Two companies miss FCC deadline to roll out broadband to rural areas by Christopher Hutton Print this article Advocates for infrastructure expansion typically note how a lack of broadband or internet access is the inability to access healthcare.
CenturyLink and Frontier Communications, two of the more notable internet companies, received $789 million from the Federal Communications Commission in 2015 to expand broadband access to rural communities by the end of 2020. Both companies failed to meet the deadline.
Rural communities have often suffered from a lack of access to fixed broadband services at threshold speeds. A recent report from the FCC found that “approximately 19 million Americans, or 6% of the population, still lack access to fixed broadband service at threshold speeds. In rural areas, nearly one-fourth of the population, 14.5 million people, lack access to this service.” As of 2021, the FCC defines the current threshold speed