Chairman Genachowski answered Brooklyn-ite Elizabeth Stark’s question on cost by saying the FCC needs to eliminate all barriers to competition so more Interent providers can compete and drive down prices.
via You and the FCC Chairman discuss the Future of the Internet
Congress has insisted that the national broadband plan specifically address “national purposes” – job creation and economic growth, consumer welfare, civic participation, public safety and homeland security, health care, energy independence and efficiency, and other issues.
On Mar 11 2010 the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation hosted the FCC team tasked with implementing these purposes.
Slides are here.
Nice point about proprietary systems hindering online health care data applications
P.22 – in Education “Simplify copyright regime to encourage contributions”
p.34 “Federal grants encourage the development of duplicative, stove-piped broadband networks”
1:47:00 digital signatures – report coming
Date: Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Time: 8:30 AM – 12:30 PM
Location: National Press Club, First Amendment Lounge, Washington DC
The Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy and the Technology Policy Institute have convened experts from industry, academia and government to provide an early reaction to the FCC’s National Broadband Plan, scheduled to be released on March 17. The participants will focus on the following major questions:
What are the plan’s effects on innovation and investment?
What are the plan’s effects on penetration to underserved populations?
via Technology Policy Institute – The FCC’s National Broadband Plan: The Early Reaction.
FCC Broadband Plan supremo Blair Levin was interviewed on CSPAN on Dec 21.
Interviewer Amy Schatz has written a summary in the Wall Street Journal.
What made my jaw drop in Levin’s remarks were that, while summarily ruling out structural/functional separation, he happily foresaw a future for most US citizens where the choice was between 50mpbs wireline as an offering of cable companies via DOCSIS3, and wireless 5mpbs via the phone companies. In his opinion it is quite possible that many will decide that 5mpbs is quite satisfactory.
Echoes of 640k enough for anybody?
In fact wireline just does not seem to be a big concern, seen more as a lifeline. I note his 2006 remarks to the Judiciary Committee:
“Given where we are, it is likely that the only way to drive more, bigger, cheaper, and ubiquitous broadband is through new, probably wireless, broadband facilities.”
http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/testimony.cfm?id=1937&wit_id=5421
It appears little has occurred at the FCC to change his mind.
As part of the FCC’s development of the National Broadband Plan, the Commission requested two independent studies, one from Harvard’s Berkman Center on the existing studies about broadband deployment throughout the world, and the other from CITI on projected deployment of new and upgraded broadband networks. The CITI report, “Broadband in America: Where It Is and Where It is Going,” is authored by Bob Atkinson, Director of Policy Research, and Ivy Schultz, Manager of Research.
On December 10, the FCC will hold a workshop in the Commission Meeting Room where the authors of the two studies will provide an overview of their findings. The review of the Berkman report will start at 1:00pm, and CITI’s report start at about 1:45pm.
More information and registration details can be found here.
Download here
Download: report | appendices
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