Sen Schumer calling on the FCC to demand accurate service data from internet providers

On June 2, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) criticized the Federal Communications Commission after the release of its 2019 Broadband Deployment Report, and called for more scrutiny of data. He and other critics think the rosy picture the report paints doesn’t accurately reflect the situation on the ground. “While we live in an era of faster and faster, the reality of internet speed across New York is that it may move more like molasses than lightning,” Sen Schumer said. “The FCC has said internet speeds are up to standards in its report. But Microsoft did its own report and it shows that over four and a half million New Yorkers and Long Islanders are not getting the speed on the internet that the carriers say they’re getting,” he said.

There’s still little clarity about what the actual state of broadband access is on the ground. “Because the FCC doesn’t particularly seem to be too interested in the public interest, it's all these stop-gap measures – private companies like Microsoft, state AGs, Congress getting involved,” said Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia Law School. “It's hard to get a real picture of what's going on, so the opportunity for fraud is there, and people take it."