21, 2010. The hearing examined assessments in the National Broadband Plan of the availability of broadband and how most effectively to deploy broadband to areas that are unserved and underserved, so all Americans can benefit from good quality broadband services.

Rick Boucher (D-VA), the chair of the subcommittee, commended the Federal Communications Commission for the broadband plan. He said the agency had done a "truly outstanding job" sifting through the comments and coming up with a plan. But he's worried it had not accurately reflected broadband deployment. The hearing focused on deployment to unserved and underserved areas, including rural areas like much of his district. He said he wanted to insure access at "meaningful speeds" and "truly affordable prices." The broadband plan found that 95% had access to at least 4 Mbsp download service, leaving only about 7 million without service. Boucher said he had "serious concerns" about the accuracy of that figure, echoing concerns raised by Free Press in prepared testimony for the hearing. Chairman Boucher said the broadband availability map for his own district overreports figures, and said he was sure it had happened elsewhere. "I can't consider those projections to be reliable," he said.

House Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) voiced his support for a proposal to dig tunnels for broadband fiber while constructing new roads and highways. Chairman Waxman called the proposal, known as the "ditch-digging bill", an example of better coordination among government resources The legislation -- Broadband Conduit Deployment Act -- the was introduced almost a year ago by Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) with a companion bill by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN). The bill would direct the Department of Transportation to require the installation of broadband channels -- which could be filled with fiber later -- while the ground is already being torn up for federally funded highway construction and other transportation projects. As a result, Internet companies can simply install the fiber lines when they build out new networks.

Ranking committee member Cliff Stearns (R-FL) invoked the BitTorrent decision as a warning to take a light touch on broadband regulation. He pushed for letting the unfettered free market build out broadband. He said he was not saying government should have no role, but that it should target the remaining 5%, rather than the 95% that have it. "Congress and the FCC must not revert to failed regulatory ideas," he said, like net neutrality or forcing access to facilities.