National Broadband Plan (United States)
Encyclopedia
Connecting America: The National Broadband Plan, unveiled March 16, 2010, is a FCC (Federal Communications Commission
) plan which deals with improving broadband Internet access
throughout the United States. One goal was providing 100 million American households with access to 100 Mbit/s (megabit
s per second) connections by 2020. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
(ARRA) required that the FCC draft the National Broadband Plan. After the FCC complied with this requirement, the author of that portion of the Act, U.S. Representative Edward J. Markey
(D
-MA
), issued a statement that the FCC had provided a "roadmap" that would "ensure that every American has access to the tools they need to succeed." ARRA did not give the FCC specific jurisdiction to carry out a national broadband plan or to amend the universal service
provisions of the Communications Act, but it required that the FCC draft a plan to "include a detailed strategy for achieving affordability and maximizing use of broadband to advance consumer welfare, civic participation
, public safety
and homeland security
, community development
, health care delivery, energy independence and efficiency, education, employee training, private sector investment, entrepreneurial activity, job creation and economic growth
, and other national purposes."
As of October 2010, broadband.gov
, the official website for the plan, highlighted its poorly publicized energy and environment features. Other goals listed were "21st century care", "economic opportunity", "health care", "civic engagement" and "public safety". Broadband maps
, tests and reporting of "broadband dead zones" were also featured.
The plan called for broadcasters to give up spectrum
for wireless broadband access.
Large areas of the United States would be wired for Internet access, and the federal program
providing some rural areas with landline telephone service would be upgraded. The Obama administration
called high-speed Internet to be no longer a luxury.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski
, named the plan as "his top priority". President Obama called for "updating the way we get our electricity by starting to build a new smart grid that will save us money, protect our power sources from blackout or attack, and deliver clean, alternative forms of energy to every corner of our nation. It means expanding broadband lines across America, so that a small business in a rural town can connect and compete with their counterparts anywhere in the world."
to increase capacity of mobile broadband
. Increasing the capacity of mobile broadband is seen as a priority because increased demand for wireless broadband is expected to increase the prices and decrease network speed. Cisco Systems
reported that "global mobile data traffic grew 2.6-fold in 2010, nearly tripling for the third year in a row." Adoption of Smart Phones, iPads/tablets, and netbooks coupled with the proliferation of mobile-friendly applications were the main source of increased data traffic. AT&T Mobility reported that usage of its data network increased 8000% between 2007 to 2010, a time period concurrent with the release of the iPhone
. A surge of new devices and services, such as iPads and streaming video, are expected to be an even greater burden than smart phones are. At the least, reallocating spectrum would allow mobile phone companies to expand capacity and quality of service in attempt to match the next wave of increased demand.
Some believe increasing mobile broadband would help in bridging the digital divide. Since many minority and lower-income people depend on mobile internet as a primary connection, making access cheaper and more easily available to everyone would benefit those groups too. In this way, supporting mobile broadband is aligned with the first 5 goals outlined in the plan and is in agreement with the main tenet of providing "Universal Access" to Americans.
The plan recommends that 300 MHz of spectrum
to be made newly available for commercial use over 5 years and 500 MHZ after 10 years. The plan targets space between 225 MHz and 3.7 GHz; 120 MHz of Broadcast TV and 90 MHz of mobile satellite service giving up 90 MHz.
To fulfill this plan, the FCC must identify spaces in spectrum that can be used more effectively and then reclaim spectrum from incumbent licensees.
The plan recommends that the FCC be given more authority to create new incentives to liberate spectrum. The FCC's basic approach would be to offer incentives to accelerate the process and avoid lengthy litigation proceedings.
consumption by 12 percent, the same as if 55 million cars were no longer being driven. Research has consistently shown that individuals could reduce their energy use by 5 to 15 percent (saving $60 to $180 a year) if provided with information about their daily usage, something fewer than 1 percent of Americans had access to. Proponents of a national smart grid say it would likely result in decreased electricity use, allow energy companies to more efficiently distribute electricity, encourage homeowners to co-generate electricity by renewable means, but most importantly enable consumer energy conservation
by informing them of waste, and (almost as important), enable large-scale co-operation between electricity producers and consumers to better match supply and demand, eliminating extremely expensive and dirty peak power generation, typically coal. In this context the plan's Goal 6 was a very revolutionary change to spread the reach of the smart grid technologies into literally every AC outlet.
Goal 6 of the plan states that Americans would or should or will have the right to redirect live usage data securely to any third party energy demand management
service provider they chose, for assistance in managing demand of all kinds (including potentially fossil fuel use, water and other utilities). In practice, this would require up to a megabit of reliable backhaul to every home at high enough security to also be suitable for VoIP, home security, medical monitor
s and a great many other high-reliability applications. The difficulty of this would more or less require over-provisioning
homes with up to a gigabit so that the cost of this secure energy demand management connection could be subsidized by these other applications (as XCel did in its Smart Grid City project, laying aside 5 megabits of secure bandwidth for these premium uses). In addition, the deployment could be subsidized by ordinary data uses (voice, TV, internet, the so-called triple play
) and mobile ("quadruple play
"). With the revenue from energy sales, energy demand management, and these higher security and reliability applications, power distributors would be in a position to compete with incumbent providers that have already deployed networks. American companies announced plans to exploit this secure metering connection.
Goal 6 implies access to supply-side opportunities such as turning on devices (such as sump or cistern pumps or battery chargers) that can use intermittent or off-peak power when it is available (more cheaply than at peak). In October 2009, General Electric
and Whirlpool announced the Smart Green Grid Initiative. "Smart
appliance
s" could schedule energy use at times when less energy was being used or when renewable energy
such as wind was more available. This plan would require the type of broadband access the plan would provide.
More importantly to achieving Goal 6, smart appliances would need to communicate to the energy metering and management system and accept commands to change state. This is not practical with multiple unreliable cables or wireless connections and is generally believed to require AC powerline networking in the home. As an interim step to this, Apple
released a patent
filing for a powerline networking outlet suitable for combining data and AC power on one outlet with two plugs. Intel, Texas Instruments
and others also showed more traditional one-plug one-cable powerline networking options and home energy management systems. To deal with concerns of older X10
and other heavily used low-bandwidth powerline protocols, in October 2010 the IEEE 1901 protocol was ratified for coexistence of all such applications, including the proposed advanced metering infrastructure envisioned by the Broadband Plan - the G.9960 protocols were also ratified and made compatible with the IEEE framework. As of October 2010, then, the metering and home-powerline-based communications standards existed to implement Goal 6 exactly as stated, using secure TCP/IP over P1901/G.9960 to communicate with a meter gateway, which would then communicate using any of several reliable secure megabit backhauls (using anything from Motorola Canopy to WiMax
to 5G
networking to fibre optics).
More generally, only about 65 percent of Americans had broadband access. The United States ranks 16th in the world, with South Korea
at 95 percent and Singapore
at 88 percent. Genachowski said over 20 countries had plans for broadband access, and that the lack of access in rural and low-income areas in the United States resulted in "leaving millions behind".
By 2020, the goal was for 100 million households to have access to 100 Mbit/s service. 200 million people had broadband in 2009 (nationwide, the average connection speed was 3.9 Mbit/s), up from 8 million in 2000. But 14 million have no access whatsoever to broadband.
