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/2015broadbandsurveyreport.pdf.