From the viewpoint of content distributors, online services and consumers’ viewpoint, the chairman of the US’ broadband regulatory agency is saying the right things. Julius Genachowski of the FCC talked to a meeting of state regulators, the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, about the FCC’s coming National Broadband Plan. He said, ‘Our plan will set goals to have the world’s largest market of very high speed Internet users.’
Genachowski said the plan will include a goal of having 100 million
households with ‘very high-speed’ connections of 100 megabits per second by 2020. He said the FCC wants to motivate the build-out of more highspeed broadband networks like the 100 Gbps one that Google announced last week. ‘The national broadband plan will set goals that are ambitious, but achievable,’ Genachowski said.
He said what many US consumers expect: ‘The US should lead the world in ultra-high-speed broadband test beds as fast as or faster than anywhere in the world.’ The US Congress has mandated the FCC to complete a National Broadband Plan by March 17.
The 100 million homes are about 90% of US residences. Most counts put broadband residence penetration in the 55% to 65% range, but that involves much lower speeds that probably average 3 to 6 Mbps. A recent report from Akamai said the average speed was 3.9 Mbps.
Genachowski listed other goals of the plan:
– Increase Internet connections in schools.
– Equip more rural medical clinics with broadband.
– Lower the cost of building broadband connections by allowing service providers to use government-owned rights-of-way.
– Free more spectrum for mobile broadband, both for licensed and unlicensed use, which could include Wi-Fi connections and white spaces as well as cellular broadband.
‘We should stretch beyond 100 Mbps,’ he said. ‘In the global race
to the top, this plan will help ensure that America has the infrastructure
to host the boldest innovations that can be imagined.’
Genachowski did not detail what financial incentives, if any, the government should offer service providers other than to say the broadband plan will recommend reform of a federal phone fund that would convert it over time to support broadband Internet.
‘In the global race to the top, this plan will help ensure that America has the infrastructure to host the boldest innovations that can be imagined,’ he said. ‘Google announced a one gigabit test-bed initiative just a few days ago ‘ and we need others to drive competition to invent the future.’