FCC Offers Its Comprehensive Broadband Vision

After a year of preparation, the Federal Communications Commission presented its National Broadband Plan to Congress today. The $20-billion plan, rolled up into a 360-page document, aims at ending the broadband disparity that exists across the country and boosting the availablity and speeds of the U.S.’s br0adband network.

The plan’s goals include making broadband available to all U.S. residents, boosting broadband adoption from 65 percent to better than 90 percent, getting affordable, 100 Mbps broadband into 100 million homes by 2020, increasing the available spectrum for mobile broadband by 500 MHz within 10 years, and offering access of speeds of 1 Gbps in all American communities for hospitals and other institutions within 10 years.

President Obama lauded the plan and stated: “My Administration will build upon our efforts over the past year to make America’s nationwide broadband infrastructure the world’s most powerful platform for economic growth and prosperity, including improving access to mobile broadband, maximizing technology innovation, and supporting a nationwide, interoperable public safety wireless broadband network.”

Sketching out a rough plan on paper is the easy part; the FCC and U.S. government face a rough road in actually implementing the plan. The FCC will need to vote on the more than 200 recommendations contained within the plan, and some aspects will require official action from Congress. Congress will likely grapple over the cost of individual pieces of the proposal, and parties such as television broadcasters, telecommunications companies and consumer interest groups are expected to oppose certain aspects.

[via Channel Web, Washington Post,  PC World and WSJ]