FCC Commissioner Clyburn at NTCA - The Rural Broadband Association Annual Legislative Conference

Today, broadband is no longer a luxury but a necessity to find a job, monitor your healthcare, get an education, communicate with loved ones and participate in this society. The challenge, or should I say the goal, we face as a nation is how to ensure universal access to broadband comparable to the way we achieved universal access to telephone service. Five years ago, the Federal Communications Commission's National Broadband Plan laid out a vision to do just that -- but it is a vision that for some parts of our universal service program has yet to be fulfilled.

So, I would like to have an open and frank discussion with you on how we can close these remaining divides by further reforming the FCC's high cost universal service fund and modernizing the Lifeline program. To truly reach our goal of universal service, we need both 1) access to the facilities and 2) access that is affordable. Without both legs in place, the effort will not stand. what is too rarely stated is the fact that the principle of ensuring universal access to low-income consumers share equal weight in the statute with the principle that high cost, rural and insular areas should have access to reasonably comparable service at reasonably comparable rates to urban areas.


FCC Commissioner Clyburn at NTCA - The Rural Broadband Association Annual Legislative Conference