The FCC released the Sixth Broadband Deployment Report. Due to the FCC changing the definition of broadband from the decade old standard of 200 Kbps downstream, most DSL won't count as Broadband since the FCC now defines broadband as 4 Mbps downstream and 1 Mbps upstream. In accordance with that, you would expect the report to state that hundreds of millions of Americans cannot get broadband, but  "The report, based on data provided by service providers for December 2008, found that between 14 million and 24 million U.S. residents (which is about 4.5% to 8% of the U.S. population) cannot get broadband where they live." [source]  That's less than I expected.

Cable, FTTH, FiOS and U-Verse may deliver the requisite speeds to be defined as broadband. However all the 3MB and 1.5MB DSL out there is now discounted.  

"The FCC concludes that "Broadband is not being deployed to all Americans in a timely and orderly fashion."

No kidding. But when the NTIA takes 18 months to issue just the Phase I winners, what do you expect? When you announce $7B up for grabs and it can't be used for current projects -- all projects halt.  Then Congress sees that the money wasn't spent and takes some of it. Really smart.

"The National Broadband plan model and Form 477 data show that 14 million Americans in 7 million housing units cannot get the 4 Mbps/1 Mbps broadband service. Based on the Form 477 subscribership data, 1,024 counties out of the 3,230 in the United States are counted as un-served areas--where less than 1% of households have subscribed to broadband services." [source]

"As a consequence of this conclusion, section 706 of the 1996 Telecommunications Act mandates the FCC to "take immediate action to accelerate deployment of [advanced telecommunications] capability by removing barriers to infrastructure investment and promoting competition in the telecommunications market". This gives the commission a mandate to implement proposals for commission actions that form the national broadband plan." [source]

So manipulating the 477 data with the new definition gives the FCC the mandate to make some moves, which is certainly making the ILEC's mad.