FCC Focuses On Big-Picture Ideas At Broadband Workshop

The Federal Communications Commission's National Broadband Workshop on "Big Ideas" looked at how outside-the-box developments that could shape the future of broadband. They included the bifurcation of the Internet into a number of virtual private networks and the need for more research and development.

David Clark, professor and senior research scientist at MIT's computer lab dominated much of the conversation in the first half of the workshop, which focused on those big ideas. He was even asked to sit in on the following panel -- on Internet TV -- by impressed FCC staffers. In fact, all of the first panels' participants got high marks from staffers. Daniel Weitzner, from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, suggested bolting the panelists to the floor and make them write the broadband plan. Clark argued that wireless would not become a substitute for wired broadband, saying it would wind up being some combination of both. Fluidity was the concept he drove home, about both the state of broadband and how the national plan should be structured. He said the goal was not a one-time objective but a continuing process, which meant sustainability, a concept cable operators have long said was key to any government proposals.