National Broadband Plan will hurt rural America, 40 House members say

The Federal Communications Commissions’ decade-long blueprint for increasing broadband Internet access could widen the digital divide between rural and metropolitan areas, according to a bipartisan group of 40 House members who sent a letter to agency Chairman Julius Genachowski on Friday.

“The plan as written will lead to job loss, less investment in rural areas, a further erosion of state and local economics, and the deterioration of communications services for our constituents,” the members wrote.

The FCC’s plan, which Congress mandated in the stimulus act last year, is not ambitious enough when it comes to underserved, rural communities, the members said. The FCC calls for 4 megabits per second (Mbps) connectivity in rural areas while aspiring to 100 Mbps in the nation’s most densely-populated spots, according to the letter.

Such a capacity goal is not enough “for the next several years, let alone the future demands of commerce, education, energy, and public safety,” wrote the members, led by Reps. Betsy Markey (D-Colo.) and Sam Graves (R-Mo.).

The letter also criticizes the plan’s proposed changes to the Universal Service Fund, a pot of FCC cash that subsidizes telephone service in underserved areas. The plan seeks to transition this money to instead subsidize broadband infrastructure, adoption and service. Such a transition would “abandon a successful policy approach,” the letter says.

The National Broadband Plan’s proposed changes to the USF are backed by major Internet service providers such as AT&T but direly opposed by small, rural phone companies who currently benefit from the subsidy and who hold clout in the districts of several of the letter’s signatories. 

The FCC’s 360-page plan, released in March, seeks to boost the connectivity of at least 100 million U.S. homes to 100 Mbps by 2020 while ensuring that every American has access to high-speed Internet.