Internet Inequity: 19M Americans Lack High-Speed Broadband Access

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced during its eighth annual broadband progress report on the state of broadband/Internet access in America, announced that 19 million Americans still do not have access to high-speed broadband above the 3Mbps threshold. However, the report also detailed the advances the progress that is being made, including “LTE deployment by mobile networks.”

The FCC’s report highlights the concerns that 6% of Americans – 19 million – still lack any access to high-speed broadband. FCC further clarified the specific areas of concern:

• In rural areas, almost one-fourth of the population (in rural areas) – which is 14.5 million Americans – lack access to fixed broadband.
• In tribal areas, almost one-third of the population (in tribal areas) lacks access to fixed broadband.

As the FCC has pointed out in its report, broadband access is an essential component for jobs, innovation and global competitiveness; which is the primary reason for concern with the areas that need improvement to bring high-speed broadband access to more Americans.

With this annual report, it’s good to remember that the U.S. is far better off than the U.K. when it comes to LTE deployment with respect to carrier networks. In fact, there is literally no 4G LTE coverage in the United Kingdom as of August 2012, however, it is selectively undergoing planning to roll out 4G LTE service in the U.K. in the foreseeable future.

In general, the FCC’s annual report concludes that, with respect to the millions of people in the U.S. that cannot get high-speed broadband access as well as those who have not subscribed to high-speed broadband in areas where they can receive it, the report concludes that broadband is not being deployed in a reasonable and timely fashion. It is likely that some Americans that can receive high-speed Internet access in many parts of America do not subscribe to it because they are not able to afford it.