Tag Archives: speed goals

The FCC still looking at 100/20 speed benchmark and abolishing the long-term goal of 1,000/500

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The FCC shares…

FCC FACT SHEET*
Inquiry Concerning Deployment of Advanced Telecommunications Capability
to All Americans in a Reasonable and Timely Fashion
Nineteenth Section 706 Report Notice of Inquiry (2025), GN Docket No. 25-223
Background: Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 requires the FCC to annually conduct
an inquiry concerning the availability of advanced telecommunications capability to all Americans, and to
determine whether such capability is being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion.
The Notice, if adopted, would initiate this inquiry and propose returning the Commission’s analysis
to the plain language of section 706, and doing so in a technologically neutral manner. The
Commission’s section 706 report must be issued within 180 days after release of the Notice.
What the Notice would do:
• Propose to singularly focus on the availability of advanced telecommunications capability as
measured through deployment.
• Propose to 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.
• Solicit comment about whether the Commission should again use 100/20 Mbps as the benchmark
for defining advanced telecommunications capability for fixed broadband.
• Propose to abolish the long-term goal of 1,000/500 Mbps established in the 2024 Report as no
long-term goal is mentioned in the statute.
• Seek comment on whether to continue assessing mobile broadband services using multiple-speed
metrics and, if so, whether to continue focusing the main analysis on 5G-NR outdoor stationary
coverage at 35/3 Mbps speeds, or instead on 5G-NR in-vehicle mobile coverage at speeds of at
least 35/3 Mbps.
• Propose to continue using the previously established short-term goal of 1 Gbps per 1,000 students
and staff but to not establish a long-term goal, and seek comment on both proposals.
• Propose to again use the Broadband Data Collection as the primary data source for analyzing
fixed availability and seek comment on the proposal to do so.

2023 Federal Broadband funding Report: how does your MN county rank for access?

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NTIA just released their 2023 Federal Broadband Funding Report. It shows fiscal year (FY) 2022 data reported by 13 agencies across 70 programs making investments in broadband.3 As you can see from the county bullet list below, the map tracks a number of factors.

I like that they look at broadband access and subscription. I wish the data were up to date; I wish their definition of broadband was 100 Mbps down and 20 up (100/20) or faster. They track access to 25/3. With those factors in mind, I pulled out the Minnesota information by county to look at a few things:

Because it’s a lot of info, I will do three separate posts. (Access table of rankings.)

How does your county rank for broadband access?

Again, we’re looking at 25 Mbps down and 3 up, which isn’t the Minnesota goal speed for broadband but it’s something. (MN speed goal was 25/3 by 2022 and 100/20 by 2026.) These numbers are different from my usual Broadband County Profiles but especially now I think it’s important to pay attention to multiple maps.

 

Pop with access to broadband 25/3+ Mbps Rank
Hennepin 100 1
Dodge 100 1
Lyon 100 1
Steele 100 1
Rock 100 1
Kandiyohi 100 1
Jackson 100 1
Waseca 100 1
Yellow Medicine 100 1
Freeborn 100 1
Pipestone 100 1
Chippewa 100 1
Clearwater 100 1
Nobles 100 1
Cottonwood 100 1
Lincoln 100 1
Redwood 100 1
Murray 100 1
Red Lake 100 1
Renville 100 1
Carver 99.9 21
Dakota 99.9 21
Ramsey 99.9 21
Winona 99.9 21
Olmsted 99.9 21
Mower 99.9 21
Swift 99.9 21
Goodhue 99.7 28
Le Sueur 99.7 28
Douglas 99.7 28
Watonwan 99.6 31
Wilkin 99.6 31
Polk 99.5 33
Pope 99.5 33
Martin 99.4 35
Wabasha 99.4 35
Lac qui Parle 99.4 35
Sibley 99.4 35
Scott 99.3 39
Beltrami 99.3 39
Anoka 99.2 41
Blue Earth 99.2 41
Rice 99 43
Stevens 99 43
Grant 99 43
Pennington 98.7 46
Otter Tail 98.7 46
Cook 98.5 48
Clay 98.5 48
Faribault 98.5 48
McLeod 98.4 51
Washington 98.3 52
Hubbard 98.1 53
Brown 97.8 54
Norman 97.6 55
Traverse 97.6 55
Wadena 97.1 57
Fillmore 96.6 58
Meeker 96.5 59
Wright 96.2 60
Stearns 96.2 61
Nicollet 95.3 62
Crow Wing 95.1 63
Itasca 94.4 64
Becker 94.2 65
Sherburne 94 66
Big Stone 93.5 67
Mahnomen 92.8 68
Benton 92.6 69
Chisago 92.1 70
Lake 91.7 71
Morrison 91.3 72
Houston 90.7 73
Cass 89.7 74
St. Louis 89 75
Koochiching 82.3 76
Isanti 81.3 77
Marshall 81.1 78
Todd 79.9 79
Roseau 78.9 80
Carlton 77.3 81
Mille Lacs 76.9 82
Aitkin 72.2 83
Kittson 71.8 84
Pine 67.6 85
Kanabec 63.2 86
Lake of the Woods 60.7 87

