FCC Redefinition of Broadband to 100/20 Mbps Not Problem for Cable
The cable industry is alerting operators that the FCC may move the goalposts of what defines broadband to 100 Mbps download, 20 upload, but operators and advocacy groups think that target is well within cable ISPs' capabilities already. Some see a move to 100/20 providing cover when better FCC broadband maps show less broadband availability than maps now show.
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Citing a broadband deployment program in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act defining broadband as 100/20 Mbps, ACA Connects told members this spring "there is a good chance" the FCC will redefine unserved areas from 25/3 Mbps to 100/20 Mbps "in the near future." It said to cut the risk of being overbuilt from federal or state programs, members should offer the higher numbers "wherever possible by June 20, 2022."
"The vast majority of the locations served by our ACA Connects members receive service of 100/20 or more," Patty Jo Boyers, ACA chairwoman and president of Missouri's Boycom Vision, emailed us. "However, there may be some that are not yet receiving these speeds for various good reasons." The FCC, Comcast, Charter Communications and Altice didn't comment.
Moving the broadband benchmark could mean more money spent on infrastructure for areas that don't need it, said NCTA President Michael Powell in a Media Institute talk Tuesday (see 2204260045). "What you're really doing is moving away from targeting the neediest and throwing into the basket of supplicants those who already have satisfied the public policy objective -- they have access at affordable rates," he said. "You're losing the mission of the unserved."
There has been reticence to increase the benchmark "because all of a sudden the [broadband] maps don't look so good," said Consumer Reports Senior Policy Counsel Jonathan Schwantes. A 100/20 Mbps standard is a more accurate reflection of the speeds people need for applications like telehealth, remote learning and entertainment, he said.
Moving the broadband definition from 25/3 Mbps would provide political cover for the FCC as it improves its broadband mapping, said Sascha Meinrath of Penn State University. Moving the benchmark to 100/20, “everyone would say 'of course we're going to have less connectivity, we have moved the goalposts,'" he said. He said 100/20 would map onto what is achievable by existing cable infrastructure, pushing any fiber use requirement down the road.
A move to 100/20 leaves unaddressed how those speeds are measured and enforced, Meinrath said. It's common for ISPs' advertised speeds to fall well short of what users actually experience, and that gap will grow if the FCC doesn't improve its measurement protocols, he said. While fiber tends to perform close to advertised speeds, cable plants are oversubscribed and thus "notoriously bad, only outdone by fixed wireless and satellite," he said.
Many broadband connectivity advocates consider the 25/3 standard well past its expiration date. New America's Open Technology Institute policy analyst Claire Park said a symmetrical speed benchmark would be optimal, but 100/20 "is a good starting point." She said it's possible various federal and state broadband programs will end up setting a patchwork of individual target speeds.
That ISPs navigated the COVID-19 crush and even let up on their data caps without much measurable disruption or degradation seems to point to their ability to handle a 100/20 standard, said Access Now General Counsel Peter Micek. A 100/20 Mbps benchmark would lag "still far behind what Europe and Asia are able to deliver" but is overdue, he said.