Rural Broadband Scarcity Probed in Senate Hearing
The FCC must make certain universal service funding is “adequate and predictable” to support broadband in rural areas, said Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., at a hearing Tuesday on advancing rural IoT opportunities. To thrive, IoT technologies must have reliable and secure broadband services, Wicker said, urging the FCC to collect accurate information on broadband programs before making new funding decisions. Funding should be targeted to “communities in need,” he said.
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Witnesses representing farming, healthcare, energy and community organizations said they are hampered by insufficient broadband availability in rural areas. To meet the growing global demand for food, estimated to be 60 percent higher by 2050, growers need to produce more with less, said Tim Hassinger, president of Lindsay Corp., a Nebraska-based producer of agricultural irrigation systems. “Broadband access is the key to unlocking the power of those technologies.” Rural communities depend on radio networks, satellite or cell service -- all of which typically operate at lower speeds, limiting connectivity, Hassinger said.
"What happens to farmers that can’t access broadband?" asked Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb. Roughly 30 percent aren’t getting access to sophisticated technologies, Hassinger said. Farmers can use the latest advances in IoT only if they have reliable high-speed broadband service, and "for nearly 39 percent of the rural population (23.4 million Americans), it's simply not available," Hassinger said. To address that, the FCC needs to make sure broadband mapping studies provide granular information that clearly identifies broadband gaps, Fischer told us. Wicker meantime said he would include into the hearing record a letter from the Competitive Carriers Association that warned that "absent policy decisions to preserve and expand mobile broadband in rural America, the future of IoT in rural areas will be limited."
Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, raised concerns about the FCC considering a change in the regulatory definition of broadband service as measured by speed, set now at 25 Mbps but potentially to be lowered to 10 Mbps (see 1709200042). "All they're doing is playing with words rather than giving people access to broadband," Schatz said. He asked witnesses if they know of any community of users asking for such a change. "It's illogical," said Michael Terzich, chief administration officer of Zebra Technologies, maker of enterprise IoT solutions. Changing speed definitions would affect rural areas that already struggle with a broadband deficit, said Angela Siefer, National Digital Inclusion Alliance executive director.
Siefer told Wicker FCC Form 477 data collection, which surveys broadband deployment, "isn't as accurate as it could be." She's concerned the survey exaggerates the number of rural residents that get broadband because it declares an entire census block served even if there is just one user. The form "should be better quantified" and it should provide information on broadband speed and cost of service, Siefer said.
Several senators supported more-robust cybersecurity for IoT, which could be called the "internet of threats," said Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who plugged his 2017 Cyber Shield Act (see 1710270043). S-2020 sets up a voluntary standard for IoT device certification. The bill would enable consumers to choose safe devices, Markey said, quizzing panelists whether they thought it was a good idea. "In a word, no," said David Armitage, CEO of Cartasite, which provides security solutions for energy companies. The pace of innovation is so rapid that "any regulatory standards we could put in place could provide a bull's-eye for bad actors," Armitage said.
Schatz asked Terzich whether there should be minimum IOT security standards. Security is a "central part of the equation with our enterprise customers," Terzich said. He supported some type of cross-industry standardization of security standards because of the proliferation of devices. He asked the subcommittee to support legislation that promotes the deployment of mobile broadband networks and directs the NTIA and FCC to allocate more commercial licensed and unlicensed spectrum in a technology-neutral way.