FCC Announces National Broadband Plan

In early 2009, Congress directed the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to develop a National Broadband Plan to ensure every American has “access to broadband capability.” Congress also required that this plan include a detailed strategy for achieving affordability and maximizing use of broadband to advance “consumer welfare, civic participation, public safety and homeland security, community development, health care delivery, energy independence and efficiency, education, employee training, private sector investment, entrepreneurial activity, job creation and economic growth, and other national purposes.”

The plan detailed below aims to fulfill Congress’s mandate...

The Plan
Government can influence the broadband ecosystem in four ways:
1. Design policies to ensure robust competition and, as a result maximize consumer welfare, innovation and investment.
2. Ensure efficient allocation and management of assets government controls or influences, such as spectrum, poles, and rights-of-way, to encourage network upgrades and competitive entry.
3. Reform current universal service mechanisms to support deployment of broadband and voice in high-cost areas; and ensure that low-income Americans can afford broadband; and in addition, support efforts to boost adoption and utilization.
4. Reform laws, policies, standards and incentives to maxi- mize the benefits of broadband in sectors government influ- ences significantly, such as public education, health care and government operations.


Long-Term Goals
1: at least 100 million u.s. homes should have affordable access to actual download speeds of at least 100 megabits per second and actual upload speeds of at least 50 megabits per second.
2: the united states should lead the world in mobile innovation, with the fastest and most extensive wireless networks of any nation.
3: every american should have affordable ac- cess to robust broadband service, and the means and skills to subscribe if they so choose.
4: every american community should have affordable access to at least 1 gigabit per second broadband service to anchor institutions such as schools, hospitals and government buildings.
5: to ensure the safety of the american people, every first responder should have access to a nationwide, wireless, interoperable broadband public safety network.
6: to ensure that america leads in the clean energy economy, every american should be able to use broadband to track and manage their real-time energy consumption.

Hit the link to read the plan in its entirety.

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