An FCC survey, "Broadband Adoption and Use in America," gave the average price of broadband access as $41, and said 36 percent those non-users surveyed said the service was too expensive. 12 percent lacked skills, 10 percent worried about "safety and privacy", and 19 percent were just not interested. One way to increase access would be to provide a block of spectrum to service providers who agreed to offer free or low-cost service to certain subscribers. One way to pay for this would be to transfer $15.5 billion to a Connect America Fund for areas not adequately served. This money would come from the Universal Service Fund
created for telephone service for individuals and Internet access for schools and libraries. In addition, a Mobility Fund would provide funds for states to offer their own broadband programs. Also, Digital Literacy Corps would help people learn about the Internet in areas with low usage rates. And broadband would be added to the FCC's Lifeline and Link-Up program to provide phone service to the poor.
There have been several suggestions for ways in which the United States will pay for this plan. The first part involves taking the $4.6 billion per year that is allocated for the Universal Service Fund, and moving it to a fund under a new name that would continue providing subsidized phone service, but also work on getting broadband internet to those who currently do not have it. This will help offset the costs, but the regulators will have to make sure that there are still enough of those funds going toward providing the same amount of supported phone service, including rural landline and wireless services, as before. This money will help offset some of the costs of the implementation, but if it is in fact going to be closer to $350 billion, then that will not be enough money to cover the costs of the project. This will leave the rest of the cost burden on the government, who may in turn place it on the citizens as a tax.
Aside from the cost, there is also the argument that the creation of a National Broadband Plan will actually stunt the growth of the industry and new technologies. This view is based on economics, and the theory of supply and demand. According to this theory, this policy is going to take the competition out of the broadband Internet market which, according to economists, will eliminate the desire for companies to offer lower prices, better products, better customer service, and the desire to come up with new and innovative ideas. While this theory is more of a general economic theory, it could definitely be applied to this situation.
As the FCC has moved into the implementation stage of its plan, the jurisdictional question has arisen as to whether Congress provided the FCC with authority to implement the plan, or whether ARRA solely granted the agency authority to draft the plan. Commenters and state officials have raised the question of how agency proposals can be implemented so as to ensure rural areas do not experience deterioration or price spikes for existing telephone and cellular services. Commenters have expressed concern that if current support provided to rural areas in accordance with the Communications Act is moved to a much smaller subset of areas for broadband deployment, the currently supported rural areas will be deprived of much needed service coverage and affordable pricing. The FCC has proposed supporting only one provider per area, which commenters have stated would waste the universal service funds that have been invested in infrastructure other providers have already deployed in rural areas, and would result in a single monopoly service provider in many rural areas. This could mean some rural areas would end up with no telephone service or no cellular service, depending on which technology is supplied by the auction winner.
said this was not the case, in an April 2010 ruling. In 2007, Kevin J. Martin, FCC chairman at the time, ordered Comcast
to allow the use of BitTorrent, which Comcast considered to be competition to its cable business. Comcast argued that with deregulation under George W. Bush
, the FCC had no authority to make such decisions. The United States Supreme Court sided with Comcast in 2005, and in a related ruling on April 6, 2010, the Appeals Court denied FCC's 2008 cease and desist order. As a result, FCC chairman Julius Genachowski
wanted to redefine broadband as a "common carrier", requiring equal access to all traffic as on roads.
On May 6, 2010, Genachowski said rules for broadband companies would be less strict than intended, in order to keep the FCC from appearing "heavy-handed". Republicans
in the United States Congress
and at the FCC, and cable and telephone companies were expected to oppose the regulations necessary to make the broadband plan work. Network neutrality
, for example, would require broadband providers to allow competitors to use their lines for telephone service, streaming video and other online services. However, Genachowski said networks would not be required to share with the competition.
Three of the five commissioners would have to approve the regulations. Genachowski, a Democrat
, believed the other two Democratic FCC commissioners would support him. Rep.
Ed Markey
of Massachusetts
, a Democratic member of the House committee overseeing the FCC, supported the proposal, saying the FCC needed to make sure consumers and businesses were protected.
The two Republican FCC commissioners, Robert McDowell and Meredith Baker, feared "burdensome rules excavated from the early-Ma Bell
-monopoly
era onto 21st century networks" which would prevent companies from making the necessary investments to improve their networks.
House Minority Leader
John Boehner
of Ohio
called the plan "a government takeover of the Internet."
Comcast appeared more likely than Verizon and other companies to work with the FCC on new regulations, but only because the company needed its merger with NBC
approved.
Genachowski said regulations would "support policies that advance our global competitiveness and preserve the Internet as a powerful platform for innovation."
The report stated that 47% of adult Americans had access in the home, rural home broadband adoption was at 31%, and over 57.8 million U.S. households subscribed to broadband at home. The NTIA contended that universal, affordable access was being provided in the home, workplace, classroom, and library. When measuring subscription rates of low-income areas, the survey reported that "92 percent of the lowest-income zip codes have at least one high-speed subscriber, compared with 99.4 percent of the highest-income zip codes." However, criticism came from within the FCC itself. Then FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein
disagreed with this conclusion citing the "downward trend" of the country's broadband ranking, and Commission Michael Copps
criticized the FCC's data collection methods.
(OECD) released statistics on broadband deployment. These statistics raised concerns that the U.S. may be lagging in broadband rollout, adoption, and pricing when compared to other developed nations. The United States ranked 15th out of 30 countries measured in broadband penetration; Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, Sweden, Korea and Finland were well-above the OECD average. The average download speed in the U.S. was 4.9 Mbit/s, where the average was 9.2 Mbit/s.
On the basis of these statistics, critics argued that the FCC's previous assessment was inaccurate and incomplete. In a paper addressing this issue, Rob Frieden
argued that "the FCC and NTIA have overstated broadband penetration and affordability by using an overly generous and unrealistic definition of what qualifies as broadband service, by using zip codes as the primary geographic unit of measure, by failing to require measurements of actual as opposed to theoretical bitrates, and by misinterpreting available statistics."
Shortly after, Obama used the OECD findings in speeches. As part of his platform in the 2008 presidential election, he wanted to make universal broadband available as part of an effort to revitalize the economy.
was needed for wireless broadband Internet access, and in March 2009, Massachusetts
Senator
John Kerry
introduced a bill requiring a study of efficient use of the spectrum.
Later in the year, the lobbying group CTIA - The Wireless Association said 800 MHz needed to be added. David Donovan of The Association for Maximum Service Television said the 2 GHz band
, allocated for mobile satellite service, was not even being used after ten years, and switching to this band would be better than asking broadcasters to give up even more. Because of the digital transition
, television had lost 100 of its 400 MHz. The National Association of Broadcasters
and the AMST commented to the FCC that the government should make maximum use of this newly available spectrum and other spectrum already allocated for wireless before asking for more, while companies that would benefit asked the government to look everywhere possible. A Consumer Electronics Association
(CEA) study claimed that $62 billion worth of spectrum could become $1 trillion for wireless, and one proposal would require all TV stations, including LPTV
, to give up all spectrum, with subsdized multichannel services
replacing over-the-air TV, even after viewers spent a great deal of money on the DTV transition
. Broadcasters responded, "In the broadcasting context, the 'total value' is not a strict financial measure, but rather is one that encompasses the broader public policy objectives such as universal service, local journalism and public safety." Broadcasters pointed out that the government, viewers and the related industries spent $1.5 billion making sure that a minority of the audience would be ready for the DTV transition. Any change could mean the loss of free TV to people in rural areas, broadcasters said, particularly "local journalism, universal service, availability of educational programming, and timely and reliable provision of emergency information."
