Boucher Says Broadband Plan Overstates Availability

It’s “somewhat optimistic” to say 95 percent of the U.S. is served by broadband, said House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va. Boucher said at a hearing Wednesday he had “serious concerns about the accuracy of that number” in the National Broadband Plan “and the methodology that was employed in order to derive it.” Ranking Member Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., said the figure may show the U.S. can get ubiquitous broadband without government intervention. FCC Wireline Bureau Chief Sharon Gillett cautioned that availability estimates in the plan may paint a rosier-than-reality portrait of broadband access.

Stearns said a free-market approach seems to have worked, since the plan found that broadband access expanded to 290 million Americans from 8 million ten years ago. “Even if the government took no action,” the plan found that private sector investment would provide 90 percent with 50 Mbps speeds by 2013, he said. “If the past decade of broadband investment is any guide, the private sector will likely take us the rest of the way to the broadband plan’s goal of reaching 100 million households with 100 Mbps service by 2020 if we simply keep out of the way.” That’s not to say government has no role, said Stearns, who backs revamping the Universal Service Fund to subsidize the 5 percent of people who aren’t served.

Boucher said it’s “far too soon to declare ‘Mission Accomplished’ with respect to the goal of broadband available to all Americans.” In reaching the plan’s estimates, the broadband team assumed that cable providers built out fast Web service to all consumers within each service area, and that each company was using at least DOCSIS 2.0, he said. Neither is true in all cases, he said. Boucher also doubted the reliability of using industry-provided maps to measure national DSL availability. In his district, the broadband map provided by industry overstated access, Boucher said.

"While the market has done a great job of getting broadband to much of America, market incentives alone will not be enough to reach these remaining unserved homes,” Gillett said. She emphasized that data was limited when “sizing the gap” of broadband availability, and that adoption barriers are keeping broadband from many Americans that technically have access. The actual number of people who can’t buy broadband may be more than 14 million, she said. She agreed with Boucher that cable data the FCC got from Warren Communications News (publisher of Communications Daily) via MediaPrints and industry-provided DSL data may have overstated broadband availability. “But the fact that no model is a perfect representation of reality does not diminish the value of models as a useful analytical tool."

New and improved data is on the way, thanks to the Broadband Data Improvement Act, which required states to gather data from industry that will be used in a national broadband map by next February, Gillett said. Also, the FCC plans later this year to propose revisions to its broadband data gathering to collect a wider range of data points, she said.

The FCC should revamp its data collection methods right away, said Free Press Research Director Derek Turner. Current data is inadequate, but could easily be improved, he said. Turner complained that the FCC is taking too long to update FCC Form 477. “The commission has for nearly two years failed to act on its own proposal to collect broadband availability data,” he said. “And now … the commission has signaled its intent to delay the matter even further by starting another proceeding all the way at the end of this year."

Some subcommittee Republicans complained that the map should have been ready before broadband spending and the plan. Turner agreed it “was rather unfortunate that the cart was put before the horse.”

ViaSat CEO Mark Dankberg thinks universal broadband can be achieved without additional government spending, he said. Satellite technology can cheaply bring broadband to hard-to-serve areas, he said. ViaSat plans to roll out four-times-faster service soon, offering speeds of 2 to 8 Mbps at prices from $50 to $80 a month, he said. Boucher replied that the price may be too high for many consumers. Dankberg said he would back government subsidies to defray the cost.

Boucher hinted he might support appropriating more money for the Rural Utilities Service’s Community Connect program, as recommended in the broadband plan. Boucher asked whether any existing law would preclude the RUS from spending any additional funds for the program, and if RUS was capable of managing a larger fund. RUS Assistant Administrator David Villano said he knew of no statutory barrier, and affirmed that the agency’s staff would be up to the task once it finished its broadband grant duties under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.