FCC proposal aims to nix long-term gigabit internet speed goals, pricing analysis

FCC Internet Speeds
(Image credit: Shutterstock)

FCC chairman Brendan Carr is concerned that efforts to ensure Americans have gigabit internet, which the Biden administration identified as a long-term goal in 2024, "risks skewing the market by unnecessarily potentially picking technological winners and losers."

That concern was shared in a fact sheet (PDF) related to the "Inquiry Concerning Deployment of Advanced Telecommunications Capability to All Americans in a Reasonable and Timely Fashion" that was published by the FCC on July 17. The commission is required to conduct this inquiry annually, as mandated by Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

The long-term goal of encouraging gigabit internet deployment would "appear to violate our obligation to conduct our analysis in a technologically neutral manner," the FCC said in the fact sheet. "At present, it is impossible to predict long-term technological developments and the evolution of consumer preferences. Further, assuming a long-term goal of 1,000/500 Mbps may be unreasonably prejudicial to technologies such as satellite and fixed wireless that presently do not support such speeds. We believe it prudent to continue to monitor technological developments and consumer preferences and adapt our current benchmark, as well as relevant high-cost support programs, accordingly."

Abandoning this goal would primarily benefit ISPs that can't offer gigabit speeds but still want to benefit from FCC programs. Ars Technica noted in its report that "the Trump administration changed grant-giving procedures to distribute more funds to non-fiber providers such as Elon Musk's Starlink satellite network."

The FCC said that Carr's proposal would also "refocus the Commission’s inquiry on whether advanced telecommunications capability 'is being deployed,' (that is, incremental progress made in deployment) rather than whether it already has been deployed, as was the focus of the 2024 Report." But it seems Carr is worried about more than just deployment progress.

Carr takes issue with the 2024 report "[incorporating] the universal service goals of deployment, adoption, affordability, availability, and equitable access to broadband throughout the United States as the metrics for conducting the section 706 inquiry." This discontent is supposedly the result of a desire to more faithfully abide by Section 706's requirements.

The FCC will vote on Carr's proposal on August 7, at which point we'll know if concerns about "picking technological winners and losers" will prompt the commission to pick regulatory winners and losers, and into which category the U.S. residents affected by these policies are to be sorted.

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Nathaniel Mott
Freelance News & Features Writer

Nathaniel Mott is a freelance news and features writer for Tom's Hardware US, covering breaking news, security, and the silliest aspects of the tech industry.

  • hotaru251
    that efforts to ensure Americans have gigabit internet, which the Biden administration identified as a long-term goal in 2024

    except this wasnt a biden admin thing..

    Wanting fast affordable internet was a thing way back in the late 80's early 90's. when ISP's were given an insane amount of dollars (especially given the time) to expand fiber networks which they barely did and instead pocketed the majority of the $.

    That is 1 of the greatest crimes that has still gone unpunished.
    http://irregulators.org/bookofbrokenpromises/ literally a free book w/ if you wanna see exactly how badly the ISP's screwed (and robbing) Americans of having affordable fast internet like most other developed nations.
    Reply
  • chaos215bar2
    hotaru251 said:
    except this wasnt a biden admin thing..

    Wanting fast affordable internet was a thing way back in the late 80's early 90's. when ISP's were given an insane amount of dollars (especially given the time) to expand fiber networks which they barely did and instead pocketed the majority of the $.

    That is 1 of the greatest crimes that has still gone unpunished.
    http://irregulators.org/bookofbrokenpromises/ literally a free book w/ if you wanna see exactly how badly the ISP's screwed (and robbing) Americans of having affordable fast internet like most other developed nations.
    It was also a Biden thing. Because every time we try this, regulatory capture ensures ISPs essentially aren't on the hook for actually delivering anything.
    Reply
  • thestryker
    I still think it's funny that these fools think satellite is actually a viable option. With today's technology there simply isn't enough capacity even if the latency and bandwidth is a lot better. Fixed wireless can also definitely get up to those speeds whether or not anyone sells it.

    Ah well we can always count on the corporate stooges to roll out the "winners and losers" line when the only losers are tax payers and those stuck with inferior service (if they get any service at all).
    Reply
  • DS426
    I would agree with focusing on driving accessibility, affordability (both absolute and relative), and value as indeed the fastest fiber networks are mostly in metro areas and therefore only further skewing the advantage of those dense networks over rural and small town networks.
    Reply
  • TechLurker
    Meanwhile South Korea laughs in having standard 1 gigabit internet as the standard even in most rural areas.
    Reply
  • hotaru251
    TechLurker said:
    Meanwhile South Korea laughs in having standard 1 gigabit internet as the standard even in most rural areas.
    not as a black and white as this.

    USA is over 9,500% larger than South Korea (by area)
    Reply
  • bit_user
    chaos215bar2 said:
    Because every time we try this, regulatory capture ensures ISPs essentially aren't on the hook for actually delivering anything.
    Regulatory capture? You mean like how ISPs bribed many state legislatures to pass laws preventing cities & towns from establishing their own broadband co-ops?

    IMO, internet access should be regulated like a utility, to prevent ISPs from abusing their power. The other main thing government should do is try to ensure competition either does or can exist in all markets.

    That said, the plain old telephone system (POTS) serves as a model of how to get access to virtually everyone. In order to achieve that, I think the government established a relatively small tax on each land line, that was used to subsidize building network infrastructure in far-flung locations where it'd otherwise not be commercially viable to provide service. I think that's what the previous admin was going for, except without the taxation part.
    Reply
  • palladin9479
    The way it's written is that they do not want to disadvantage rural internet options in favor of urban ones.

    No one is going to run fiber infrastructure to truely rural areas, the customers per mile just isn't there to justify it economically. Wireless and Satellite are the perfered options. Some power companies are looking to implement broadband using their existing infrastructure, but it won't be gigabit and therefore can't access this government program.
    Reply
  • thestryker
    palladin9479 said:
    The way it's written is that they do not want to disadvantage rural internet options in favor of urban ones.

    No one is going to run fiber infrastructure to truely rural areas, the customers per mile just isn't there to justify it economically. Wireless and Satellite are the perfered options. Some power companies are looking to implement broadband using their existing infrastructure, but it won't be gigabit and therefore can't access this government program.
    It seems you missed what this is actually about entirely. This isn't about any specific government program at all it's about broadband deployment, long term goals and state of the industry. These changes being proposed do nothing to help anyone except for ISPs and rubber stamping whatever they feel like doing.
    Reply
  • palladin9479
    thestryker said:
    It seems you missed what this is actually about entirely. This isn't about any specific government program at all it's about broadband deployment, long term goals and state of the industry. These changes being proposed do nothing to help anyone except for ISPs and rubber stamping whatever they feel like doing.

    Umm... no.

    Previously the definition of highspeed broadband for those programs was changed to 1Gbps. All they did was pull that back and now it's just the regular rural broadband program that we've been using as a funding source for decades.
    Reply