Internet Service Providers fire back at FCC over reports of slow broadband deployment

According to recent FCC finding, Internet Service Providers aren't meeting the benchmark in supplying the United States home Internet services, like DSL, cable, fiber, satellite, and Wireless Internet Service Providers.

Findings revealed that around 34 million Americans (10 percent of the country) "still lack access to fixed broadband at the FCC’s benchmark speed of 25Mbps for downloads, 3Mbps for uploads."

This did not go well, in fact, Internet Service Providers fired back at the FCC over the report.

"Despite the significant, year-over-year advances in broadband capabilities underscored in the Commission’s own data, the conclusions of the FCC’s [Broadband Progress] Report continue an alarming trend of ignoring objectivity and facts in order to serve political ends and maximize agency power," said the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA). The NCTA represents Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and many other cable companies.

USTelecom, a trade group that represents telcos of all sizes including AT&T and Verizon, is also upset with the FCC's report.

“It would seem that the FCC’s report should carry the headline ‘our policies have failed’ since it concludes that six years after adoption of the national broadband plan, the commission’s actions haven’t produced even so much as a ‘reasonable’ level of broadband deployment," said USTelecom President Walter McCormick.

"But, of course, with more than $75 billion a year being invested by broadband providers, network capacity burgeoning, and speeds increasing exponentially… no one actually believes that deployment in the United States is unreasonable. Unfortunately, this annual process has become a cynical exercise, one that eschews dispassionate analysis, and is patently intended to reach a predetermined conclusion that will justify a continuing expansion of the agency’s own regulatory reach.”

On January 28th, the FCC will vote on whether to issue the report (as well as its findings) as it or if it needs to be re-written.

[via ArsTechnica]