President Donald Trump's FCC, Led by Chairman Brendan Carr, Stopped Short of Declaring the Mission Accomplished

The Federal Communications Commission has quietly abandoned its most ambitious broadband goal, scrapping the long-term target of gigabit-speed internet for every American in its latest broadband deployment report. The report, mandated by the 1996 Telecommunications Act, marks a notable shift in tone from the previous assessment issued under President Joe Biden's FCC. The new document opens by stating that "high-speed broadband is often essential to full participation in modern society, a subtle but significant change from the earlier language that called access "essential to full participation in modern life.

"That word 'often' — the fifth word in the whole report — just sets the entire tone that suddenly broadband is not as important as it was five years ago, Christopher Ali, a professor of telecommunications at Penn State University, told CNET. President Donald Trump's FCC, led by Chairman Brendan Carr, stopped short of declaring the mission accomplished. "The digital divide is rapidly closing.

And a range of data sets show that speeds are up, prices are down, and competition is intensifying, Carr said in a statement. The report says 96.9% of Americans now have access to speeds of 100Mbps download and 20Mbps upload, the standard the Commission adopted in 2024. However, those figures are self-reported by internet service providers, and some experts remain skeptical. "I still think there are ISPs reporting exactly 100/20Mbps speed capability to the FCC while delivering something slower, Doug Dawson, a broadband expert and author of the industry blog Pots and Pans, wrote in a post.

Carr voted against the 100/20Mbps standard two years ago and opposed the long-term goal of 1,000/500Mbps, calling it a "Trojan Horse to exclude fixed wireless" that would lead to "wasteful overbuilding. That gig-speed goal is now eliminated, with the Commission arguing it was unfairly biased against slower technologies like fixed wireless and satellite. "At present, it is impossible to predict long-term technological developments and the evolution of consumer preferences, the report says.

"The private sector, driven by competition, does not need the Commission to centrally plan technological development. The report's rosy picture of US broadband is complicated by the reality of satellite service. Ali noted that the claim of 99.7% national access relies heavily on Starlink, whose fastest plan advertises 320/40Mbps but delivers far less in practice.

Ookla data shows the median Starlink customer received 127/21Mbps in the first quarter of 2026, barely meeting the current definition of broadband. Anna Gomez, the only Democrat on the commission, rejected the reasoning. "Lowering standards to ensure certain technologies can meet a benchmark is the opposite of technological neutrality, Gomez wrote.

She cited a Penn State University X-Lab analysis finding that Starlink can support only 6.66 households per square mile before speeds drop below the 100/20Mbps mark. Fiber remains the only connection type capable of meeting the scrapped gig-speed goal, though cable companies are approaching it through network upgrades. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres had previously called broadband access "a matter of life and death" during the COVID-19 pandemic. The FCC report argued the gig-speed goal "could appear to violate our obligation to conduct our analysis in a technologically neutral manner.