I work with communities all of the time that want to know if they are unserved or underserved by broadband. I've started to tell them to toss away those two terms, which is not a good way to think about broadband today. The main reason to scrap these terms is that they convey the idea that 25/3 Mbps broadband ought to be an acceptable target speed for building new broadband. Urban America has moved far beyond the kinds of broadband speeds that are being discussed as acceptable for rural broadband. Cable companies now have minimum speeds that vary between 100 Mbps and 200 Mbps. Almost 18% of homes in the US now buy broadband provided over fiber. Cisco says the average achieved broadband speed in 2020 is in the range of 93 Mbps. 

The time has come when we all need to refuse to talk about subsidizing broadband infrastructure that is obsolete before it's constructed. During the recent pandemic, we saw that homes need faster upload speeds to work or do schoolwork from home. We must refuse to accept new broadband construction that provides a 3 Mbps upload connection when something ten times faster than that would barely be acceptable.

[Doug Dawson is President at CCG Consutling]

This decision is a massive victory for US leadership in 5G, our nation’s economy, and American consumers. The court rightly affirmed the Federal Communications Commission’s efforts to ensure that infrastructure deployment critical to 5G—a key part of our 5G FAST Plan—is not impeded by exorbitant fees imposed by state and local governments, undue delays in local permitting, and unreasonable barriers to pole access. The wind is at our backs: With the FCC’s infrastructure policies now ratified by the court, along with pathbreaking spectrum auctions concluded, ongoing, and to come, America is well-positioned to extend its global lead in 5G and American consumers will benefit from the next generation of wireless technologies and services.

I want to thank FCC staff for their outstanding work in crafting this order and defending this action against short-sighted efforts by those seeking to obstruct 5G deployment. I also thank Commissioner Carr for his leadership on wireless infrastructure issues.

Los Angeles, Boston, and other cities and counties have asked a federal court to block the Federal Communications Commission from overruling their authority to stop cell tower upgrades. The local governments, in a petition for review filed before the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, argue that the FCC exceeded its statutory authority and acted arbitrarily and capriciously in violation of federal law.

The 2020 edition of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance's Profiles of Monopoly: Big Cable and Telecom report analyzes the latest data available from the Federal Communications Commission to investigate broadband competition in communities across the country. Thanks largely to the power of monopoly corporations like Comcast, Charter, and AT&T, millions of Americans still do not have a real choice when it comes to their Internet service. As millions of families attempt to navigate school during a pandemic, and more people than ever before are seeking telehealth solutions, our broken broadband market is a major problem.  

The report breaks down statistics for the service territories of the US’ largest Internet Service Providers: Comcast, Charter, AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink, Frontier, and Windstream. Each section features maps and charts that illuminate the dire lack of real competition in the broadband market.

Important Findings

• Comcast and Charter maintain an absolute monopoly over at least 47 million people and another 33 million people only have slower and less reliable DSL as a “competitive” choice.
• Over the past two years, federal stats suggest that Charter and Comcast have an absolute monopoly over fewer households, but we think this is mostly a mirage resulting from how the FCC reports data. A significant number of the census blocks showing new competition are likely only partially served.
• The big telecom companies have largely abandoned rural America — their DSL networks overwhelmingly do not support broadband speeds — despite many billions spent over years of federal subsidies and many state grant programs. The Connect America Fund ends this year as a failure, leaving millions of Americans behind after giving billions to the biggest firms without requiring significant new investment. 
• At least 49.7 million Americans live in an area with only one choice of broadband Internet service.