Commissioner O'Rielly Statement on Broadband Deployment Report

While I am pleased that we continue to rely on a realistic and text-based reading of section 706, I wish we would have extended that pragmatism to our evaluation framework. It’s obvious that mobile and fixed broadband are increasingly converging into a single market, and I am dismayed that for yet another year, we have opted to rehash our tired, siloed approach rather than pursue a technology-neutral analysis. Especially given recent calls for the FCC to support wireless hotspots to improve access for distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, including to provide two-way video-based applications, it does seem that there’s broad recognition of the services’ substitutability, even among the most die-hard proponents of universal fiber-to-the-home. And, that’s not to mention the characteristics of 5G service, which obliterate any basis for maintaining our outdated approach.... I would have preferred to include data from the satellite industry in our main report, rather than relegate it to the appendices. While I appreciate that satellite providers face capacity constraints, limited capacity is by no means unique to satellite technology. Here, again, I would have preferred to take a technology-neutral approach rather than engage in a somewhat arbitrary line-drawing process.