The National Broadband Plan at 10: What’s Next?

Eleven years ago Congress asked for a National Broadband Plan. Ten years ago, we delivered it. If Congress were to ask for such a plan for the next decade, what would it contain?  What did we learn from doing the 2010 Plan that would be useful for a team doing one in 2021 to know? I will address those questions by discussing four key differences between then and now, delineating three key learnings, and closing with some eternal truths that animated our effort and should animate the next as well as making one quick suggestion relating to broadband in time of the coronavirus. By way of background, the 2010 National Broadband Plan addressed three primary questions:

• How to get networks everywhere;
• How to get everyone on; and
• How to use the platform to improve the delivery of public services and create improved public goods.

Those questions remain relevant, but the inquiries today would be much broader, due to a number of changes.

[Blair Levin oversaw the development of the FCC’s 2010 National Broadband Plan. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler cited Mr. Levin’s work, noting “no one’s done more to advance broadband expansion and competition through the vision of the National Broadband Plan and Gig.U.”]