FCC: $4.5 Billion Connect America Fund Will Bring Broadband And Jobs

Three weeks after the FCC voted to convert its decades-old telephone subsidy program to a broadband expansion fund, the Commission formally released the order.

“The agency's Universal Service Fund was originally designed to subsidize landline phone access in rural areas. Under the new plan, the $4.5 billion high-cost portion of the fund will be renamed the ‘Connect America Fund’ and will be used to expand broadband Internet access.”

The new program is funded consumer charges, but according to an FCC spokesman, the costs will not only increase broadband use, they will fuel growth of over 500,000 jobs over the next six years. In an interview in the National Journal, an FCC spokesman detailed the projected spurt in employment  

“Conservatively, a 1 percent increase in broadband deployment will increase the rate of employment by between 0.14 and 0.5 percentage point.

“Over the next five years, we expect 3.6 million rural households to gain access to high-speed Internet through our reforms, a gain of about 10.2 percent. The 10.2 percent deployment gain could increase employment by between 1.45-4.11 percentage points, creating between 320,000 to 905,000 more jobs, based on a rural workforce of 22 million.”

Speed Matters believes that Americans need both improved connectivity, and increased employment, and fully support this move by the FCC.

FCC Releases Connect America Fund Order, Reforms USF/ICC for Broadband (FCC website)

FCC releases order to overhaul telephone subsidy (The Hill, Nov. 21, 2011)

FCC Says Broadband Expansion Will Add Jobs (National Journal, Nov. 21, 2011)