Federal regulators have concluded that the broadband market is not bringing high-speed Internet connections to all Americans quickly enough.
In a report set to be released as early as Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission says broadband is not being made available to all Americans in “a reasonable and timely fashion.” Although the report is the FCC’s sixth look at the state of broadband since Congress mandated in 1996 that it start tracking high-speed Internet connections, it marks the first time that the agency has concluded the market is not working in all corners of the country.
The FCC’s national broadband plan, released in March, found that between 14 million and 24 million Americans do not have access to broadband. The plan, mandated by last year’s stimulus bill, lays out a roadmap for bringing high-speed connections to all Americans.
Two of its top recommendations include tapping the federal fund that subsidizes telephone service in poor and rural communities to pay for high-speed Internet connections and unleashing more spectrum for wireless Internet services, particularly in rural areas where it does not make economic sense for phone and cable companies to build landline networks.
Rick Kaplan, chief counsel to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, said the findings of the FCC’s latest broadband report underscore the need to push ahead with those two proposals. He added that the agency is not seeking to impose heavy-handed new rules — such as line-sharing requirements — on the phone and cable companies that provide most Internet connections in the U.S.
Still, word of the upcoming FCC report raised concerns among telecommunications companies, which fear it could lead to more regulation. The industry has mounted an intense lobbying campaign to derail a proposal by Genachowski to define broadband access as a telecommunications service subject to “common carrier” obligations to treat all traffic equally. The…