Pandemic Colors View of Broadband Deployment

The Federal Communications Commission is signaling that broadband deployment is still a work in progress, but it’s progressing at a pace that does not require regulatory intervention to speed it up. It is a conclusion being challenged by critics of the pace of broadband deployment, who argue that old definitions of reasonable deployment should not hold in the new normal of a pandemic. As with everything else in the country and the world, deployment is now seen through the lens of a pandemic, which magnifies the longstanding issues with the quality, or lack thereof, of FCC data collection on broadband availability, a lens with a view that depends on who is looking through it. Activist groups find virtually anything short of universal service a failure, while the FCC’s Republican majority and industry see the glass as mostly full, thanks to billions of dollars in investment from both the private sector and government money. Even on the Republican side, though, the pandemic appears to have added a note of urgency to getting the rest of the glass filled.