On Its 12th Anniversary, It’s Clear The 2010 US ‘Broadband Plan’ Was A Colossal Dud

March 16 was the 12th anniversary of the release Federal Communications Commission’s National Broadband Plan (NBP). In March of 2010, the FCC responded to Congress’s direction to develop a plan for broadband with the intent to ensure every American has “access to broadband capability.” This proposal was assembled with input across 36 public workshops, 31 public notices, 9 public hearings, and approximately 23,000 comments from more than 700 parties. The NBP was ambitious, and first among its six stated objectives was the metric that, “at least 100 million US homes should have affordable access to actual download speeds of at least 100 megabits per second and actual upload speeds of at least 50 megabits per second.” The FCC’s objectives for broadband deployment remain unfilled to this day. In fact, it is arguable that the FCC has been unable to achieve any of the stated objectives during the 4383 days since the plan was launched. There are a range of theories about why the National Broadband Plan has been such a colossal policy disaster. I offer an alternative theory: the FCC’s loss of the initial net neutrality case, Comcast Corp. v. FCC, derailed the implementation of the National Broadband Plan just 21 days after it was released.

[Christopher Terry is an assistant professor of media law in the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota and a research fellow for the Center for Quantum Networks.]