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Trump's FCC Chairman Pick Ajit Pai Vows To Close Broadband 'Digital Divide' (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On his first full day as Federal Communications Commission Chairman, Republican Ajit Pai yesterday spoke to FCC staff and said one of his top priorities will be bringing broadband to all Americans. "One of the most significant things that I've seen during my time here is that there is a digital divide in this country -- between those who can use cutting-edge communications services and those who do not," Pai said (transcript). "I believe one of our core priorities going forward should be to close that divide -- to do what's necessary to help the private sector build networks, send signals, and distribute information to American consumers, regardless of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or anything else. We must work to bring the benefits of the digital age to all Americans." Pai promised to "hear all points of view -- to approach every issue with a literal open door and a figurative open mind," as the FCC "confronts this and many other challenges." Pai didn't offer any specific initiatives for closing the digital divide yesterday, but in September 2016 he outlined a "digital empowerment agenda." The plan included "remov[ing] regulatory barriers to broadband deployment," changes to pole attachment rules, and "dig once" policies that install broadband conduit when roads are dug up during any road and highway construction project. He also proposed setting aside 10 percent of spectrum auction proceeds for deployment of mobile broadband in rural areas. Pai suggested requiring mobile carriers to build out service to 95 percent of the population in areas where they have spectrum licenses; he noted that some licenses only required service for 66 percent or 75 percent of residents, a problem in sparsely populated rural areas. At the same time, he proposed extending initial spectrum license terms from 10 years to 15 years to give the carriers more time to complete the construction. Pai also proposed creating "gigabit opportunity zones" in areas where average household income is below 75 percent of the national median. In these areas, state and local lawmakers would have to "adopt streamlined, broadband deployment-friendly policies," and there would be tax incentives and tax credits for companies building high-speed networks.
Pai was appointed to the commission by Obama in 2012, so we can answer that based on what he's supported and opposed over the last five years.
In his dissents, Pai has repeatedly expressed his frustration with the commission setting minimums with no reference to changing technology and consumer expectations. He supports looking at the speeds actually ordered by consumers who *do* have the choice, and setting new rules based on that, rather than picking a number out of a bureaucrat's ass - and using completely different numbers from month to month.
Available speeds have increased in the last couple of years, so by the chairman's preferred methodology standards should be higher now than in 2015, but in 2015 he said the commission's standard of 10 Mbps in rural areas was too slow, arguing that 25 Mbps would be better:
https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_pub...
Before that, he reasoned that since Netflix customers stream at 3.2 Mbps on average, a true 10 Mbps connection would allow 3 concurrent streams - so here we see his idea of "broadband" gets faster over time.
The new chairman argued strenuously that the FCC should not adopt regulations that discouraged gigabit - the rule enacted by the Democrat majority encouraged 10Mbps and 25Mbps connections in lieu of gigabit, he argued.
He would in general rather promote competition and then gtf out of the way and let companies offer gigabit or whatever, rather than micro-managing, declaring that they must offer exactly this or that. In constrast, the rules enacted by his colleagues were much more along the lines of "Verizon must offer 10 Mbps DSL in these areas" kinds of rules. (Of course the rule is written as "an incumbent telco carrier operating blah blah blah", a description which describes only Verizon).
Anyway, to answer your question, his position is that 10 Mbps was too slow in 2015, it should have been 25 Mbps back then, and it should get faster with time based on what consumers who have the choice actually select.