Did the U.S. National Broadband Plan fail or succeed? Some argue the plan failed. Others might argue it clearly has succeeded. So what is the truth of the matter? It actually is hard to say.
There are but two quantifiable goals stated in the plan.
The document says a goal, at the end of 10 years, is connecting 100 million U.S. homes with “affordable” access to actual download speeds of at least 100 megabits per second and actual upload speeds of at least 50 Mbps.
Another goal was to provide gigabit per second access to anchor institutions such as schools, hospitals and government buildings.
All the other goals are not quantifiable, except in “yes-no” fashion: did a recommended action actually happen within the plan time frame or not? As with many plans, the issue is targets, frameworks and rule changes, rather than quantifiable outcomes.
The plan was couched in terms of “goals” that are either hard to quantify, require the cooperation of many entities in the ecosystem or are not easy to define. Also, the plan itself says it is a “roadmap,” not a firm set of outcomes.
The plan itself mostly deals with what the government can do, in response to a Congressional mandate to provide “detailed strategy for achieving affordability and maximizing use of broadband to advance “consumer welfare, civic participation, public safety and homeland security, community development, health care delivery, energy independence and efficiency, education, employee training, private sector investment, entrepreneurial activity, job creation and economic growth, and other national purposes.”
Some cite the portions of the plan described as “long term” goals, when making their evaluations of plan success. Also, keep in mind that the plan itself was only designed to facilitate commercial actions by others. The government’s role was limited to spectrum allocation and other policies that create incentives for other actors to fulfill.
So what of the two numerical outcomes? Are 100 million U.S. homes presently buying “affordable” access at 100 Mbps downstream speeds? First off, “affordable” is not quantified and is a matter of interpretation. But are 100 million U.S. homes buying internet access at 100 Mbps?
According to measurements by Speedtest, the average U.S. consumer on a fixed network is getting access at between 124 Mbps and 166 Mbps. And Speedtest reports that 61 percent of all U.S. fixed network internet access services purchased by consumers offer 100 Mbps or higher speeds.
But there is a difference between supply and demand. The plan specified only demand, not supply.
Current supply exceeds what the plan called for. But current demand is lower. Only six in 10 customers choose to buy a service operating at 100 Mbps or faster. So 40 percent largely choose service operating at less than 100 Mbps, or some will note, perhaps cannot buy such service.
Assume there are 139.4 million U.S. households. Assume fixed internet access is purchased by 80 percent of households. That implies a total of 111.5 million locations buying internet access. That seems too high.
But assume only 126.7 million housing units actually are occupied. If 80 percent of occupied housing units buy fixed network broadband, that suggests there should be about 101 million subscriptions. That accords with other estimates.
If 61 percent of those locations buy internet access at 100 Mbps or faster, then 61 million U.S. customers choose to buy service at 100 Mbps or faster. That, of course, is far less than the National Broadband Plan called for.
Provisioned speeds--bought by customers--differs from available speed, in other words. So should the plan have differentiated between available and provisioned speeds? We cannot say, at this point. So the evaluation of “did the plan achieve its goals” also is a matter of opinion, not “truth.”
Even in hard-to-serve rural areas, 60 percent of residents can buy internet access at speeds of at least 100 Mbps. That does not mean they do so. So what is the “truth” of the matter?
While it is difficult to measure speed, actual U.S. broadband speed is more than 100 Mbps, on average, according to Akamai in 2017. Upstream speeds vary by location, but are at or above plan goals in most cities, with performance varying by provider.
But is access “affordable?” That is a matter of opinion, not fact. Still, prices have fallen significantly.
“The most popular tier of broadband service in 2015 (BPI-Consumer Choice) is now priced 20.2 percent lower and offers 15.7 percent faster speeds in 2020 on an average subscriber-weighted basis,” says USTA.
“The highest speed offerings in 2015 (BPI-Speed) are now priced 37.7 percent lower and offer 27.7 percent faster speeds in 2020 on an average subscriber-weighted basis,” USTA says.
“When inflation is considered, the real price of the most popular tier of broadband service has dropped 28.1 percent since 2015; and the real price of the highest speed broadband service has dropped 43.9 percent,” USTA notes.
At the same time, cost per Mbps has dropped 37.9 percent for the most popular service and 56.1 percent for the highest speed service, says USTA.
Beyond that, an outcome not specified was “Can 100 million U.S. homes purchase--if they choose--internet access at 1 Gbps downstream rates?” The answer to that unasked question also unquestionably is “yes.” Looking solely at cable operators, that portion of the industry alone has 72 million actual accounts. Not all are consumer accounts.
The cable industry says 80 percent of U.S. homes have gigabit access, while 90 percent of U.S. homes have high-speed access but at top speeds less than 1 Gbps.
Cable operators alone pass 80 percent of U.S. homes with networks selling gigabit per second internet access, and about 90 percent of U.S. homes can buy high speed access access, but at rates less than 1 Gbps.
Keep in mind that U.S. telcos have about 33 million internet access accounts, but cable operators have about 72 million accounts, or 70 percent of the installed base.
So how about gigabit service for anchor institutions. Consider matters in rural areas, where 59 percent of schools, for example, have broadband at gigabit per second rates, or higher. Beyond that, it is hard to see what percentage of schools, hospitals and other anchor institutions presently have gigabit connections. In perhaps 80 percent of communities, that is possible.
Still, the truth of the matter--whether the plan succeeded or not--is clouded by opinions.
“What is truth?” occupies much of traditional philosophy, and still manages to maintain its relevance, even in the communications business.
Truth is that will accords with reality, Wikipedia notes. Another way of saying this is that “truth accords with facts; there being a difference between what is factual and what is merely opinion. A related key concept is that there is a difference between a fact and a value.
And there often is more “value” or “opinion” than “truth” in most parts of the industry. Consider almost any claims made by marketing staffs, industry lobbyists or the policy advocates who oppose them, public officials or customers.
The adage that “you are entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts” encapsulates the issue. “Facts” are open to interpretation. Is any country, state, province, city or service provider “doing well” in terms of its deployment of advanced information or communications connectivity?
That is consequential, since the oldest school of philosophy asserts that truth is that which corresponds with facts, at least since the time of Aristotle.
How successful are we at value generation and social or educational benefit? And what is the basis for such evaluations. Quite often, we do not agree on the facts. If truth is that which accords with the facts, then contention is inevitable.
There are more modern systems as well. In the mid-19th century the focus shifts away from individual propositions and towards a system of logically interrelated components or web of belief.
Postmodernism--especially in its radical deconstructionist variants-- essentially abandons the notion that truth is absolute. “Most radical postmodernists do not distinguish acceptance as true from being true; they claim that the social negotiations among influential people ‘construct’ the truth.
The deconstructed view essentially permits a definition of “truth” which is merely “opinion,” albeit opinion ratified by its acceptance.
In the early 20th century a school of pragmatists used what we might call a scientific framework, suggesting that what is true is that which works. One obvious issue is that truth becomes relative, since trial, error and interpretation is required to determine what “works.”
The point is that the difference between fact and value is not as clear as you might think, in non-mathematical endeavors, especially. By extension, it is not as easy to determine “truth” from “falsehood,” either. The social constructionists argue that is simply a matter of the imposition of power.
As in Lewis Carroll’s book Through the Looking Glass, “truth” is subjective.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—that's all."
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