What Matters Most About Our National Broadband Plan: Bandwidth

[Commentary] Finally, ten years into the 21st century, America will have a plan for encouraging the deployment, adoption, and utilization of broadband. But how are we to judge the merit of the plan when it's made public? How will we know if as a whole it does enough to help our country realize its full digital potential? While there are many specific issues that are serious and contentious, there's one thing above all else that the plan must accomplish: making sure that Americans have access to bandwidth that's ever bigger, better, and less expensive. Bandwidth is what broadband delivers, the capacity to transfer data to be able to use all that the Internet has to offer in the way of content, services, and applications. Think of bandwidth as electricity, and broadband as the electric cables Americans need to their houses to get service.