[Commentary] With the digital television transition (mostly) behind the Federal Communications Commission, it now faces a February 17, 2010 deadline to deliver Congress a National Broadband Plan. The challenge will be to find a spur to deployment that does not discourage the private-sector investment that will be crucial to its success. FCC Chairman Michael Copps has said that charting the broadband course will be the most important thing the FCC has ever done, and he is not overstating the case. That's because it goes far beyond communications or entertainment or even education into every corner of the economy—from medicine to energy to just about everything else we do, from shopping to banking to finding a mate. Community is not about geography; it is about electronic connectivity. Some agencies have already made it easier and cheaper to do business online. Unless we make sure that every school and library has the Internet, and as many households as humanly possible, that will be the equivalent of taxing the least able to pay. Only a little more than half the population subscribes to an ISP, though over 90% have the option. That has to change.
