NDIA to FCC: Broadband affordability should be addressed in annual assessment
The National Digital Inclusion Alliance has once again urged the Federal Communications Commission to consider broadband adoption rates and affordability in the agency’s annual assessment of “whether advanced telecommunications capability is being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion”. NDIA Executive Director Angela Siefer and Research and Policy Director Bill Callahan responded to the the FCC’s “Fifteenth Broadband Deployment Report Notice of Inquiry“, which asks for public comment on the latest version of the agency’s annual Broadband Deployment Report — released in May — and on its approach to determining whether US broadband deployment is happening in “a reasonable and timely fashion”, as required by Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. They wrote:
There are many reasons for digital inclusion practitioners and advocates to be disappointed in the 2019 Broadband Deployment Report, but they all come down to this: The Commission reiterates its determination to reduce 'the digital divide' but continues to distort the common meaning of that phrase to refer only to gaps in physical high-speed network availability. The Commission is ignoring the degree to which Americans are 'digitally divided' by their ability or inability to pay the prices being demanded for access to the networks that are physically available. The Commission is not reviewing or considering the critical issues of broadband cost and affordability in its analysis…In line with that distortion, the Commission continues to define the unmet need for 'reasonable' broadband deployment as an exclusively rural problem, choosing not to consider the millions of unconnected and less-connected households in America’s urban centers, suburbs, and smaller cities and towns. The cost of home broadband service is a barrier for all residents of the US, regardless of geography.
NDIA to FCC: Broadband affordability should be addressed in annual assessment