FCC broadband advisor Blair Levin wanted a plan by February 2010. Among the possibilities were restricting over-the-air stations to a single standard definition channel, and requiring each network affiliate to be one of a group of subchannels of a single channel, with HDTV only available from a MVPD. Although other spectrum was being considered, Levin said of the broadcast spectrum, "It's very attractive for wireless." As for the CEA "total recall" proposal, Levin said, "The discussions to date between the broadcasters and the commission would free up spectrum but allow all channels to broadcast over the air."
Bob Powers, vice president of government relations for the National Religious Broadcasters
, pointed out that the Levin proposal did not provide for religious broadcasters.
Regarding the CEA study's findings, Donovan said to Broadcasting & Cable
magazine:
PBS and its stations also opposed the plan, saying they had spent a lot of money on the digital upgrade which they need to earn back, and viewers had contributed expecting the digital broadcasting to continue. They claimed PBS was "efficient and productive, and abundantly serves the public interest." Noncommercial broadcasters said they needed broadcast spectrum for superior educational and children's programming. PBS said 85 percent of its stations used HDTV and 82 percent had two or more standard channels. Ohio State University
said it had "no excess" spectrum.
An FCC workshop on November 23, 2009 produced several ideas. Virginia Tech
professor Charles Bostian said sharing should be done, but not in the white spaces; WiFi
spectrum should be used instead. Vint Cerf
of Google
said cable companies could share some spectrum, which the companies would like to do except they have "must-carry" rules that will not allow this. BBN Technologies
chief engineer Chip Elliott called for government-funded broadband to be shared by researchers. Collaboration was the key to advancing the technology, and the word "collaboratories" referred to broadband as "not only the goal of the research, but the vehicle as well."
The National Association of Broadcasters
(NAB) opposed ending broadcast TV because the industry spent $15 billion, in addition to giving up spectrum already. On December 14, 2009 at a hearing before the Communications Subcommittee of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, NAB president Gordon H. Smith said the government and individuals had spent too much money on the DTV transition and for HDTV for further changes to make their efforts worthless, and that broadband and broadcasting could co-exist. He pointed out that in the 1970s, broadcasting used 60 percent of the spectrum that it does now to deliver a much higher quality product, and that existing regulations required more efficient use of the spectrum than would be the case for new devices. On the subject of what could be done instead, Smith recommended using white space in rural areas with fixed devices rather than mobile devices, and new types of broadband service such as those developed by Sezmi
. CTIA president Steve Largent
said that the industry needed spectrum, "wherever it comes from." He said government spectrum probably was not efficiently used and would "likely" be "repurposed", while other broadcast and satellite spectrum "may" be used better for wireless. Largent also said without more spectrum, companies might merge to better use what they had. Consultant Dave Hatfield, former FCC engineering and technology chief, said making maximum use of existing spectrum through compression and modulation
would help, but it would not be enough. Oregon Republican House
member Greg Walden
criticized the FCC for hiring Distinguished Scholar in Residence Stuart Benjamin
, whose essay recommending replacing broadcast spectrum entirely Walden called an "abomination".
The February 17, 2010 deadline was extended by a month. Phil Bellaria, the director of the FCC broadband team, said any plan calling for broadcasters to give up spectrum would be voluntary, and the focus would be on more efficient use of existing spectrum rather than taking that away. Some stations might choose to be paid to give up their position, for example, and some might pair up with other stations using DTV subchannels (or two channels might both be primary channels within the same 6 MHz). Without voluntary action, though, changes could be mandated in 2011 or 2012. On March 16, at the FCC's monthly meeting, Connecting America: The National Broadband Plan was revealed. By 2015, broadcasters would have to leave channels 46 through 51, allowing another 36 MHz to be used for wireless Internet access by "repacking", or relocating channels now on those frequencies. A total of 120 MHz needed to be reclaimed from broadcasters, the rest voluntarily. The FCC Chairman's Senior Counselor Colin Crowell
explained that the spectrum crunch wasn't an imminent crisis, but rather "it’s a crisis in five or six years." Failure to act could make Internet access more expensive and leave the United States less able to compete with other countries, the FCC report said. House Communications Subcommittee chairman Rick Boucher
, a Virginia
Democrat, said it would take four years from the time a bill passed to determine where the new spectrum would come from.
The FCC had 50 MHz of spectrum available for wireless broadband, but this was expected to increase to between 500 MHz and 800 MHz over 10 years. 300 MHz would be made available by 2015. The National Association of Broadcasters opposed the plan, issuing this statement:
As the Plan reached its first anniversary, Congressional interest in the Plan's potential revenue from auctions increased, especially in light of Federal budget deficits. The wireless industry's main trade association, CTIA, and the Consumer Electronics Association
, jointly released a report indicating that auctions from relinquished frequencies from broadcasters might garner $33 Billion in revenue from auctions.
In 2000, ITU Member States and Sector Members selected the regulatory implications of broadband as a high priority for future research under the "New Initiatives Programme".
This plan is specializing the role of broadband in education, health care, energy and the environment, government performance, civic engagement, public safety, and economic opportunity. Also includes a recognition that broadband obtainment cannot occur without the active participation of the states.
As private investors do not always have the strongest incentives to deploy broadband in rural and underserved communities at an affordable price, states and local leaders should be allowed to step in to provide affordable broadband services that will meet their residents’ needs.
Pooling demand among institutions can provide more access to a wider constituency at lower prices.
States should complement broadband deployment with digital education programs and fund community technology centers to ensure that residents of all ethnicities, socio-economic backgrounds, and ages understand how to be producers as well as consumers of this new media economy.
The FCC recommendations also focused on helping states make broadband more affordable and increasing the training needed to encourage adoption, including:
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
) plan which deals with improving broadband Internet access
Broadband Internet access
Broadband Internet access, often shortened to just "broadband", is a high data rate, low-latency connection to the Internet— typically contrasted with dial-up access using a 56 kbit/s modem or satellite Internet with inherently high latency....
throughout the United States. One goal was providing 100 million American households with access to 100 Mbit/s (megabit
Megabit
The megabit is a multiple of the unit bit for digital information or computer storage. The prefix mega is defined in the International System of Units as a multiplier of 106 , and therefore...
s per second) connections by 2020. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, abbreviated ARRA and commonly referred to as the Stimulus or The Recovery Act, is an economic stimulus package enacted by the 111th United States Congress in February 2009 and signed into law on February 17, 2009, by President Barack Obama.To...
(ARRA) required that the FCC draft the National Broadband Plan. After the FCC complied with this requirement, the author of that portion of the Act, U.S. Representative Edward J. Markey
Ed Markey
Edward John "Ed" Markey is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1976. He is a member of the Democratic Party. The district includes most of Boston's northern and western suburbs, such as Medford and Framingham. Markey is the Dean of both the Massachusetts and New England House delegations...
(D
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
-MA
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
), issued a statement that the FCC had provided a "roadmap" that would "ensure that every American has access to the tools they need to succeed." ARRA did not give the FCC specific jurisdiction to carry out a national broadband plan or to amend the universal service
Universal service
Universal service is an economic, legal and business term used mostly in regulated industries, referring to the practice of providing a baseline level of services to every resident of a country...
provisions of the Communications Act, but it required that the FCC draft a plan to "include a detailed strategy for achieving affordability and maximizing use of broadband to advance consumer welfare, civic participation
Civic engagement
Civic engagement or civic participation has been defined as "Individual and collective actions designed to identify and address issues of public concern."-Forms:...
