FCC Releases Troubling Picture of America's Broadband "Free" Market2010-07-23 11:24 by DanielaTags: FCC, broadband
The FCC's 2006 study looking at the state of broadband in the U.S. was heavily criticized, including receiving flak from the Government Accountability Office (GAO). After all, if it found just one connected broadband connection in a zip code, it counted that entire zip code as covered. And if it found two nodes connected by different companies that was a "competitive" market. Now the FCC has released [PDF] a more comprehensive report in lieu of its national broadband plan, and the results aren't so pretty. Approximately 14 to 24 million Americans nation wide lack access to broadband. The prospects of those individuals getting broadband aren't good. FCC chairman Julius Genachowski writes that most of the unserved live in "expensive-to-serve areas with low population density," and that "without substantial reforms to the agency's universal service programs, these areas will continue to be unserved." The study ditches the former definition of broadband (200 kbps upstream or downstream) and offers a more stringent definition - any connection that peaks at 4 Mbps downstream, 1 Mbps upstream. Read more -here-
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