In the Section 706 Report approved today by a 3-2 vote, the FCC has increased the benchmark for “advanced telecommunications capability” – which by definition includes broadband – to 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) download speed and 20 Mbps upload speed. Then it concluded that “advanced telecommunications capability is not being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion.” The FCC noted that “more work remains.” It sure does.
As the FCC deliberated over today’s Report, efforts to find new money for broadband deployment already were underway. The USF Working Group founded by Senator Ben Ray Lujàn has been examining paths toward Universal Service Fund (USF) sustainability since May 2023, and has conducted meetings with several stakeholders, including CCIA, to discuss potential sources of new funding. Last week, Senator Ted Cruz released a USF “blueprint” of his own, which begins essentially by asking why Congress should give “carte blanche” for what he calls “a cruel, hidden, and regressive tax on the working class.”
And now the nation’s expert agency on telecom has raised the bar on what level of transmission speed will satisfy Congress’s mandate to bring broadband to all Americans. Aspirational rubber, meet budget-constrained road. The tension between wanting nice broadband things and being able to pay for them has now reached record levels.
Robust, resilient, and reliable broadband is inarguably necessary to America’s commercial, educational, and political ecosystems. Federal efforts to support ubiquitous high-speed networks, including the FCC’s 2011 decision to use USF for broadband and Congress’s significant appropriations funding for broadband-focused programs, are laudable and well intentioned. One hopes that the Affordable Connectivity Program, slated to run out of money in early May 2024, will find enough champions on the Hill and some vehicle that will ensure its re-authorization. Lawmakers have displayed their commitment to nationwide broadband again and again.
Add to these support mechanisms the hundreds of billions that digital services companies – information service providers, in Communications Act verbiage – have invested in internet infrastructure. By installing facilities for hosting, transport, and delivery of internet content, these companies have brought down broadband providers’ costs of service and enhanced user experience tremendously. Digital services continue to make these investments, despite receiving no support, certainly not from USF, for this deployment.
How can the U.S. reconcile its desires with its pocketbook? The new 100/20 benchmark is quintuple its 2015 predecessor of 25/3; the FCC’s “long-term” goal is a benchmark of 1 Gigabits per second down and 500 Mbps up. That kind of throughput certainly can power the U.S. far into this millennium. It will take further investment.
Perhaps the answer has been in front of us all along: providers of retail broadband service, those who have been receiving upward of $110 Billion in USF and direct appropriations to upgrade their networks to support internet transmissions, should join the list of telecommunications carriers that contribute to USF. Most agree that the present list of contributors – interstate telephony, wireless telephony, toll-free service, paging and operator service, payphone service, prepaid calling cards, and other voice-centric services – is outdated and out of touch with today’s communications market. All agree that USF is not able to fund the broadband goals that America set ten years ago, let alone the new benchmarks that the Section 706 Report has laid out. As a matter of “equitable and nondiscriminatory” contributions, which the Communications Act requires, as well as regulatory symmetry, it only makes sense that the broadband providers getting disbursements from USF should join the providers who pay into USF.
At a minimum, any calls to expand the USF contribution base to non-telecommunications services must be supported by credible findings that disbursements from USF are not inflated and that telecommunications services, including broadband, are unable to support them. If the settled construct of U.S. communications law, whereby telecom service pays for the telecom network, is going to be upended as some advocates request, truly emergent circumstances must be identified.