The Federal Communications Commission released data showing that the digital divide is closing. At the end of 2019, the number of Americans living in areas without access to terrestrial fixed broadband with speeds of at least 25/3 Mbps—the Commission’s benchmark for high-speed broadband—fell to 14.5 million, a 46% decrease from the end of 2016. Services at higher speeds saw even more significant deployment, with the number of Americans living in areas without broadband speeds of at least 250/25 Mbps falling by 77% since the end of 2016. During that three-year period, the number of rural Americans living in areas with 250/25 Mbps broadband service increased by 268%.

“My top priority since becoming FCC Chairman has been closing the digital divide, and I’m proud that this new deployment data show that we are delivering on that promise for the American people,” said FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. “In just three years, the number of American consumers living in areas without access to fixed broadband has been almost cut in half. We’ve taken aggressive steps to achieve this progress, modernizing regulations, freeing up new licensed and unlicensed spectrum, and making it easier and cheaper for competitive providers to deploy fiber through our ‘one-touch make ready’ policy. And we have kicked off the first phase of the $20.4 billion Rural Digital Opportunity Fund auction, which could bring broadband to as many as 10.25 million unserved Americans across rural America. Bottom line: We will continue our work until all Americans have access to digital opportunity.”

Federal Communications Commission policies geared towards improving rural broadband deployment have failed in meaning, money, and mapping. Together they constitute “the politics of good enough” that has never delivered the broadband rural America needs to survive and thrive. By “meaning,” I refer both to the FCC’s definition of broadband (“25/3”) and its adherence to a policy of technological neutrality. The mapping failure is one that we are all familiar with, with the FCC’s Form 477 capturing self-reported industry data, census block data instead of more granular data, accepting advertised rather than actual speeds, hypothetical rather than actual service, and the lack of pricing data. he money failure refers to the FCC’s historic favoritism of the largest telecommunication companies over the smaller and much more dynamic providers such as co-operatives. The FCC has been so fixated on rapid deployment that it has ignored issues of speed, latency, price, and deployment. It is stuck in a mindset that anything is better than nothing when it comes to broadband in rural America. “Good enough” has become the enemy of great high-performance broadband.

See The Politics of Good Enough: Rural Broadband and Policy Failure in the United States in the International Journal of Communication (Volume 14).

[Christopher Ali is an Associate Professor at the University of Virginia and Faculty Research Fellow at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society. He is the author of the forthcoming book: Farm Fresh Broadband: the Politics of Rural Connectivity (MIT Press).]

AT&T is offering discounted unlimited wireless data plans and content filtering services to more than 135,000 public and private K-12 schools, colleges and universities across the country for a limited time. Offer details include:

• Schools can migrate existing AT&T lines or activate new lines for students on a qualified unlimited wireless data plan and content filtering service for $15 a month, with the additional option of an AT&T Moxee hot spot at no cost after bill credits.
• For every 24 qualified student activations above, schools can activate 1 line with the same services for a teacher at no cost after bill credits to help them do what they do every day as classroom superheroes.
• The offer is good through December 29, 2020 – schools that add at least one eligible line as part of this offer can also activate additional lines at the same price through December 29, 2022, at which point the promotional pricing ends. 

In addition to the discounted plans for schools to connect their students, AT&T is making a $10 million commitment to support at-risk students disconnected from learning with internet connectivity and Wi-Fi hotspots. We will also expand availability of tech-enabled tools and learning resources for students, teachers, schools, and parents working across company resources, including WarnerMedia, for ongoing support for this initiative.