FCC Releases Exec Summary of Natl Broadband Plan

The FCC just released an executive summary showcasing the highlights of its National Broadband Plan, which will be presented to Congress tomorrow during an all-day presentation, and released for public consumption on Wednesday. The creation of the plan was mandated by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), which also funded the broadband stimulus program.

The Plan’s call for action over the next decade includes the following goals and recommendations:

• Connect 100 million households to affordable 100-megabits-per-second service, building the world’s largest market of high-speed broadband users and ensuring that new jobs and businesses are created in America.
• Affordable access in every American community to ultra-high-speed broadband of at least 1 gigabit per second at anchor institutions such as schools, hospitals, and military installations so that America is hosting the experiments that produce tomorrow’s ideas and industries.
• Ensure that the United States is leading the world in mobile innovation by making 500 megahertz of spectrum newly available for licensed and unlicensed use.
• Move our adoption rates from roughly 65 percent to more than 90 percent and make sure that every child in America is digitally literate by the time he or she leaves high school.
• Bring affordable broadband to rural communities, schools, libraries, and vulnerable populations by transitioning existing Universal Service Fund support from yesterday’s analog technologies to tomorrow’s digital infrastructure.
• Promote competition across the broadband ecosystem by ensuring greater transparency, removing barriers to entry, and conducting market-based analysis with quality data on price, speed, and availability.
• Enhance the safety of the American people by providing every first responder with access to a nationwide, wireless, interoperable public safety network.

Tomorrow’s presentation will be streamed live online. Visit Broadband.gov for streaming information.
For more, read the Executive Summary, and stay tuned to NTCA’s Washington Report.

A quick post script : YouTube will host FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski on Tuesday, March 16. The chairman will answer questions submitted by YouTube users prior to the event. Visit CitizenTube for more information.
And Carol Mattey, Chief, Common Carrier Bureau at the FCC, just confirmed that she will report on the National Broadband Plan at the 2010 IP Possibilties Conference & Expo, April 13-15.

Related posts:

1. Natl Broadband Plan: Watch the Presentation Live
2. FCC Previews National Broadband Plan
3. Dish Lifts the Veil on Broadband Plan
4. FCC to Propose USF for Broadband
5. 53% of Americans Say Broadband Access Not a Govt Priority