Today, the FCC hosted a panel of experts for the latest workshop in their broadband series, entitled “Building the Fact Base: The State of Broadband Adoption and Utilization.” Each of the following panelists gave a short presentation and then answered questions both from the FCC and the public.

•    Susannah Fox, Associate Director, Digital Strategy, Pew Internet & American Life Project

•    Peter L. Stenberg, Ph.D., Senior Economist, Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture

•    Christopher Guttman-McCabe, Vice-President, Regulatory Affairs, CTIA-The Wireless Association

•    Link Hoewing, Vice President of Internet and Technology Policy, Verizon

•    Karen Archer Perry, Director of the Connected Communities Team, Knight Center of Digital Excellence

•    Kate Williams, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign Graduate School of Library and Information Science

The workshop covered a wide range of topics from digital literacy to privacy to generational and demographic differences.  But the bottom line was clear: The primary obstacle to adoption is not access, but understanding value.

Pew Internet is considered one of the best sources of data on broadband adoption.  Susannah Fox shared key findings in her presentation including:

•Broadband adoption is up, especially for older Americans, lower income groups, and in rural areas.
•Broadband users value their increased access to health and medical information, civic life and economic opportunities.
•Non-users most often cite factors relating to relevance of the Internet to their lives as reasons for non-adoption.
•Price and availability are lesser issues when it comes to broadband adoption.

Link Hoewing of Verizon shared industry data in his presentation, demonstrating how time spent online has dramatically increased, across generations and technologies.

Overall, panelists agreed that digital literacy is critical to broadband adoption, and adoption is critical to society and democracy.  It is now up to policymakers and communities to develop innovative approaches to help more Americans cross the digital divide.

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