FCC proposes a national broadband plan

LAST WEEK Reuters reported that the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) launched a series of high speed broadband proposals that it wants ISPs to put in to practice by 2020.

The FCC announced at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners conference that it wants US ISPs to deliver a hefty 100 Mbps to 100 million homes within just ten years. The FCC made the announcements early last week but reinforced its position with a news release and general statement on its national broadband plan by FCC chairman Julius Genachowski last Friday.

The FCC said, "Broadband can help the country achieve better results in important areas by facilitating the flow of information; removing barriers of time and space; and making data accessible for research, applications, and decision-making, all while protecting privacy."

It's a tall order. Removing Genachowski's barriers of time and space sounds like ISPs need to be well versed in quantum mechanics or string theory and the FCC only has a month to deliver its plans to Congress on March 17. But the FCC is insistent that "The working recommendations are designed to support America's competitive advantages in key sectors of the economy and society."

The logistics of rolling out 100 Mbps are dizzying and while Genachowski should be lauded in his attempt to offer high-speed broadband for one and all, he was lambasted by the media and analysts.

Up to a point, the naysayers have a point. As Reuters reported, the big telcos derided the plan. Most responses were diplomatic, suggesting they've achieved 100 Mbps in isolated research and development tests but couldn't envisage mass adoption roll out in ten years. However, AT&T, the biggest US telco of all kicked the FCC sandcastle over by saying the FCC should resist calls for "extreme forms of regulation that would cripple, if not destroy, the very investments needed to realize its goal."

Aside from concern over implementing the plan, it's also viable that the telcos saw the FCC's proposals for what they are - a carrot for the telcos along with the stick of regulation to get them to see the light on network neutrality.

Genachowski responded to the condemnation last Friday by saying, "The other day I spoke about a 100 megabit-100 household goal for broadband. Some folks called it 'just a dream'. But I think we must set ambitious goals for U.S. broadband."

It's big, it's brash, it's very American but what's wrong with that? Let's offset the FCC's proposals against Lord Mandelson's sudden personal vendetta against copyright infringement - oops, sorry - we mean the UK's Digital Economy Bill last year.

The Digital Economy Bill should've been an overarching bill designed as an enabler to push UK technology to the forefront, envied the world over. What did we get instead? 50p a month tax to fund broadband, another quango dedicated to death by committee and the nefarious Clause 17. Mandy thought it would "future-proof online copyright laws" but everyone else said it could breach human rights and give the government "unprecedented and sweeping powers" to amend copyright laws. So much so in fact, that Facebook, Google, Yahoo and Ebay wrote an open letter asking for Clause 17 to be removed from the Bill.

The only sane offering we've had from Gordon Brown this year was his scheme to offer free laptops and broadband for 270,000 poor families in January. The scheme was designed to allow poorer families access to their children's educational development and coincidentally gets the go ahead while election time looms.

Genachowski and the FCC must've been talking to Brown because they unveiled a carbon copy scheme last Friday. The FCC's plan, called E-rate, is to get high-speed Internet access for schools as part of the Universal Service Fund, a £5.1 billion US subsidy programme for low-income families for education and health service.

The E-rate scheme is a dusted off Clinton-era programme that has been given a new lick of paint to tie in with the National Broadband Plan so it's possible Brown first spied it a decade ago. If so, the FCC might have seen Brown's free laptop scheme and realised it could re-open its own E-rate push within the framework of the National Broadband Plan.

That the FCC is looting or at the very least paying homage to our only decent idea for its National Broadband Plan isn't the problem. The thing that galls the most is that we don't have the infrastructure, where-with-all or will to put a similarly ambitious framework in place. µ