Jan 19

Jan 19 FCC Releases 14th Broadband Deployment Report; Concludes U.S. Broadband Deployment Is “Reasonable & Timely”

Broadband, Broadband Deployment, Broadband Mapping, FCC, Section 706

January 19, 2021 – The FCC has released the Fourteenth Broadband Deployment Report which shows the status of fixed and mobile broadband service in the U.S.[1]

For the third straight year, the FCC has concluded advanced telecommunications capability is being deployed in the U.S. on a reasonable and timely basis.

As it has done in last two reports, the Fourteenth Broadband Deployment Report evaluates deployment of fixed and mobile broadband services over a rolling five-year time period (2015-2019), using four categories: (1) the number of Americans with access to fixed services; (2) the number with access to mobile 4G LTE services; (3) the number with access to both fixed and mobile 4G LTE services; and (4) the number with access to at least one of either fixed or mobile 4G LTE services.

Highlights of the report include the following:

Fixed broadband is currently defined as service with speeds of 25 Mbps downstream and 3 Mbps upstream.

Since the last report, the number of Americans living in areas without access to at least 25/3 Mbps fixed broadband service has dropped from more than 18.1 million Americans at the end of 2018 to fewer than 14.5 million Americans at the end of 2019, a decrease of more than 20%.

More than three-quarters of those in areas newly served with fixed 25/3 Mbps – nearly 3.7 million – are located in rural areas, bringing the number of rural Americans in areas served by at least 25/3 Mbps broadband service to nearly 83%.

Since 2016, the number of Americans living in rural areas lacking access to 25/3 Mbps fixed service has fallen more than 46%.

The gap between the percentage of urban Americans and the percentage of rural Americans with access to 25/3 Mbps fixed broadband service has been nearly halved, falling from 30 points at the end of 2016 to just 16 points at the end of 2019.

With regard to mobile broadband, since 2018, the number of Americans lacking access to 4G LTE mobile broadband with a median speed of 10/3 Mbps was reduced by more than 57%, including a nearly 54% decrease among rural Americans.

As of the end of 2019, the vast majority of Americans, 94% had access to both 25/3 Mbps fixed broadband service and mobile broadband service with a median speed of 10/3 Mbps.

As of the end of 2019, mobile providers now provide access to 5G capability to approximately 60% of Americans.

Mobile broadband deployment was fueled by more than $29 billion of capital expenditures in 2019 (roughly 18% of global mobile capital spending), the largest mobile broadband investment since 2015.

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[1] Inquiry Concerning Deployment of Advanced Telecommunications Capability to All Americans in a Reasonable and Timely Fashion, GN Docket No. 20-269, Fourteenth Broadband Deployment Report, FCC 21-18 (rel. Jan. 19, 2021), https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-21-18A1.pdf.