One of the
blessings and curses of my calling includes the perceived duty to read as many
key FCC documents as possible. Of late,
it challenges my credulity, serenity and faith in the democratic process.
Consider
the FCC’s 2018 Broadband Deployment Report, https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-18-10A1.docx. Until this year, the FCC dutifully provides
statistics, perhaps framed in ways to support a policy objective. But until now, not one statistical report
included a partisan jab. Despite lots of
blabber about empiricism and humility, someone thought it fair and balanced to couple
regularly reported statistics with an unsupported assertion that the 2015 Open
Internet Order singularly caused a decline in the pace of increased subscribership
and network performance during the last two bummer Obama years.
In a statistical report, mandated by law, the
FCC deliberately fails to consider other factors that may explain a slowing in
broadband deployment and adoption, such as a maturing marketplace, the
affordability of broadband service, particularly for rural and low income
individuals, and carrier investment emphasis in content having recently
concluded a major rollout of next generation 4G wireless broadband networking
capacity.
In a
bizarre attempt at having its cake and eating it too, the FCC attempts to show how
broadband deployment suffered under Chairman Wheeler, but of course Chairman
Pai has quickly righted wrongs so that the FCC can conclude that broadband deployment
now satisfies the so-called Section 706 congressional mandate to determine
whether every American has adequate broadband access.
In a
remarkably failed triple bank shot, the 2018 Broadband Report notes how rural
broadband deployment has gravely slowed down, even as elsewhere it reports that
rural penetration has reached 98%. Might
serving the last few unserved rural areas in American trigger the highest cost per
household passed? Might reaching the
last 2-3% become infeasible, or at least result in slower progress? Apparently there’s no reason other than the
network neutrality burdens.