Below is more info on the state and individual counties. I will include this info on each post related to this topic. (Just because I hope it make the info more accessible and usable.)

Continue reading →

State speed goals and mapping are important – especially in Infrastructure Packages if states allocate funds

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Fierce Telecom reports…

Former Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Tom Wheeler argued incumbent cable operators are in prime position to scoop up federal broadband funding and have little to fear from potential overbuild activity.

Speaking about the looming congressional infrastructure package during a New Street Research event, Wheeler acknowledged each state will have discretion over how to allocate the broadband funding allotted to them, leaving some uncertainty about what their priorities in terms of speeds and access technology will be. However, he asserted incumbent operators are best positioned to help close the digital divide.

Wheeler said the idea that there are “massive areas of virgin unserved territory” in the U.S. is a “myth” and instead the reality on the ground is that there are “pockets of served areas surrounded by unserved.”

The article goes on to focus on the advantage that incumbents (or at least existing) providers will have. I am interested in the emphasis on state discretion. To highlight the highest need in the short term, to find the pockets of unserved areas, we need continual and granular mapping. To make the best investment for the long term, we need state speed goals that meet the needs of the next generation as well as for today.

In redefining the speed goals for funding, the US Senate may have effectively boosted broadband speeds to 100/20

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Doug Dawson looks at the Senate infrastructure bill and highlights an important action – the Senate just increased the definition of broadband for funding purposes and that the definition that matters…

The recently passed Senate infrastructure legislation included a new definition of an underserved household as being a location that lacks access to reliable broadband service offered with a speed of not less than 100 megabits per second for downloads; and 20 megabits per second for uploads, plus a latency sufficient to support real-time, interactive applications. It’s hard to see this as anything other than a new definition of broadband.

A brief history of broadband speed definitions…

In 2015, the FCC established the current definition of broadband as 25/3 Mbps (that’s 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload). Prior to 2015, the FCC definition of broadband was 4/1 Mbps, set a decade earlier. The FCC didn’t use empirical evidence like speed tests in setting the definition of broadband in 2015. They instead conducted what is best described as a thought experiment. They listed the sorts of functions that a “typical” family of four was likely to engage in and then determined that a 25/3 Mbps broadband connection was enough speed to satisfy the broadband needs of a typical family of four.

The FCC asked the question again in 2018 and 2020 if 25/3 Mbps was still an adequate definition of broadband. The Commission took no action and concluded that 25/3 Mbps was still a reasonable definition of broadband. There were comments filed by numerous parties that argued that the definition of broadband should be increased.

And the meat of the issue…

All of this is politics, of course, and homes and businesses know if broadband is adequate without the FCC setting some arbitrary speed as magically being broadband. Is the home that gets 27 Mbps all that different than one that’s getting 23 Mbps? Unfortunately, when it comes to being eligible for federal grant monies it matters.

I think there is a good argument to be made that the Senate just preempted the FCC in setting the definition of broadband. Declaring that every home or business with speeds less than 100/20 Mbps is underserved is clearly just another way to say that speeds under 100/20 Mbps are not good broadband.

Of course, the FCC could continue to use 25/3 Mbps as the definition of broadband for the purposes of the annual report to Congress. But Congress just changed the definition of broadband that matters – the one that comes with money.

This is a timely conversation worldwide as many households and communities felt the punch of COVID quarantines and broadband issues. In Minnesota, the MN Broadband Task Force have committed to look at the definition of speeds (or speed goals) this year.