PCCA Journal|1
st
Quarter 2015
32
5FMFDPN /FXT
Continued from page 31
a significant digital divide remains between urban and rural
America: More than half of all rural Americans lack access to
25 Mbps/3 Mbps service.
The divide is still greater on Tribal lands and in U.S. ter-
ritories, according to the FCC, where nearly two-thirds of
residents lack access to today’s speeds. And 35 percent of
schools across the nation still lack access to fiber networks
capable of delivering the advanced broadband required to
support today’s digital-learning tools.
The FCC said that while significant progress in broadband
deployment has been made, these advances are not occurring
broadly enough or quickly enough. The report concludes that
more work needs to be done by the private and public sec-
tors to expand robust broadband to all Americans in a timely
way, and the accompanying Notice of Inquiry seeks com-
ment on what additional steps the FCC can take to accelerate
broadband deployment.
Key findings of the progress report include:
s
17 percent of all Americans (55 million people) lack access
to 25 Mbps/3 Mbps service.
s
53 percent of rural Americans (22 million people) lack ac-
cess to 25 Mbps/3 Mbps. By contrast, only 8 percent of ur-
ban Americans lack access to 25 Mbps/3 Mbps broadband.
s
Rural America continues to be underserved at all speeds:
20 percent lack access even to service at 4 Mbps/1 Mbps,
down only 1 percent from 2011, and 31 percent lack access
to 10 Mbps/1 Mbps, down only 4 percent from 2011.
s
63 percent of Americans living in U.S. territories (2.6 mil-
lion people) lack access to 25 Mbps/3 Mbps broadband.
79 percent of those living in rural territorial areas (880,000
people) lack access.
s
Overall, the gap in availability of broadband at 25/3 closed
by only 3 percentage points last year, from 20 percent lack-
ing access in 2012 to 17 percent in 2013.
s
Overall, the broadband availability gap closed by only 3
percent last year.
s
Americans living in rural and urban areas adopt broadband
at similar rates where 25 Mbps/3 Mbps service is available,
28 percent in rural areas and 30 percent in urban areas.
Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 re-
quires the FCC to report annually on whether broadband “is
being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely
fashion” and to take “immediate action” if it is not. Congress
defined broadband as “high-quality” capability that allow us-
ers to “originate and receive high-quality voice, data, graph-
ics, and video” services.
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