Chairman's Counselor Sohn Hails Fiber's Importance, Cites FCC Efforts
The FCC is actively encouraging fiber deployment to boost broadband capabilities, spur competition and facilitate innovation, said Gigi Sohn, counselor to Chairman Tom Wheeler, in prepared remarks Tuesday at Fiber to the Home's Fiber on Fire conference in Anaheim. "Fiber…
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networks lead to an influx of business, resources, jobs, and consequently, economic growth," she said. "On top of the economic benefits, broadband enhances health care, education, energy use, environmental protection, public safety, transportation, civic engagement, you name it." Sohn said that fiber-driven advances improve U.S. competitiveness overseas and broadband competition domestically. Citing many consumers' slow data speeds, she noted that the FCC increased the baseline speed for "broadband" from 4/1 Mbps to 25/3 Mbps. The agency is "working to help lift barriers to broadband deployment" by taking steps to foster wireless backhaul, better align the costs of using poles and conduits, and pre-empt state laws restricting community broadband, she said. Local and industry deployment efforts "are even more exciting," she said, and they often spark competitive responses. "If our efforts to lift barriers are not enough and if the efforts of communities across the country don’t reach far enough, rest assured, the FCC is taking more steps to incentivize fiber deployment. We need to make sure that all Americans will reap the benefits of fast broadband speeds." She cited the FCC decision to allocate $10 billion in USF support over six years to extend broadband in high-cost areas currently served by price-cap telcos; if the carriers decline funding in a state, others, including municipal systems and electric cooperatives, will be eligible for the funding, she noted. Sohn said the commission is promoting fiber deployment through the E-rate program subsidizing school and library communications.