, public safety
Public Safety
Public safety involves the prevention of and protection from events that could endanger the safety of the general public from significant danger, injury/harm, or damage, such as crimes or disasters .-See also:* By nation...
and homeland security
Homeland security
Homeland security is an umbrella term for security efforts to protect states against terrorist activity. Specifically, is a concerted national effort to prevent terrorist attacks within the U.S., reduce America’s vulnerability to terrorism, and minimize the damage and recover from attacks that do...
, community development
Community development
Community development is a broad term applied to the practices and academic disciplines of civic leaders, activists, involved citizens and professionals to improve various aspects of local communities....
, health care delivery, energy independence and efficiency, education, employee training, private sector investment, entrepreneurial activity, job creation and economic growth
Economic growth
In economics, economic growth is defined as the increasing capacity of the economy to satisfy the wants of goods and services of the members of society. Economic growth is enabled by increases in productivity, which lowers the inputs for a given amount of output. Lowered costs increase demand...
, and other national purposes."
As of October 2010, broadband.gov
Broadband.gov
Broadband.gov is a website run by the Federal Communications Commission that reports on broadband access around the country. It is the official website of the National Broadband Plan. The FCC implemented the National Broadband Plan to document the progress and the future of broadband access and use...
, the official website for the plan, highlighted its poorly publicized energy and environment features. Other goals listed were "21st century care", "economic opportunity", "health care", "civic engagement" and "public safety". Broadband maps
Broadband mapping in the United States
Broadband mapping in the United States are efforts to describe geographically how Internet access service from telephone and cable TV companies is available in terms of available speed and price. Mapping has been done on the national as well as the state level...
, tests and reporting of "broadband dead zones" were also featured.
The plan called for broadcasters to give up spectrum
Radio spectrum
Radio spectrum refers to the part of the electromagnetic spectrum corresponding to radio frequencies – that is, frequencies lower than around 300 GHz ....
for wireless broadband access.
Large areas of the United States would be wired for Internet access, and the federal program
Rural Utilities Service
is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture , one of the federal executive departments of the United States government charged with providing public utilities to rural areas in the United States via public-private partnerships...
providing some rural areas with landline telephone service would be upgraded. The Obama administration
Presidency of Barack Obama
The Presidency of Barack Obama began at noon EST on January 20, 2009 when he became the 44th President of the United States. Obama was a United States Senator from Illinois at the time of his victory over Arizona Senator John McCain in the 2008 presidential election...
called high-speed Internet to be no longer a luxury.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski
Julius Genachowski
Julius Genachowski is an American lawyer and businessman. He became Federal Communications Commission Chairman on June 29, 2009.-Education:Genachowski grew up in Great Neck, New York. He attended yeshiva and studied in Israel...
, named the plan as "his top priority". President Obama called for "updating the way we get our electricity by starting to build a new smart grid that will save us money, protect our power sources from blackout or attack, and deliver clean, alternative forms of energy to every corner of our nation. It means expanding broadband lines across America, so that a small business in a rural town can connect and compete with their counterparts anywhere in the world."
Goals
The goals of the plan as described in broadband.gov:- At least 100 million U.S. homes should have affordable access to actual download speeds of at least 100 megabits per second and actual upload speeds of at least 50 megabits per second by the year 2020.
- The United States should lead the world in mobile innovation, with the fastest and most extensive wireless networks of any nation.
- Every American should have affordable access to robust broadband service, and the means and skills to subscribe if they so choose.
- Every American community should have affordable access to at least 1 gigabit per second broadband service to anchor institutions such as schools, hospitals, and government buildings.
- To ensure the safety of the American people, every first responder should have access to a nationwide, wireless, interoperable broadband public safety network.
- To ensure that America leads in the clean energy economy, every American should be able to use broadband to track and manage their real-time energy consumption.
Spectrum reallocation
The plan also aimed to reallocate spectrumRadio spectrum
Radio spectrum refers to the part of the electromagnetic spectrum corresponding to radio frequencies – that is, frequencies lower than around 300 GHz ....
to increase capacity of mobile broadband
Mobile Broadband
Mobile broadband is the marketing term for wireless Internet access through a portable modem, mobile phone or other mobile device.-Description:...
. Increasing the capacity of mobile broadband is seen as a priority because increased demand for wireless broadband is expected to increase the prices and decrease network speed. Cisco Systems
Cisco Systems
Cisco Systems, Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Jose, California, United States, that designs and sells consumer electronics, networking, voice, and communications technology and services. Cisco has more than 70,000 employees and annual revenue of US$...
reported that "global mobile data traffic grew 2.6-fold in 2010, nearly tripling for the third year in a row." Adoption of Smart Phones, iPads/tablets, and netbooks coupled with the proliferation of mobile-friendly applications were the main source of increased data traffic. AT&T Mobility reported that usage of its data network increased 8000% between 2007 to 2010, a time period concurrent with the release of the iPhone
IPhone
The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...
. A surge of new devices and services, such as iPads and streaming video, are expected to be an even greater burden than smart phones are. At the least, reallocating spectrum would allow mobile phone companies to expand capacity and quality of service in attempt to match the next wave of increased demand.
Some believe increasing mobile broadband would help in bridging the digital divide. Since many minority and lower-income people depend on mobile internet as a primary connection, making access cheaper and more easily available to everyone would benefit those groups too. In this way, supporting mobile broadband is aligned with the first 5 goals outlined in the plan and is in agreement with the main tenet of providing "Universal Access" to Americans.
The plan recommends that 300 MHz of spectrum
Radio spectrum
Radio spectrum refers to the part of the electromagnetic spectrum corresponding to radio frequencies – that is, frequencies lower than around 300 GHz ....
to be made newly available for commercial use over 5 years and 500 MHZ after 10 years. The plan targets space between 225 MHz and 3.7 GHz; 120 MHz of Broadcast TV and 90 MHz of mobile satellite service giving up 90 MHz.
To fulfill this plan, the FCC must identify spaces in spectrum that can be used more effectively and then reclaim spectrum from incumbent licensees.
The plan recommends that the FCC be given more authority to create new incentives to liberate spectrum. The FCC's basic approach would be to offer incentives to accelerate the process and avoid lengthy litigation proceedings.
Energy management
The plan's most significant qualitative infrastructure impact was expected to be its smart grid features, said to be capable of reducing greenhouse gasGreenhouse gas
A greenhouse gas is a gas in an atmosphere that absorbs and emits radiation within the thermal infrared range. This process is the fundamental cause of the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone...
consumption by 12 percent, the same as if 55 million cars were no longer being driven. Research has consistently shown that individuals could reduce their energy use by 5 to 15 percent (saving $60 to $180 a year) if provided with information about their daily usage, something fewer than 1 percent of Americans had access to. Proponents of a national smart grid say it would likely result in decreased electricity use, allow energy companies to more efficiently distribute electricity, encourage homeowners to co-generate electricity by renewable means, but most importantly enable consumer energy conservation
Energy conservation
Energy conservation refers to efforts made to reduce energy consumption. Energy conservation can be achieved through increased efficient energy use, in conjunction with decreased energy consumption and/or reduced consumption from conventional energy sources...
by informing them of waste, and (almost as important), enable large-scale co-operation between electricity producers and consumers to better match supply and demand, eliminating extremely expensive and dirty peak power generation, typically coal. In this context the plan's Goal 6 was a very revolutionary change to spread the reach of the smart grid technologies into literally every AC outlet.
