PRESS RELEASE

October 31, 2019

Washington, D.C. –  Connect Americans Now (CAN) Executive Director Richard T. Cullen released the following statement on the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) release of a Notice of Inquiry on the 2019 Broadband Deployment Report.

 “Connect Americans Now commends Chairman Pai and the FCC for their dedicated leadership to tackle the digital divide and welcomes indications of progress,” Cullen said. “At the same time, there is broad, bipartisan agreement, including at the FCC itself, that the commission’s current broadband mapping methodology is flawed and must be improved.”

“CAN remains concerned the data in the FCC’s Broadband Deployment Report underestimates the scale of the challenge and urges policymakers not to lessen their commitment or slow the pace of action to close the rural broadband gap,” Cullen continued. “In order to swiftly and completely eliminate the digital divide in rural America, Congress and the FCC must continue to work together to keep rural broadband connectivity a top priority, improve mapping data and remove regulatory barriers to innovative solutions like TV white space technology.”

In August, the FCC began a process to improve its data collection on the digital divide with the passage of the Digital Opportunity Data Collection.

CAN commended the FCC for taking that first step in the right direction and urged the commission to do more to transition away from reliance on flawed Form 477 data. Read that statement HERE.