Broadband Adoption: Traveling the Consumer's Last Mile

At a Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies event in Washington, Federal Communications Commission member Mignon Clyburn said "merely making broadband available to all sectors of this nation is simply not enough. While it can be said that most of the country is currently wired for some kind of broadband, a large percentage of Americans - and a disproportionate number of African Americans - have not adopted broadband in their homes." She identified price as one barrier to adoption, but pointed to research identifying additional obstacles. She said it is the FCC's challenge to figure out exactly why those Americans who could otherwise afford broadband decide not to use it. "In the telecom world, we are always talking about the "last mile": the physical piece of wire, or fiber, or cable that takes the network out to the customer premises. But when it comes to broadband, I tend to think of the last mile not as a mile, per se, but rather as two half miles. Yes, we have to make sure that broadband infrastructure reaches everybody. But as we know, deployment is only half of the battle. The other half - the other half-mile, if you will - is all about whether or not the consumer chooses to engage with the technology. We can extend broadband infrastructure to every single person in America, but if the consumer says "no, thanks," have we really made progress? Is that consumer better off? Is the country better off?"