Goal 6 of the plan states that Americans would or should or will have the right to redirect live usage data securely to any third party energy demand management
Energy demand management
Energy demand management, also known as demand side management , is the modification of consumer demand for energy through various methods such as financial incentives and education...
service provider they chose, for assistance in managing demand of all kinds (including potentially fossil fuel use, water and other utilities). In practice, this would require up to a megabit of reliable backhaul to every home at high enough security to also be suitable for VoIP, home security, medical monitor
Medical monitor
A medical monitor or physiological monitor or display, is an electronic medical device used in medical monitoring that displays the monitored data, and may or may not have the ability to transmit the data on a monitoring network...
s and a great many other high-reliability applications. The difficulty of this would more or less require over-provisioning
Provisioning
In telecommunication, provisioning is the process of preparing and equipping a network to allow it to provide services to its users. In NS/EP telecommunications services, "provisioning" equates to "initiation" and includes altering the state of an existing priority service or capability.In a...
homes with up to a gigabit so that the cost of this secure energy demand management connection could be subsidized by these other applications (as XCel did in its Smart Grid City project, laying aside 5 megabits of secure bandwidth for these premium uses). In addition, the deployment could be subsidized by ordinary data uses (voice, TV, internet, the so-called triple play
Triple Play
A triple play is a baseball play in which three outs are made as a result of continuous action without any intervening errors between outs.Triple play may also refer to:...
) and mobile ("quadruple play
Quadruple play
In telecommunications, quadruple play is a marketing term combining the triple play service of broadband Internet access, television and telephone with wireless service provisions...
"). With the revenue from energy sales, energy demand management, and these higher security and reliability applications, power distributors would be in a position to compete with incumbent providers that have already deployed networks. American companies announced plans to exploit this secure metering connection.
Goal 6 implies access to supply-side opportunities such as turning on devices (such as sump or cistern pumps or battery chargers) that can use intermittent or off-peak power when it is available (more cheaply than at peak). In October 2009, General Electric
General Electric
General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...
and Whirlpool announced the Smart Green Grid Initiative. "Smart
Smart device
A smart device is an electronic device that is cordless , mobile , always connected and is capable of voice and video communication, internet browsing, "geo-location" and that can operate to some extent autonomously...
appliance
Home appliance
Home appliances are electrical/mechanical machines which accomplish some household functions, such as cooking or cleaning. Home appliances can be classified into:*Major appliances, or White goods*Small appliances, or Brown goods...
s" could schedule energy use at times when less energy was being used or when renewable energy
Renewable energy
Renewable energy is energy which comes from natural resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, and geothermal heat, which are renewable . About 16% of global final energy consumption comes from renewables, with 10% coming from traditional biomass, which is mainly used for heating, and 3.4% from...
such as wind was more available. This plan would require the type of broadband access the plan would provide.
More importantly to achieving Goal 6, smart appliances would need to communicate to the energy metering and management system and accept commands to change state. This is not practical with multiple unreliable cables or wireless connections and is generally believed to require AC powerline networking in the home. As an interim step to this, Apple
Apple
The apple is the pomaceous fruit of the apple tree, species Malus domestica in the rose family . It is one of the most widely cultivated tree fruits, and the most widely known of the many members of genus Malus that are used by humans. Apple grow on small, deciduous trees that blossom in the spring...
released a patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
filing for a powerline networking outlet suitable for combining data and AC power on one outlet with two plugs. Intel, Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments Inc. , widely known as TI, is an American company based in Dallas, Texas, United States, which develops and commercializes semiconductor and computer technology...
and others also showed more traditional one-plug one-cable powerline networking options and home energy management systems. To deal with concerns of older X10
X10
X10 may refer to:* North American X-10, an unmanned technology demonstrator for advanced missile technologies* SL X10, a Swedish suburban train* X10 Wireless Technology, a vendor of home automation products...
and other heavily used low-bandwidth powerline protocols, in October 2010 the IEEE 1901 protocol was ratified for coexistence of all such applications, including the proposed advanced metering infrastructure envisioned by the Broadband Plan - the G.9960 protocols were also ratified and made compatible with the IEEE framework. As of October 2010, then, the metering and home-powerline-based communications standards existed to implement Goal 6 exactly as stated, using secure TCP/IP over P1901/G.9960 to communicate with a meter gateway, which would then communicate using any of several reliable secure megabit backhauls (using anything from Motorola Canopy to WiMax
WiMAX
WiMAX is a communication technology for wirelessly delivering high-speed Internet service to large geographical areas. The 2005 WiMAX revision provided bit rates up to 40 Mbit/s with the 2011 update up to 1 Gbit/s for fixed stations...
to 5G
5G
5G is a name used in some research papers and projects to denote the next major phase of mobile telecommunications standards beyond the 4G/IMT-Advanced standards effective since 2011...
networking to fibre optics).
Reasons
The US has fallen behind Japan, the EU and South Korea in power grid technology, and has made it a national priority to improve its energy demand and supply management. The Pentagon has noted in several reports that reliance on dirty oil and other diplomatically dangerous sources is a growing US national security concern. Consuming more energy per unit productivity than any other developed nation is no longer an option for the US according to the Obama administration which has made it a high priority to implement 'smart grid' technologies that are impossible to deploy without secure reliable and universal wired networking. The prior Bush administration had made powerline networking a priority to ensure that broadband access would be at least co-extant with the power grid's reach.More generally, only about 65 percent of Americans had broadband access. The United States ranks 16th in the world, with South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
at 95 percent and Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
at 88 percent. Genachowski said over 20 countries had plans for broadband access, and that the lack of access in rural and low-income areas in the United States resulted in "leaving millions behind".
By 2020, the goal was for 100 million households to have access to 100 Mbit/s service. 200 million people had broadband in 2009 (nationwide, the average connection speed was 3.9 Mbit/s), up from 8 million in 2000. But 14 million have no access whatsoever to broadband.
An FCC survey, "Broadband Adoption and Use in America," gave the average price of broadband access as $41, and said 36 percent those non-users surveyed said the service was too expensive. 12 percent lacked skills, 10 percent worried about "safety and privacy", and 19 percent were just not interested. One way to increase access would be to provide a block of spectrum to service providers who agreed to offer free or low-cost service to certain subscribers. One way to pay for this would be to transfer $15.5 billion to a Connect America Fund for areas not adequately served. This money would come from the Universal Service Fund
Universal Service Fund
The Universal Service Fund was created by the United States Federal Communications Commission in 1997 to meet Congressional universal service goals as mandated by the Telecommunications Act of 1996...
created for telephone service for individuals and Internet access for schools and libraries. In addition, a Mobility Fund would provide funds for states to offer their own broadband programs. Also, Digital Literacy Corps would help people learn about the Internet in areas with low usage rates. And broadband would be added to the FCC's Lifeline and Link-Up program to provide phone service to the poor.
