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Tuesday, February 26, 2019

FCC says rural-urban digital divide dropped dramatically in 2017; Democratic commissioner disagrees

In a draft of its annual broadband deployment report, the Federal Communications Commission says the rural-urban digital divide is narrowing, and that broadband is being deployed in rural areas "on a reasonable and timely basis," Kris Holt reports for Engadget.

The draft says that from the end of 2016 to the end of 2017, the number of Americans who lacked a fixed broadband connection dropped more than 25 percent, from 26.1 million to 19.4 million, and that 5.6 million of those who gained access lived in rural areas. The federal definition of broadband is internet that delivers download speeds of 25 megabytes per second and upload speeds of 3 Mbps.

However, one of the FCC's two Democratic commissioners disputed the report. Jessica Rosenworcel said in a tweet, "I beg to differ" with the report's conclusions, and said that "Millions of households—in rural and urban communities—have no access to high-speed service. That’s a fact." She did not offer other figures to support her assertion.

Microsoft researchers published a study in December that said the rural-urban digital divide is much higher than the FCC's broadband coverage map suggests because the agency doesn't actually test for broadband; it simply allows internet service providers to say which areas they cover. The FCC is investigating whether some ISPs lied about covering rural areas to tap into subsidies for rural providers.

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