FCC Broadband Technology Workshop

On August 13, 2009, the Federal Communications Commission held a National Broadband Plan workshop focused on "fixed" broadband featuring researchers, technology developers and business planners. The workshop was organized in two panel sessions. One discussed Broadband Vision and the other Fixed Broadband Technologies. Perhaps the most challenging consensus presented by the Broadband Vision panelists was that our need for broadband will continue to grow far beyond today's performance capabilities. This was responded to by panelists from the Broadband Technologies session who indicated that for cable, fiber and DSL technologies, evolution strategies were in play to meet this challenge supporting bit rates an order of magnitude higher or more than at present. Another challenging view presented was that utilization of broadband infrastructure should be maximized to ensure participation by the greatest number of innovators and that, to the fullest extent possible, the network should be transparent to the applications it supports. As noted by one researcher, such transparency would further development of applications and lower barriers to use by individuals. He also noted that as the nation becomes more dependent upon a broadband infrastructure, other factors such as reliability, security, etc. will need to be included in an evolving definition of broadband.