FCC Releases 2011 Rural Broadband Report

On June 22, the FCC, in consultation with RUS, released Bringing Broadband to Rural America: Update to Report on a Rural Broadband Strategy.

The 2008 Farm Bill required the FCC to submit to Congress a report describing a “comprehensive rural broadband strategy.”  This report was completed in 2009.  The report released yesterday is an update of that report.  The report focuses on actions at the FCC, RUS and NTIA “to meet the demand for affordable, high quality broadband services in rural communities, including historic investments made under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.”  The report finds that “While significant progress has been made to increase rural broadband deployment and adoption since the publication of the 2009 Rural Broadband Report, and a number of private- and public-sector initiatives are underway, additional efforts and new policies—including major universal service policy reform—are still required to ensure that rural America fully shares in the benefits of the emerging broadband economy.”