FILERS POINT TO BROADBAND SHORTFALLS IN FILINGS WITH FCC

摘要

Broadband is "clearly not" available to all Americans, state members of the Federal-State Joint Conference on Advanced Services said in comments for the FCC's latest inquiry into whether advanced telecom capabilities like broadband are offered to all Americans in "a reasonable and timely fashion." Others gave mixed reviews of U.S. broadband deployment. The FCC must report to Congress in February. The report will be the FCC's first since the commission last year required broadband providers to submit census-tract data, using new speed tiers. The changes "more accurately define the technological landscape and reflect change over time," the state members of the conference said. Free Press said it disagreed with the first five reviews, which concluded that broadband was advancing well. The FCC "ignored the statutory language of the Act (and ultimately the intent of Congress) by focusing on the deployment of non-dial-up Internet services" rather than advanced telecom services, it said. "The two are not the same." nnUSTelecom said broadband deployment is on track for "the vast majority of Americans." But it conceded that "there is much to be done to reach the ambitious goal of providing broadband capability to all Americans." The Organization for the Promotion & Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies said rural incumbent local exchange carriers "offer as much broadband capacity as possible to roughly 90 percent of the consumers in their service areas, on average." But higher speeds and added bandwidth will be needed because of "a steadily growing number of transformative and bandwidth-intensive applications and services that advance other public policy goals."