Those words and the statistic are from a new report by the Federal Communication Commission on the availability of adequate broadband capabilities released Friday.
“The situation is even worse in rural West Virginia, where 74 percent of residents lack access to service meeting today’s speed requirement,” according to the seven-page report, Broadband Availability in America.
Nationally, 17 percent of Americans lack access overall, while over half of rural residents lack access, the report found.
“High speed Internet access has become fundamental to modern life, whether we are on the job, at home or at school,” said Tom Wheeler, chairman of the FCC, at the introduction of the report. “Broadband connectivity can overcome geographical isolation and put a world of information and economic opportunities at the fingertips of citizens in the most remote communities.”
The raw numbers
Of West Virginia’s 1.8 million residents, 1.042 million are without access to adequate broadband capabilities, the report found.The FCC estimates more than 960,000 West Virginians live in a rural area. Of those 714,000 lack modern broadband capabilities.
In the state’s urban areas, 328,000 of its 909,000 citizens are without acceptable broadband capabilities, the report states.
The FCC said reflecting advances in technology, market offerings by broadband providers and consumer demands, the Commission recently updated its broadband benchmarks speeds to 25 megabits per second (Mbps) for downloads and 3 Mbps for uploads.
The FCC stated its old standards were outdated due to lightning-fast changes in technology.
“The FFC’s 4 Mbps/1Mbps standard set in 2010 is dated and inadequate for evaluating whether advance broadband is being deployed to all Americans in a timely way,” the FCC found.
By using the new benchmarks, the report finds that Americans residing in states with the lowest population density — including West Virginia — are 10 times more likely to lack access than Americans residing in the states with the highest density.
Nearly 35 percent of schools across the nation still lack access to fiber networks capable of delivering the advanced broadband required to support today’s digital-learning tools, according to the report.
While West Virginia is behind, the state is not as bad as tribal land and U.S. territories, where nearly two-thirds of residents lack access to today’s Internet speeds, the report found.
In surrounding states, 40 percent of Kentucky residents are without acceptable Internet speed, Maryland is only 7 percent, Pennsylvania is 13 percent and Virginia is 21 percent, the report found.
Rhode Island and Connecticut have 1 percent without access to the new 25 Mbps/3Mbps standards, according to the report.
Only Arkansas, 59 percent, Vermont, 80 percent, and Montana, 87 percent, have higher percentage rates of residents without acceptable Internet speed, the report found.
The report placed blame on both the public and private sectors. It states while “significant” progress in broadband deployment had been made, in part due to the FCC’s Universal Service program, the “advances are not occurring broadly enough or fast enough.”
“More work needs to be done by the private and public sector to expand the robust broadband to all Americans in a timely way,” the report reads.
Wrangling in Washington
During a recent speech about broadband Internet, President Obama said it is a “necessity” and pushed the FCC to expand access.“Today, high-speed broadband is not a luxury,” the president told a crowd in Cedar Falls, Iowa, in January. “It’s a necessity.”
The president said greater access to faster Internet will make the U.S. more competitive globally. “There are real-world consequences to this and it makes us less economically competitive.”
According to NPR, 19 states, including West Virginia, have laws that prevent their cities from building their own broadband networks. Supporters of those laws say they protect taxpayers.
A plan, created by the Obama White House, would provide technical know-how and financial aid to cities, towns and rural communities that want to improve Internet services for residents, NPR reports.
Internet providers, including cable giants like Comcast and Verizon, strongly oppose the plan.
In a press release on its website, Broadband for America, whose members include major Internet service providers, said it strongly agrees with the Obama administration on expanding broadband access, but the president “is risking the success we have witnessed by advocating for the reclassification of board as a Title II public utility — unprecedented government interference that would stifle private investment, hinder innovation and undermine the growth of the Internet.”
The Obama administration wants the FCC to make Internet service a public utility, placing broadband under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934.
©2015 The Register-Herald (Beckley, W.Va.)
