FCC Commissioner Simington sounds off on the future of broadband and Universal Service Fund

Federal Communications Commissioner Nathan Simington argued wireline technology might not be the best broadband solution for every use case. Commissioner Simington discussed the question of whether fiber should be rolled out to every American, explaining some have argued that the US should pursue universal fiber deployments in the same way the country went about electrification. The commissioner stated “obviously fiber is a very robust technology” but it’s not necessarily one that everyone wants or needs. He pointed out approximately 20 percent of all broadband users in the country are “device-only” consumers, meaning the only use they’d have for fiber would be to connect a hotspot device, and decentralized business operations that instead might prioritize options that can provide connectivity across a wide area. “I think we can pushback on fiber to the home universally at least in noting that there are edge cases and adoption issues there, and that some degree of wireless is going to have to be part of the broadband future,” he said. Commissioner Simington also addressed potential options to reform the FCC’s Universal Service Fund (USF), noting one approach would be to “say that broadband is essentially the equivalent of telephone service back in the day and therefore we’re going to put it everyone’s broadband bill.” While he acknowledged this path would raise questions around differential payments for different kinds of users, “it would smooth things out somewhat” and broaden the base of USF contributors substantially.