NTCA: Rural broadband on the rise, but NBP concerns loom

The National Telecommunications Cooperative Association (NTCA) said that adoption of its broadband services among customers of its member companies jumped to about 55 percent in 2010, from about 38 percent a year earlier. Also, 45 percent of rural broadband customers get access at speeds of 6 Mb/s or more, according to the 12th annual NTCA 2010 Broadband/Internet Availability report.

The report was constructed from a survey that 115 NTCA member companies—about 23 percent of the overall membership—responded to, and all of the responding companies offered broadband in some form. That fact itself represents a big change from the 2009 report, in which 58 percent of respondents said their companies offered broadband services. Some of the NTCA report figures appear in line with somewhat older data announced by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration last fall.

The increased adoption seems to reflect an increase in broadband deployment among rural service providers over the last two years, some of which might have been driven by federal broadband stimulus funds. However, in announcing the new figures, the NTCA said the majority of members also expressed concern that regulatory uncertainty surrounding the Federal Communication Commission’ National Broadband Plan could threaten to slow down the sudden rural broadband juggernaut.

Among other findings, about 94 percent of respondents offered DSL-based broadband. Perhaps more surprising, the percentage of those who offer broadband via fiber to the home or fiber to the curb stands at 68 percent, and the NTCA said fiber deployment was up 15 percent year over year.

Beyond broadband access, about 73 percent of respondents offer video services, and more than 80 percent said they plan to do so by the end of 2012. Still, access to affordable programming remains the most obvious hurdle for most of them to overcome, a sentiment expressed by almost all (96%) of survey respondents.