Wednesday, May 6, 2009

FCC National Broadband Plan: The Development Approach

I've been writing about the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Notice of Inquiry (NOI) to develop a modern national broadband plan that will seek to ensure that every American has access to broadband capability. The NOI is currently open for comment until June 8 with FCC reply to comments on July 7.

The 59 page report starts with an introduction and some background I've summarized in prior posts. Today I wanted to begin taking a look at the Discussion section of the report - what most consider to be the "meat". The section begins with covering the approach the FCC is taking to develop the plan and asks how the Commission can identify and promote the best and most efficient means of achieving this congressional mandate.

Here's a list of the important questions the FCC is seeking comment on:

How should broadband capability be defined going forward, and what does it mean to have access to it?

How can the FCC provide “an analysis of the most effective and efficient mechanisms for ensuring broadband access by all people of the United States.”

can the FCC develop “a detailed strategy for achieving affordability of such service and maximum utilization of broadband infrastructure and service by the public.”

How can the FCC evaluate “the status of deployment of broadband service, including progress of projects supported by the grants made pursuant to this section.”

can the FCC develop “a plan for use of broadband infrastructure and services in advancing” a variety of policy goals.

can the FCC evaluate the development of a national broadband plan in light of a variety of other related statutory directives and whether additional elements should be included in the national broadband plan.

Finally, because this plan will not be solely the FCC’s to implement, the FCC seeks comment on how the Commission, in both the development and implementation of a national broadband plan, should work collaboratively with other agencies at all levels of government, with consumers, with the private sector, and with other organizations.

How will it be done? The FCC hopes to answer these questions by establishing four primary goals and benchmarks:
  1. Defining Broadband Capability
  2. Defining Access to Broadband
  3. Measuring Progress
  4. Role of Market Analysis
In future posts I'll take a look at each of these primary goals and will comment.

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