Opposition
The FCC has been quoted as saying the plan could cost anywhere from $20 billion to $350 billion, and these costs only take into account the cost of implementing the system and getting it up and running, not the costs of maintaining it in the future. Some other costs to take into account are the cost of the National Emergency Response Network, which officials have said will cost at least $12 billion to $16 billion to build. Another cost that must be taken into account is the cost of subsidizing materials like computers for households that cannot afford them. Those citizens would then need to receive training on how to use the computers and Internet effectively. All of these costs are going to add up to many billions of dollars.There have been several suggestions for ways in which the United States will pay for this plan. The first part involves taking the $4.6 billion per year that is allocated for the Universal Service Fund, and moving it to a fund under a new name that would continue providing subsidized phone service, but also work on getting broadband internet to those who currently do not have it. This will help offset the costs, but the regulators will have to make sure that there are still enough of those funds going toward providing the same amount of supported phone service, including rural landline and wireless services, as before. This money will help offset some of the costs of the implementation, but if it is in fact going to be closer to $350 billion, then that will not be enough money to cover the costs of the project. This will leave the rest of the cost burden on the government, who may in turn place it on the citizens as a tax.
Aside from the cost, there is also the argument that the creation of a National Broadband Plan will actually stunt the growth of the industry and new technologies. This view is based on economics, and the theory of supply and demand. According to this theory, this policy is going to take the competition out of the broadband Internet market which, according to economists, will eliminate the desire for companies to offer lower prices, better products, better customer service, and the desire to come up with new and innovative ideas. While this theory is more of a general economic theory, it could definitely be applied to this situation.
As the FCC has moved into the implementation stage of its plan, the jurisdictional question has arisen as to whether Congress provided the FCC with authority to implement the plan, or whether ARRA solely granted the agency authority to draft the plan. Commenters and state officials have raised the question of how agency proposals can be implemented so as to ensure rural areas do not experience deterioration or price spikes for existing telephone and cellular services. Commenters have expressed concern that if current support provided to rural areas in accordance with the Communications Act is moved to a much smaller subset of areas for broadband deployment, the currently supported rural areas will be deprived of much needed service coverage and affordable pricing. The FCC has proposed supporting only one provider per area, which commenters have stated would waste the universal service funds that have been invested in infrastructure other providers have already deployed in rural areas, and would result in a single monopoly service provider in many rural areas. This could mean some rural areas would end up with no telephone service or no cellular service, depending on which technology is supplied by the auction winner.
Regulatory framework
The FCC considered broadband to be an "information service" and, therefore, "lightly regulated". Although the commission believed this status gave the ability to impose the necessary restrictions in order to implement the plan, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of ColumbiaUnited States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit known informally as the D.C. Circuit, is the federal appellate court for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Appeals from the D.C. Circuit, as with all the U.S. Courts of Appeals, are heard on a...
said this was not the case, in an April 2010 ruling. In 2007, Kevin J. Martin, FCC chairman at the time, ordered Comcast
Comcast
Comcast Corporation is the largest cable operator, home Internet service provider, and fourth largest home telephone service provider in the United States, providing cable television, broadband Internet, and telephone service to both residential and commercial customers in 39 states and the...
to allow the use of BitTorrent, which Comcast considered to be competition to its cable business. Comcast argued that with deregulation under George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
, the FCC had no authority to make such decisions. The United States Supreme Court sided with Comcast in 2005, and in a related ruling on April 6, 2010, the Appeals Court denied FCC's 2008 cease and desist order. As a result, FCC chairman Julius Genachowski
Julius Genachowski
Julius Genachowski is an American lawyer and businessman. He became Federal Communications Commission Chairman on June 29, 2009.-Education:Genachowski grew up in Great Neck, New York. He attended yeshiva and studied in Israel...
wanted to redefine broadband as a "common carrier", requiring equal access to all traffic as on roads.
On May 6, 2010, Genachowski said rules for broadband companies would be less strict than intended, in order to keep the FCC from appearing "heavy-handed". Republicans
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
in the United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
and at the FCC, and cable and telephone companies were expected to oppose the regulations necessary to make the broadband plan work. Network neutrality
Network neutrality in the United States
Network neutrality in the United States is a hotly debated issue subject to regulatory and judicial contention among network users and access providers...
, for example, would require broadband providers to allow competitors to use their lines for telephone service, streaming video and other online services. However, Genachowski said networks would not be required to share with the competition.
Three of the five commissioners would have to approve the regulations. Genachowski, a Democrat
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
, believed the other two Democratic FCC commissioners would support him. Rep.
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
Ed Markey
Ed Markey
Edward John "Ed" Markey is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1976. He is a member of the Democratic Party. The district includes most of Boston's northern and western suburbs, such as Medford and Framingham. Markey is the Dean of both the Massachusetts and New England House delegations...
of Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
, a Democratic member of the House committee overseeing the FCC, supported the proposal, saying the FCC needed to make sure consumers and businesses were protected.
The two Republican FCC commissioners, Robert McDowell and Meredith Baker, feared "burdensome rules excavated from the early-Ma Bell
Bell System
The Bell System was the American Bell Telephone Company and then, subsequently, AT&T led system which provided telephone services to much of the United States and Canada from 1877 to 1984, at various times as a monopoly. In 1984, the company was broken up into separate companies, by a U.S...
-monopoly
Monopoly
A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...
era onto 21st century networks" which would prevent companies from making the necessary investments to improve their networks.
House Minority Leader
Minority leader of the United States House of Representatives
The House Minority Leader is one of the party leaders of the United States House of Representatives. This title is currently held by Democratic Representative Nancy Pelosi of California....
John Boehner
John Boehner
John Andrew Boehner is the 61st and current Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. A member of the Republican Party, he is the U.S. Representative from , serving since 1991...
of Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
called the plan "a government takeover of the Internet."
Comcast appeared more likely than Verizon and other companies to work with the FCC on new regulations, but only because the company needed its merger with NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
approved.
Genachowski said regulations would "support policies that advance our global competitiveness and preserve the Internet as a powerful platform for innovation."
Survey by NTIA (2008)
In the Federal Communications Commission's Fifth Report before Congress, released in June 2008, the FCC reported:Based on our analysis in this Report, we conclude that the deployment of advanced telecommunications capability to all Americans is reasonable and timely. The data reflect the industry’s extensive investment in broadband deployment, including at higher speeds, as evidenced by increased subscribership for those higher-speed services.
The report stated that 47% of adult Americans had access in the home, rural home broadband adoption was at 31%, and over 57.8 million U.S. households subscribed to broadband at home. The NTIA contended that universal, affordable access was being provided in the home, workplace, classroom, and library. When measuring subscription rates of low-income areas, the survey reported that "92 percent of the lowest-income zip codes have at least one high-speed subscriber, compared with 99.4 percent of the highest-income zip codes." However, criticism came from within the FCC itself. Then FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein
Jonathan Adelstein
Jonathan Steven Adelstein, the Administrator of USDA's Rural Utilities Service, is a former Commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission....
disagreed with this conclusion citing the "downward trend" of the country's broadband ranking, and Commission Michael Copps
Michael Copps
Michael Joseph Copps is a Commissioner on the U.S. Federal Communications Commission , an independent agency of the United States government. He has served as one of the commissioners of the FCC since May 31, 2001, and took on the additional role of acting chairman on January 20, 2009...
criticized the FCC's data collection methods.
OECD Survey
In 2008, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and DevelopmentOrganisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is an international economic organisation of 34 countries founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world trade...
(OECD) released statistics on broadband deployment. These statistics raised concerns that the U.S. may be lagging in broadband rollout, adoption, and pricing when compared to other developed nations. The United States ranked 15th out of 30 countries measured in broadband penetration; Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, Sweden, Korea and Finland were well-above the OECD average. The average download speed in the U.S. was 4.9 Mbit/s, where the average was 9.2 Mbit/s.
