To further realign our section 706 inquiry with the statute's plain language, we intend to focus our inquiry on whether advanced telecommunications capability "is being deployed," rather than whether it already has been deployed, as was the focus of the 2024 Report. We believe that the prior Report's binary interpretation of the threshold for issuing a passing or failing grade in the ultimate section 706 finding effectively read the "reasonable and timely" language out of the statute. That interpretation seemingly found anything short of 100% was insufficient to warrant a passing grade and thus disregarded Congress's use of the present progressive tense in "is being deployed." Moreover, we believe that assessing the progress at which advanced telecommunications capability is being deployed would provide far more—and more helpful—information to Congress and the public than an overly simplistic inquiry into whether or not 100% of Americans already have access to such capability.
Carr's proposal, which was released on Thursday & is scheduled for a vote on August 7, criticized the previous administration's approach. Carr intends to focus the next #FCC inquiry on the statute's "is being deployed" phrase rather than looking at whether broadband […]
[Original post on masto.ai]