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PCCA Journal|3

rd

Quarter 2015

31

TELECOM NEWS

Continued on page 32

Survey Shows Rural Fiber Deployment,

Higher Speed Broadband on the Rise

Mayors Call for Accessible Broadband

Performance Information

O

n June 17, 35 mayors and city officials sent

a letter to the Federal Communications Com-

mission (FCC) urging uniform and accessible

reporting on broadband network performance.

The letter, coordinated by Next Century Cities, was prompted

by the findings of a recent Government Accountability Office

(GAO) report, “Broadband Performance: Additional Actions

Could Help FCC Evaluate Its Efforts to Inform Consumers.”

Cities signing the letter include major metropolitan areas

such as Boston, Mass., Kansas City, Mo., and Seattle, Wash.,

as well as smaller communities such as Mount Vernon,

Wash., Salisbury, N.C., and Yellow Springs, Ohio.

“The GAO report offers an opportunity to assess how we

measure network performance,” said Next Century Cities

Executive Director Deb Socia. “If we are truly committed to

ensuring access to fast, affordable, and reliable broadband

Internet, we need to think seriously about how we measure

speed, cost, and reliability and how we communicate this

information to consumers.”

City leaders encourage the FCC to heed the recommenda-

tions of the GAO, consider standardized measurement of

network performance, and develop easily comprehensible

T

he nation’s small, inde-

pendent telecommunica-

tions providers continue to

make significant progress in

providing high-speed broadband to rural

Americans with advancements being

made in fiber deployment and speed

offerings, according to a new survey by

NTCA—The Rural Broadband Associa-

tion.

The “NTCA 2014 Broadband/Inter-

net Availability Survey Report” found

that 45 percent of survey respondents

currently deploying fiber serve at least

50 percent of their customers using

fiber to the home (FTTH), up from 41

percent in 2013. Eighty-five percent of

survey respondents indicated they had a

long-term fiber deployment strategy and

74 percent of those respondents plan to

offer fiber to the node to more than 75

percent of their customers by year-end

2017, while 67 percent plan to offer

fiber to the home to at least 50 percent

of their customers over the same time

frame. An additional 25 percent have

already completed fiber deployments to

all customers.

Additionally, survey respondents are

making higher-speed broadband service

available to customers who want it.

Eighty-three percent of respondents’

customers can receive broadband

service of 10 Mbps or greater, up from

66 percent just a year ago. While take

rates traditionally lag behind availability,

the majority of respondents’ customers

subscribe to service of 3 Mbps or faster.

Thirty-four percent of survey respon-

dents’ customers taking broadband sub-

scribe to service greater than 10 Mbps

downstream. The next most popular

speed tiers are 6.0 Mbps to 10.0 Mbps

(9.5 percent) and 3.0 Mbps to 4.0 Mbps

(8.9 percent).

“NTCA member companies are proven

broadband solutions providers for the

communities where they live and work,

and these survey results demonstrate

that once again as they continue to take

steps to deploy fiber further out into

their networks,” said NTCA Econo-

mist Rick Schadelbauer, the report’s au-

thor. “They do this in spite of the often

significant challenges they face in order

to better serve their customers.”

Twenty percent of NTCA members

participated in the online survey in the

winter of 2014. The survey comprised

general questions about the respondents’

current operations, competition, market-

ing efforts, and current and planned

fiber deployment. Additional questions

addressed the Internet backbone, voice

over Internet protocol (VoIP), and video

offerings.

The full report is available at www.

ntca.org/images/stories/Documents/2015

broadbandsurveyreport.pdf.