Grants Should Look Forward

For many years, Cisco issued reports that regularly reported that the demand for speed was growing at roughly 21% per year for residential broadband, and a little faster for business broadband. Cisco and others noted that the demand for broadband speeds was on a relatively straight line back to the early 1980s. I can’t think of any fundamental industry changes that would change the historical growth rate in the near future. What does that suggest for Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment and other grants? Consider the evaluation of Starlink, which is the technology that is closest to meeting or not meeting the needed speed of 100/20 Mbps. Ookla released a report in the first quarter of 2025 showing that the median speed on Starlink was 104.71 Mbps download and 14.84 Mbps upload, and that only 17% of Starlink customers in the first quarter fully met the 100/20 Mbps speed threshold. Cisco's growth rate would predict the definition of broadband in 2025 should be something like 177/35 Mbps. It’s debatable if Starlink meets the 100/20 Mbps test today, but it clearly doesn’t meet a test based on the speed demand in 2025.