CDT: Define Broadband to Ensure Full Benefits of Basic Unrestricted Internet Access

Broadband must be defined and promoted in such a way as to ensure that its deployment will offer the full benefits of basic unrestricted Internet access, and not just narrower, purpose-built services which, although they may fulfill some specific public purposes, lack the robust access to diverse content and capacity for innovation that is the hallmark of the Internet. Failing to build networks that encompass the full features of the Internet would be counterproductive to the myriad benefits Congress articulated in enacting the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The definition should also be flexible enough to allow and encourage not only improvements in transmission capacity and data throughput, but also the unimagined innovative services that a robust national general-purpose Internet infrastructure will foster.