FCC To Push Broadband Adoption Efforts; Sohn Says Market Forces Hit Barriers
The FCC plans to promote broadband adoption efforts targeting four groups -- seniors, veterans, persons with disabilities and students -- said Gigi Sohn, counselor to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. The commission’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau will “explore and highlight…
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best practices” helping these groups gain broadband access, she said Thursday in a speech to the Partnership for Progress on the Digital Divide Conference in Scottsdale, Arizona. “One of the goals of this effort is to develop a roadmap for these communities that can be used by advocates and the philanthropies and companies that support their work,” she said, according to her posted remarks. Sohn said achieving universal broadband adoption is like running a marathon: The final stage before the finish line is the hardest part. In thinking about the broadband challenge, she cited a “50/50” concept, with two categories of people who have “pretty much reached universal adoption -- people under the age of 50 and people earning over $50,000.” That shows “that for those populations that face no significant barriers, market forces can be sufficient to get us to our goal of universal adoption,” she said. But the flip side is market forces won’t be enough to achieve universal broadband adoption because some people face significant barriers, she said. “Getting where we are now was relatively easy. Getting from here to universal adoption is the hard part,” she said. “Think of our adoption challenge as a marathon. They say that the race really starts at mile 20, and those last 6 miles are a bear. Considering we have about 75 percent home adoption, that math is about right.” She said the FCC is attempting to close various broadband gaps based on income, education, location and disabilities through USF programs -- the high-cost Connect America Fund, E-Rate school and library discounts, and Lifeline low-income support -- and certain accessibility and adoption efforts, including the new best-practices initiative. But the digital divide is "less of an infrastructure challenge and more of a civil rights and human rights challenge," she said.