Does FCC’s Broadband Speed Benchmark Represent Actual Use and Needs? Nobody Knows.

When the Federal Communications Commission last updated the benchmark speeds for broadband, Barack Obama was president, Bruno Mars was at the top of the charts dancing through Uptown Funk, Fifty Shades of Grey [NSFW] was steaming up movie theaters, and the New England Patriots had just beat the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX. More than eight years later, you might ask: why hasn't the FCC yet moved the dial on broadband speeds? Congress has been wondering and this week it received a partial answer from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO): despite the significance of the benchmark, the FCC’s reporting of the analysis and data it considers when assessing whether to raise the speed benchmark has been inconsistent and therefore falls short of the FCC’s own goal of having a transparent process. Congress, administrators of federal and state broadband programs, service providers, you and me—no one knows how FCC commissioners determine whether and how to revise the benchmark.