The Federal Communications Commission has released its long-awaited national broadband plan to finally move the United States towards a faster, more cost-effective broadband network. While one of the founding countries of the internet, the United States has fell behind other states in both speed and average cost per consumer.
Image courtesy of FCC.gov
To help broadband deployment, the FCC would “transition the Universal Service Fund, which now largely subsidizes traditional telephone service, into a broadband fund.” The $4.6-billion-a-year program would transition into a new Connect America Fund over 10 years, with the FCC expecting to put $15.5 billion into broadband deployment over the next decade.
The FCC plan is the first official national plan of action for the United States and, beyond committing the FCC to the $15.5 billion investment, also calls for Congress to fund a nationwide wireless broadband network for emergency response agencies at a cost of $12 billion to $16 billion.
The plan also seeks to free up 500MHz of wireless spectrum for broadband in the next decade which has led the National Association of Broadcasters to state serious objections to the plan – a key ally for the plan to be effectively executed.
As evidenced in recent weeks by several high-ranking former officials statements regarding the insecurity of our computer networks and shown definitely by the public, cyber war-game that the BiPartisan Policy Center enacted last month, the United States is increasingly vulnerable to attacks on its networks by other state and non-state actors.
To learn more about the FCC’s broadband plan, read more at ComputerWorld, Politico and the Wall Street Journal.
To read the plan, go to the FCC’s Broadband.gov.
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