Building Blocks for a National Broadband Agenda

In the next decade, everyone in America should be able to use High-Performance Broadband.

• To do that we need to recognize that there is more than one digital divide. There’s geography. In urban and rural areas and on tribal lands, millions of people in the U.S. have no access to robust broadband networks. We cannot let where we live determine our ability to connect.
• There’s competition. By the FCC’s calculations, more than 35 percent of Americans live in areas where there is only one broadband provider offering download speeds of 100 Mbps. And millions more have only two providers from which to choose. We cannot let lack of choice harm consumers.
• There are problems of affordability and adoption. For too many people, the cost of broadband is too high, and the digital skills needed to use broadband effectively are lacking. We cannot let lack of affordability or training deprive people of opportunity.

But I want to emphasize that these are different facets of the same problem. Whether it’s geography, competition, or affordability or training, the impact is the same: Fewer people using broadband. Our goal is for people in America to be able to use robust, competitive fixed broadband, what we call High-Performance Broadband.

[Jonathan Sallet is a Benton Senior Fellow. He works to promote broadband access and deployment, to advance competition, including through antitrust, and to preserve and protect internet openness. He is the former-Federal Communications Commission General Counsel (2013-2016), and Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Litigation, Antitrust Division, US Department of Justice (2016-2017).]