Affordability Remains Major Impediment to Broadband Adoption, Clyburn Says

“Streamlining deployment is central” to affordable broadband, Clyburn said. “We must ensure that all providers are able to deploy and upgrade their infrastructure at the lowest cost and quickest pace.” Clyburn called for a renewed look at pole attachment policies.

The senior-most FCC commissioner also put in a pitch for municipal broadband and local control. “Local governments that want to bring broadband connectivity to their communities, particularly when the private sector has failed to do so, should have that right,” she said. Mayors have pressed for self-determination, she said. Clyburn also stressed the importance of connected healthcare, a diverse media landscape and making sure the U.S. is a leader in 5G. Some 100,000 people in the U.S. still rely on 2G service and that is "just unacceptable,” she said.

Clyburn also shared stories from the road. At the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Massachusetts, “brothers Logan and Shae demonstrated innovative ways in which off-the-shelf technologies are enabling them to communicate with increased ease, and aiding them in their quest to gain more knowledge, skills and independence,” she said.

In San Francisco, Clyburn said she visited Code2040, a nonprofit focused on increasing access and opportunities for top black and Latino engineers. “The meeting reinforced how much diverse, highly qualified talent right there in that region is going virtually unnoticed by Silicon Valley’s top companies,” Clyburn said. In New Mexico, she said she visited the Navajo Nation. There, “we discussed the successes of the Lifeline program, the tribal mobility fund and how the commission can do more to promote broadband on native lands,” she said.

Despite progress, many issues remain, said speakers. Loris Taylor of the Hopi Nation, CEO of Native Public Media, said people in Indian country continue to lag behind almost everyone. “Deliver us from darkness,” Taylor said. “Spectrum for Indian country is paramount and has been since the FCC's earliest work with tribes, since 1999. The FCC tribal policy statement recognized this need in 2000.” Taylor called for a tribal priority for spectrum allocation.

Tribal governments also “deserve better treatment” at the commission, Taylor said: “Give the FCC Office of Native Affairs and Policy its own separate and specific budget and a direct line to the eighth floor of the commissioners.” Taylor said USF reform must do more to provide funding for service in Indian country. “The increased cost of deployment and maintenance in Indian country requires the reinstallation of the tribal variable and the adoption of the tribal broadband factor,” she said.

Paul Wright, director of the Human Rights Defense Center, said the millions of prisoners are still paying far too much to make a call despite FCC work on inmate calling reform. No one else pays $14.95 for a 15-minute call, the price in one jail in Washington state, Wright said. “We have a case of pretty much market failure,” he said. “Twisted market forces have actually created higher costs for consumers and given them less choice.”

Providers of inmate calling services still charge prisoners and their families up to $3 to pay a phone bill and limit how much they can pay at one time, Wright said. “Who else is paying for the privilege of paying their phone bill?” These inmate calling companies charge prisoners upfront for calls and then pocket the money if they get early release, he said. “This is the type of inequality that has festered for far too long.”

Minorities are often left out in the mobile world, said Monica Martinez, adviser to Mobile Future and a former Michigan regulator. “When 59 percent of African-Americans in the survey we conducted viewed mobile as primarily a consumer tool and only 24 percent as an economic tool, that means we have work to do,” Martinez said. “When women account for only 5 percent of tech engineers and startup founders and when Latinas represent less than one percent of those with degrees in computer and info sciences, we have work to do.” Only 4.5 percent of those graduating with degrees in computer science and engineering are black and 6.5 percent Hispanic, she said. “We have work to do.”

On the healthcare panel, physician Chris Gibbons, an adviser to the FCC Connect2Health Task Force, said most patients and healthcare providers are now using broadband in some way: “It could be said we’re at broadband health 1.0, or starting things off.” Gibbons asked what 2.0 will look like. “How will it impact consumer health?” he asked. “Will it help improve healthcare or will it be entirely disruptive of healthcare?”

Americans already are wearing fitness trackers and smart clothing, Gibbons said. Some people are taking smart pills and others are being operated on by surgical robots, he said. “Those are not things in the future, those things are already happening.” Yinchuan, China, is viewed by many as the smartest city in the world, providing a look at the future, he said. People there no longer carry credit cards because of facial recognition technology that allows people to make a purchase, Gibbons said. No one shops for groceries -- they order food with an app and pick up a refrigerated lock box at a central location, he said.

Nokia sees connectivity as critical, said Ellis Lindsay, senior principal-IoT strategy. “In the U.S., we have 117 million people who have chronic conditions, half of those have more than one chronic condition,” he said. “That’s a huge amount of people and for us that is something that needs to be solved” and will require better use of technology, Lindsay said.