I'm not really aware of how FCC collected this data and how the analysis were done. I'm also not aware of the policies that are set by the US government to provide rural connectivity. But I have a few general thoughts on the issue.
Estimating the broadband adoption is a tricky issue because of number of stakeholders involved. First there are the companies that provide the physical connectivity. Their job is done as soon as the lines are laid to the base station or the satellite is sent into the space, etc [1] According to them anywhere the physical layer has reached there is internet connectivity (which is true...to an extent)
But this does not actually get the internet in to your home. Local distribution is a very big challenge. A similar thing happened in India with Bharat net [2]. While the government successfully laid down the fiber optic cables the last mile connectivity was overlooked. So of course the broadband is inadequate when the capacity is not being used.
I agree with the article that internet is connected to a higher economic growth and overall prosperity. The same sentiment is also echoed by the WEF report [3]. However these reports miss one very crucial point. Internet is not a service provider. Internet is a transport. You need to have people provide service on the internet if it is to be used. Local internet economy is almost non existent.
Many of the faults in FCC's report can be explained if you look at the internet provider business as a marketplace.
- Big companies own the platform and assert that the platform can reach anywhere. Which might very well be true.
- Local internet service providers use this platform to provide services to the customers.
- Customers pay for the internet service according to usage.
Why should a customer pay heavy charge for the broadband usage? Why should the local internet service provider invest into last mile connectivity?
On a global scale internet rapidly reached new levels of adoption when the application layer succeeded. Something similar needs to happen on a local level, I think. And this is what microsoft is also trying to do with their airband platform [4].
[1] If you do a bit of digging into physical layer distribution there are many exotic ways to provide network connectivity including sending weather balloons up in the air! Very interesting area of research if you're into this sort of thing.
Except that for most of the country, there aren't actually local ISPs. There are enormous regional/national ISPs—Charter, Comcast, AT&T, etc. If there really were local providers, they might have more of an incentive to invest in last-mile connectivity.
(Of course, the really effective way to do that would be local loop unbundling and requiring a certain level of physical connectivity for everyone.)
Estimating the broadband adoption is a tricky issue because of number of stakeholders involved. First there are the companies that provide the physical connectivity. Their job is done as soon as the lines are laid to the base station or the satellite is sent into the space, etc [1] According to them anywhere the physical layer has reached there is internet connectivity (which is true...to an extent)
But this does not actually get the internet in to your home. Local distribution is a very big challenge. A similar thing happened in India with Bharat net [2]. While the government successfully laid down the fiber optic cables the last mile connectivity was overlooked. So of course the broadband is inadequate when the capacity is not being used.
I agree with the article that internet is connected to a higher economic growth and overall prosperity. The same sentiment is also echoed by the WEF report [3]. However these reports miss one very crucial point. Internet is not a service provider. Internet is a transport. You need to have people provide service on the internet if it is to be used. Local internet economy is almost non existent.
Many of the faults in FCC's report can be explained if you look at the internet provider business as a marketplace.
- Big companies own the platform and assert that the platform can reach anywhere. Which might very well be true.
- Local internet service providers use this platform to provide services to the customers.
- Customers pay for the internet service according to usage.
Why should a customer pay heavy charge for the broadband usage? Why should the local internet service provider invest into last mile connectivity?
On a global scale internet rapidly reached new levels of adoption when the application layer succeeded. Something similar needs to happen on a local level, I think. And this is what microsoft is also trying to do with their airband platform [4].
[1] If you do a bit of digging into physical layer distribution there are many exotic ways to provide network connectivity including sending weather balloons up in the air! Very interesting area of research if you're into this sort of thing.
[2] https://www.prsindia.org/parliamenttrack-policy/report-summa...
[3] https://www.weforum.org/projects/internet-for-all
[4] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/airband