Here’s the Broadband Plan. What's Next?
Real Work of National Broadband Rollout Begins in Months Ahead
By John Eggerton -- Multichannel News, 3/22/2010 12:17:09 PM
Washington — What now? That seemed to be the operative question coming out of the Federal Communications Commission’s unveiling last week of a national broadband plan whose main components had already been announced and analyzed.
Because there were no action items, the overwhelming reaction from industry and activist groups alike was modest applause for the effort and pledges to work together on solutions.
The FCC vote was unanimous — not on the plan itself — but on what amounted to a proclamation of sorts that broadband was vital and the nation sure needs to get more of it and do more with it.
The next step for the FCC will be to propose rulemakings — likely every month and far into the future — which will require comments, reply comments, workshops and public hearings, not to mention blogging and crowd sourcing.
“The market will not feel an immediate impact, and, like any major policy proposal, the long-term benefits will only be as strong as the FCC’s will to push back against the incumbents’ relentless lobbying and legal challenges, and turn the plan into reality,” said Free Press executive director Josh Silver.
Since this was a report to Congress, the relevant House and Senate committees scheduled the first two hearings for this week (March 23 in the Senate, March 23 in the House), with a hearing in the Senate Small Business Committee within the next few weeks. Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) who put the broadband plan mandate in the stimulus bill, has already introduced a bill implementing some of the online energy monitoring portions of the plan.
More than half of the recommendations in the plan the FCC can handle on its own authority. The majority of the rest of them are directions to various government agencies; a handful are action items for Congress.
By 2020, according to the plan, 100 million homes (or the vast majority of the approximately 129 million total) should have access to aff ordable high-speed broadband (at speeds of 100 Megabits per second for downloads and 50 Mbps for uploads), and the vast majority — 90% to 100% — should have adopted it.
The FCC hopes the plan will bring about other positive benefits, such as managing energy use, controlling health-care costs and training and educating citizens.
For broadcasters, the plan means trying to figure out how quickly and how voluntarily the government plans to take back 120 Megahertz of its spectrum (it occupies a little north of 290 Mhz, having already given back more than 108 MHz in the transition to digital broadcasting). The FCC is looking to use some of the billions of dollars it anticipates getting from spectrum auctions to help pay for some of its proposals.
For cable operators, it means figuring out just how the commission plans to spur competition in the marketplace and whether that will mean forcing providers to open up to competitors the networks they have invested billions in and imposing a one-size-fits all gateway device to turn TV sets into broadband adoption-driving computer monitors, among other things.
Then there is the specter of the commission reclassifying broadband as a Title II telecommunications service, which would mean common carrier style access regs.
Media Access Project President Andrew Schwartzman said he thinks the wireless companies will be the big winners down the road “if the commission succeeds in diverting substantial amounts of spectrum to broadband,” and cable carriers will benefit from the adoption side if more folks can be sold on the value of broadband service.
Schwartzman said he doesn’t expect any of the legislative proposals to see any action in Congress this year.
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