On the basis of these statistics, critics argued that the FCC's previous assessment was inaccurate and incomplete. In a paper addressing this issue, Rob Frieden
Rob Frieden
Rob Frieden holds the Pioneers Chair and serves as Professor of Telecommunications and Law at Penn State University in the United States. Frieden holds a B.A., with distinction, from the University of Pennsylvania and a J.D...
argued that "the FCC and NTIA have overstated broadband penetration and affordability by using an overly generous and unrealistic definition of what qualifies as broadband service, by using zip codes as the primary geographic unit of measure, by failing to require measurements of actual as opposed to theoretical bitrates, and by misinterpreting available statistics."
Shortly after, Obama used the OECD findings in speeches. As part of his platform in the 2008 presidential election, he wanted to make universal broadband available as part of an effort to revitalize the economy.
History of efforts to increase spectrum for wireless broadband
In the United States, more broadcast spectrumRadio spectrum
Radio spectrum refers to the part of the electromagnetic spectrum corresponding to radio frequencies – that is, frequencies lower than around 300 GHz ....
was needed for wireless broadband Internet access, and in March 2009, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
Senator
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
John Kerry
John Kerry
John Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to former President George W...
introduced a bill requiring a study of efficient use of the spectrum.
Later in the year, the lobbying group CTIA - The Wireless Association said 800 MHz needed to be added. David Donovan of The Association for Maximum Service Television said the 2 GHz band
S band
The S band is defined by an IEEE standard for radio waves with frequencies that range from 2 to 4 GHz, crossing the conventional boundary between UHF and SHF at 3.0 GHz. It is part of the microwave band of the electromagnetic spectrum...
, allocated for mobile satellite service, was not even being used after ten years, and switching to this band would be better than asking broadcasters to give up even more. Because of the digital transition
DTV transition in the United States
The DTV transition in the United States was the switchover from analog to exclusively digital broadcasting of free over-the-air television programming...
, television had lost 100 of its 400 MHz. The National Association of Broadcasters
National Association of Broadcasters
The National Association of Broadcasters is a trade association, workers union, and lobby group representing the interests of for-profit, over-the-air radio and television broadcasters in the United States...
and the AMST commented to the FCC that the government should make maximum use of this newly available spectrum and other spectrum already allocated for wireless before asking for more, while companies that would benefit asked the government to look everywhere possible. A Consumer Electronics Association
Consumer Electronics Association
The Consumer Electronics Association is a standards and trade organization for the consumer electronics industry in the United States. The Consumer Electronics Association is the preeminent trade association promoting growth in the $173 billion U.S...
(CEA) study claimed that $62 billion worth of spectrum could become $1 trillion for wireless, and one proposal would require all TV stations, including LPTV
Low-power broadcasting
Low-power broadcasting is electronic broadcasting at very low power and low cost, to a small community area.The terms "low-power broadcasting" and "micropower broadcasting" should not be used interchangeably, because the markets are not the same...
, to give up all spectrum, with subsdized multichannel services
Multichannel Video Programming Distributor
A multichannel video programming distributor is a service provider delivering video programming services, usually for a subscription fee...
replacing over-the-air TV, even after viewers spent a great deal of money on the DTV transition
DTV transition in the United States
The DTV transition in the United States was the switchover from analog to exclusively digital broadcasting of free over-the-air television programming...
. Broadcasters responded, "In the broadcasting context, the 'total value' is not a strict financial measure, but rather is one that encompasses the broader public policy objectives such as universal service, local journalism and public safety." Broadcasters pointed out that the government, viewers and the related industries spent $1.5 billion making sure that a minority of the audience would be ready for the DTV transition. Any change could mean the loss of free TV to people in rural areas, broadcasters said, particularly "local journalism, universal service, availability of educational programming, and timely and reliable provision of emergency information."
FCC broadband advisor Blair Levin wanted a plan by February 2010. Among the possibilities were restricting over-the-air stations to a single standard definition channel, and requiring each network affiliate to be one of a group of subchannels of a single channel, with HDTV only available from a MVPD. Although other spectrum was being considered, Levin said of the broadcast spectrum, "It's very attractive for wireless." As for the CEA "total recall" proposal, Levin said, "The discussions to date between the broadcasters and the commission would free up spectrum but allow all channels to broadcast over the air."
Bob Powers, vice president of government relations for the National Religious Broadcasters
National Religious Broadcasters
National Religious Broadcasters is an American organization that represents Christian religious broadcasters on American television and radio, including several high-profile televangelists and Christian radio show hosts. It claims a membership of more than 1700 organizations...
, pointed out that the Levin proposal did not provide for religious broadcasters.
Regarding the CEA study's findings, Donovan said to Broadcasting & Cable
Broadcasting & Cable
Broadcasting & Cable magazine is a television industry trade magazine published by NewBay Media. Previous names included Broadcasting/Telecasting, Broadcasting and Broadcast Advertising, and Broadcasting...
magazine:
Wireless companies are asking the government to participate in the biggest consumer bait-and-switch in American history. For the last few years, the government told consumers that digital television would bring them free over-the-air HDTV and more channels. Now, after purchasing billions of dollars in new digital equipment and antennas, wireless advocates are asking the government to renege on its promise. High-definition programming and more digital channels would become the sole and exclusive province of pay services. The American public simply will not stand for this.
PBS and its stations also opposed the plan, saying they had spent a lot of money on the digital upgrade which they need to earn back, and viewers had contributed expecting the digital broadcasting to continue. They claimed PBS was "efficient and productive, and abundantly serves the public interest." Noncommercial broadcasters said they needed broadcast spectrum for superior educational and children's programming. PBS said 85 percent of its stations used HDTV and 82 percent had two or more standard channels. Ohio State University
Ohio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly referred to as Ohio State, is a public research university located in Columbus, Ohio. It was originally founded in 1870 as a land-grant university and is currently the third largest university campus in the United States...
said it had "no excess" spectrum.
An FCC workshop on November 23, 2009 produced several ideas. Virginia Tech
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, popularly known as Virginia Tech , is a public land-grant university with the main campus in Blacksburg, Virginia with other research and educational centers throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States, and internationally.Founded in...
professor Charles Bostian said sharing should be done, but not in the white spaces; WiFi
WIFI
WIFI is a radio station broadcasting a brokered format. Licensed to Florence, New Jersey, USA, the station is currently operated by Florence Broadcasting Partners, LLC.This station was previously owned by Real Life Broadcasting...
spectrum should be used instead. Vint Cerf
Vint Cerf
Vinton Gray "Vint" Cerf is an American computer scientist, who is recognized as one of "the fathers of the Internet", sharing this title with American computer scientist Bob Kahn...
of Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
said cable companies could share some spectrum, which the companies would like to do except they have "must-carry" rules that will not allow this. BBN Technologies
BBN Technologies
BBN Technologies is a high-technology company which provides research and development services. BBN is based next to Fresh Pond in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA...
chief engineer Chip Elliott called for government-funded broadband to be shared by researchers. Collaboration was the key to advancing the technology, and the word "collaboratories" referred to broadband as "not only the goal of the research, but the vehicle as well."
The National Association of Broadcasters
National Association of Broadcasters
The National Association of Broadcasters is a trade association, workers union, and lobby group representing the interests of for-profit, over-the-air radio and television broadcasters in the United States...
