With New Report FCC Makes a Bid for Universal Broadband

[Commentary] Regardless of what statements and actions come from the latest Federal Communications Commission broadband report, there's at least one sign of a step forward in the actual definition of "broadband," which as recently as 2008 was considered by the FCC to be 200 kbps down.

The new standards, which were initially suggested in the National Broadband Plan, are four Mbps down and one Mbps up. Fiber technologies already trump this minimum definition, but fiber-to-the-home is expensive — even in non-rural areas. The FCC's newest findings, then, could give additional life to DSL, which although prominent, is seen as a slower pipe with its use of copper for the last mile instead of fiber optics. A more likely solution for covering the broadband "black hole" that tens of millions now face is wireless as the last mile -- carriers wouldn't have to wire each individual home in rural areas. Instead, their wire investment would be limited to single lines of backhaul to towers among the fields and forests.