FCC Sends National Broadband Plan to Congress

The Federal Communications Commission delivered "Connecting America: The National Broadband Plan" to Congress on Tuesday. The Plan's call for action over the next decade includes the following goals and recommendations:

1. Connect 100 million households to affordable 100-megabits-per-second service, building the world's largest market of high-speed broadband users and ensuring that new jobs and businesses are created in America.
2. Affordable access in every American community to ultra-high-speed broadband of at least 1 gigabit per second at anchor institutions such as schools, hospitals, and military installations so that America is hosting the experiments that produce tomorrow's ideas and industries.
3. Ensure that the United States is leading the world in mobile innovation by making 500 megahertz of spectrum newly available for licensed and unlicensed use.
4. Move our adoption rates from roughly 65 percent to more than 90 percent and make sure that every child in America is digitally literate by the time he or she leaves high school.
5. Bring affordable broadband to rural communities, schools, libraries, and vulnerable populations by transitioning existing Universal Service Fund support from yesterday's analog technologies to tomorrow's digital infrastructure.
6. Promote competition across the broadband ecosystem by ensuring greater transparency, removing barriers to entry, and conducting market-based analysis with quality data on price, speed, and availability.
7. Enhance the safety of the American people by providing every first responder with access to a nationwide, wireless, interoperable public safety network.

Phoebe Yang, general counsel for the national broadband plan team said that as a result of the plan, more than 40 proceedings will be presented to the FCC. Of these, she said half are focused on applications, while a quarter involve the Universal Service program and intercarrier compensation. The rest involve public safety, she said.

Congress will be asked to take action on three areas, Yang said. These include funding for the proposed national broadband wireless public safety network and optional funding to accelerate broadband deployment goals. She also said Congressional action would be sought on certain matters pertaining to accelerating broadband adoption.