FCC Moving 'Full Speed Ahead' on Broadband Plan

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Copps will appear on C-SPAN's "The Communicators" on Saturday. "I'm enthused as I can be that this country is finally, finally going to develop a national broadband plan," he said in the interview while lamenting the number of years that had passed while the previous administration assumed a laissez-faire, or free-market-based, strategy would solve the nation's broadband problems. "That didn't happen," Chairman Copps bluntly declared. To craft a plan, Copps said the FCC must first lay groundwork by doing research to "develop the record... do the mapping... and find the reality of the situation right now." Chairman Copps said he is not underestimating the importance of the FCC's task: "It's the biggest thing that's come to the FCC since I've been there," he said. Building a national broadband network is akin to previous efforts at rural electrification, universal phone service, and interstate highways, Copps said. Building projects of that scale requires cooperation between government and industry, he said.