(NAB) opposed ending broadcast TV because the industry spent $15 billion, in addition to giving up spectrum already. On December 14, 2009 at a hearing before the Communications Subcommittee of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, NAB president Gordon H. Smith said the government and individuals had spent too much money on the DTV transition and for HDTV for further changes to make their efforts worthless, and that broadband and broadcasting could co-exist. He pointed out that in the 1970s, broadcasting used 60 percent of the spectrum that it does now to deliver a much higher quality product, and that existing regulations required more efficient use of the spectrum than would be the case for new devices. On the subject of what could be done instead, Smith recommended using white space in rural areas with fixed devices rather than mobile devices, and new types of broadband service such as those developed by Sezmi
Sezmi
Sezmi is a cloud based video "turnkey" delivery platform for television providers to deliver services over several IP devices like tablet and mobile computing devices....
. CTIA president Steve Largent
Steve Largent
Steven Michael "Steve" Largent is a retired American football player, enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and a former U.S. Congressman, having served in the U.S. House of Representatives for Oklahoma from 1994 until 2002...
said that the industry needed spectrum, "wherever it comes from." He said government spectrum probably was not efficiently used and would "likely" be "repurposed", while other broadcast and satellite spectrum "may" be used better for wireless. Largent also said without more spectrum, companies might merge to better use what they had. Consultant Dave Hatfield, former FCC engineering and technology chief, said making maximum use of existing spectrum through compression and modulation
Modulation
In electronics and telecommunications, modulation is the process of varying one or more properties of a high-frequency periodic waveform, called the carrier signal, with a modulating signal which typically contains information to be transmitted...
would help, but it would not be enough. Oregon Republican House
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
member Greg Walden
Greg Walden
Gregory Paul Walden is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1999. He is a member of the Republican Party.The district covers more than two-thirds of the state . He is the son of Paul E...
criticized the FCC for hiring Distinguished Scholar in Residence Stuart Benjamin
Stuart Benjamin
Stuart Benjamin is an American film producer.-Early life:Benjamin was born in Los Angeles, California. He attended North Hollywood High School where he lettered in Varsity basketball and served on the student council...
, whose essay recommending replacing broadcast spectrum entirely Walden called an "abomination".
The February 17, 2010 deadline was extended by a month. Phil Bellaria, the director of the FCC broadband team, said any plan calling for broadcasters to give up spectrum would be voluntary, and the focus would be on more efficient use of existing spectrum rather than taking that away. Some stations might choose to be paid to give up their position, for example, and some might pair up with other stations using DTV subchannels (or two channels might both be primary channels within the same 6 MHz). Without voluntary action, though, changes could be mandated in 2011 or 2012. On March 16, at the FCC's monthly meeting, Connecting America: The National Broadband Plan was revealed. By 2015, broadcasters would have to leave channels 46 through 51, allowing another 36 MHz to be used for wireless Internet access by "repacking", or relocating channels now on those frequencies. A total of 120 MHz needed to be reclaimed from broadcasters, the rest voluntarily. The FCC Chairman's Senior Counselor Colin Crowell
Colin Crowell
Colin Crowell is the Head of Global Public Policy at Twitter. He is a telecommunications and Internet technology policy expert in Washington, D.C., who worked for over two decades for Congressman Ed Markey the former chairman of the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet of the House...
explained that the spectrum crunch wasn't an imminent crisis, but rather "it’s a crisis in five or six years." Failure to act could make Internet access more expensive and leave the United States less able to compete with other countries, the FCC report said. House Communications Subcommittee chairman Rick Boucher
Rick Boucher
Frederick Carlyle "Rick" Boucher is the former U.S. Representative for , serving from 1983 until 2011. He is a member of the Democratic Party.-Early life, education and career:...
, a Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
Democrat, said it would take four years from the time a bill passed to determine where the new spectrum would come from.
The FCC had 50 MHz of spectrum available for wireless broadband, but this was expected to increase to between 500 MHz and 800 MHz over 10 years. 300 MHz would be made available by 2015. The National Association of Broadcasters opposed the plan, issuing this statement:
We are concerned by reports today that suggest many aspects of the plan may in fact not be as voluntary as originally promised. Moreover, as the nation's only communications service that is free, local and ubiquitous, we would oppose any attempt to impose onerous new spectrum fees on broadcasters.
As the Plan reached its first anniversary, Congressional interest in the Plan's potential revenue from auctions increased, especially in light of Federal budget deficits. The wireless industry's main trade association, CTIA, and the Consumer Electronics Association
Consumer Electronics Association
The Consumer Electronics Association is a standards and trade organization for the consumer electronics industry in the United States. The Consumer Electronics Association is the preeminent trade association promoting growth in the $173 billion U.S...
, jointly released a report indicating that auctions from relinquished frequencies from broadcasters might garner $33 Billion in revenue from auctions.
Regulatory issues
"The regulation of broadband is an increasingly important issue for two main reasons. Firstly, broadband provides the means to transport various signals (voice, data,video, etc) that have traditionally been subject to differing regulation. Secondly, the infrastructure costs and first mover advantage in the provision of broadband services have great implications for competition."In 2000, ITU Member States and Sector Members selected the regulatory implications of broadband as a high priority for future research under the "New Initiatives Programme".
Implications
According to the plan, one hundred million American do not have broadband at home and in the U.S. continues to lag in Internet access speed. The FCC brought out a plan and recommendations to address these problems, along with approaches to maximize the economic and social gains from broadband adoption.This plan is specializing the role of broadband in education, health care, energy and the environment, government performance, civic engagement, public safety, and economic opportunity. Also includes a recognition that broadband obtainment cannot occur without the active participation of the states.
Government
A number of recommendations have clear implications for policy action by state and local governments. On the basic issue of expanded access to broadband, the FCC recommendations include:- Congress should make clear that tribal, state, regional and local governments can build broadband networks. (Recommendation 8.19)
As private investors do not always have the strongest incentives to deploy broadband in rural and underserved communities at an affordable price, states and local leaders should be allowed to step in to provide affordable broadband services that will meet their residents’ needs.
- Federal and state policies should facilitate demand aggregation and use of state, regional and local networks when that is the most cost-efficient solution for anchor institutions to meet their connectivity needs. (Recommendation 8.20)
Pooling demand among institutions can provide more access to a wider constituency at lower prices.
- State legislators are essential partners in developing the framework that will help anchor institutions to obtain broadband connectivity, training, applications, and services. (Recommendation 8.22)
States should complement broadband deployment with digital education programs and fund community technology centers to ensure that residents of all ethnicities, socio-economic backgrounds, and ages understand how to be producers as well as consumers of this new media economy.
- When feasible, Congress should consider allowing state and local governments to get lower service prices by participating in federal contracts for advanced communications services. (Recommendation 14.2)
- The FCC plan provides additional recommendations for the inclusion of tribal leaders in broadband programs, construction of new networks in areas that are currently un-served, and the establishment of the Connect America Fund to address the broadband availability gap in un-served areas.
The FCC recommendations also focused on helping states make broadband more affordable and increasing the training needed to encourage adoption, including:
- An expansion of the Lifeline Assistance and Link-Up America programs, where states already have these discount programs in place, as in Vermont, the FCC recommends letting states determine their own eligibility requirements.
- The creation of a National Digital Literacy Program to increase the skills needed to participate in the digital economy.
- The collection of more comprehensive and reliable information on broadband pricing, performance, and competition in specific market segments to better inform policymakers on affordability problems in specific communities.