FCC's National Broadband Plan detailed early, calls for 100Mb/s home connections

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Matthew DeCarlo

Matthew DeCarlo

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The FCC's ambitious National Broadband Plan is set to appear before Congress tomorrow, but some additional details have surfaced early. The agency's 10-year plan would deliver faster, more affordable broadband Internet access to 90% of US homes, compared to 65% currently.

One of the FCC's ideas would bring free or very cheap wireless Internet by relicensing as much as 500MHz of spectrum currently occupied by television broadcasters. The FCC also hopes subsidize service in poor and rural areas, and boost the connection speed of 100 million US households to 100Mb/s. Additionally, the plan aims to bring 1Gb/s speeds to at least one anchor institution in every American community, such as a school, library, or hospital.

The Internet would ultimately replace phones, TV and other conventional technologies as the primary form of communication in the US. Naturally, the agency already faces opposition from industries that might take a hit in the wallet. Nonetheless, FCC chairmen Julius Genachowski feels this shift has happened before, comparing the emergence of broadband to infrastructure challenges previously posed by telephones and electricity.

Genachowski argues that broadband expansion could stimulate the economy -- which has seen better days. "Broadband will be the indispensable platform to assure American competitiveness, ongoing job creation and innovation, and will affect nearly every aspect of Americans' lives at home, at work, and in their communities."

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https://www.techspot.com/news/38235-fccs-national-broadband-plan-detailed-early-calls-for-100mb-s-home-connections.html

 
Well, this is a better plan than the "free internet for everyone" plans I've seen floating around lately. Make something that can universally blanket the US and get us up in the global broadband coverage numbers, but keep it at a nice affordable rate, and I think there will be some great gains across the board. Do this too cheap, and cut out the telecom and cable companies that have spent so much of their resources laying the physical backbone foundation needed for such an endeavor, and you are going to kill a massive amount of jobs, and face some serious lobbying against the measure.

They'll have to be careful how they introduce and word this plan when they introduce it for legislation. There's already far too much "big government" sentiment right now, it's going to be a major uphill battle unless they just let the private enterprises make it happen, and provide basic regulation to make sure it meets their established criteria.
 
i thing i wonder about if internet going to replace landline phones what happens when the power goings out at least the landline phones at isp have banks of battery backup on them when power goes out the internet goes down and even if the servers are on backup power all thoses local hubs and relay stations don't have any backup power and cell towers would run same way cell tower has backup power but the lines running between the isp and cell tower run into a hub siting on the ground with has no backup power so there you go. save me from thoses people who say the power will never go out only takes one lightning stike or overloaded system, or some guy know over power pole with his backhole ie the great northeast blackout lol..... be cool to have 100mb connection my router would finally be maxed out. be cool have wifi everywhere even rural area miles from anything with having to go into cell tower with data card. storm chaseing be lot more fun lol. wifi antenna embedded street paint lol i hope. and i hope china pays for everything we can test it for them for few years then give it to all the world lol.......
 
I really like the initial sounds of this. Just from reading various "Whats your Internet speed and how much do you pay" threads on various forums I visit, I would say the US is behind at east 1/2 to 3/4 the modern world in terms of internet speed, availability and cost.

But on the flip side I don't like the idea of too much "Big Government" involvement with my internet. If the federal gov't lays the cable, I can see some factions in the fed gov't using that as leverage for more monitoring of the internet, or even start censoring the internet. "We had the cables ran, we can now do what we want with it" sort of attitude.
 
Sure its free, its also just one network which makes it 100% more efficient for censoring and cutting off access in times of "emergency". If the government is involved at any level, they will have the ability to control it down the road, plain and simple.
 
I don't want to turn anything like the Internet over to the government. It would make censorship a real possibility.It's just away for them to take (another freedom) NOT give!
 
"One of the FCC's ideas would bring free or very cheap wireless Internet by relicensing as much as 500MHz of spectrum currently occupied by television broadcasters."

Well, there you have it: the death of free over-the-air television in America. From now on, if you want to watch tv you'll have to pay up or do without.
 
Guest said:
"One of the FCC's ideas would bring free or very cheap wireless Internet by relicensing as much as 500MHz of spectrum currently occupied by television broadcasters."

Well, there you have it: the death of free over-the-air television in America. From now on, if you want to watch tv you'll have to pay up or do without.
Click to expand...

You should probably do a little research... Those spectrums are free now because of the mandated switch from analog to digital television broadcasting frequencies. You can still easily get free over-the-air television in America - in fact, I use a digital antenna to get free HD channels that are orders of magnitude better than anything I could get with an analog antenna in this area.

The old analog spectrums have been vacated of any but some minimal traffic still authorized to use them, so why not let the wireless broadcast internet live on them? Plus, those low frequencies have better penetration into remote regions (abilities to broadcast through obstructions).
 
Vrmithrax said:
Guest said:
"One of the FCC's ideas would bring free or very cheap wireless Internet by relicensing as much as 500MHz of spectrum currently occupied by television broadcasters."

Well, there you have it: the death of free over-the-air television in America. From now on, if you want to watch tv you'll have to pay up or do without.
Click to expand...

You should probably do a little research... Those spectrums are free now because of the mandated switch from analog to digital television broadcasting frequencies. You can still easily get free over-the-air television in America - in fact, I use a digital antenna to get free HD channels that are orders of magnitude better than anything I could get with an analog antenna in this area.

The old analog spectrums have been vacated of any but some minimal traffic still authorized to use them, so why not let the wireless broadcast internet live on them? Plus, those low frequencies have better penetration into remote regions (abilities to broadcast through obstructions).
Click to expand...
This is off topic, but there is a very large downside to the analogy to digital switch. A lot of people that got "ok" reception on a station with the old analog signal lost it complete with the switch to digital. My parents for example lost about 1/2 their channels.
 
''The agency's 10-year plan would deliver faster, more affordable broadband Internet access to 90% of US home' So in Ten years some people STILL could be without Fast Affordable Broadband in the US. Im no Expert but that sounds pretty ****! I think they need to re think there plans. Its worse than the UKs plan to get people faster broadband. I know the country is a bit bigger but come on, get people connectyed. Im all for the EU making broadband of at least 2MB a Human right.
 
It's funny, but the only people out there that will oppose this sort of legislation will be the telecom companies themselves. They will drag their feet and ***** and moan. I really hope that gigabit internet is coming sooner than later.
 
elroacho72 said:
I don't want to turn anything like the Internet over to the government. It would make censorship a real possibility.It's just away for them to take (another freedom) NOT give!
Click to expand...
I am actually just as concerned about censorship from the oligopolies that are in charge of our internet now. They've already started throttling and have attempted outright censoring on a few occasions.
 
They already planed to do this in Australia than realized it would cost billions of dollars just so people could download faster.
 
Vrmithrax said:
Well, this is a better plan than the "free internet for everyone" plans I've seen floating around lately. Make something that can universally blanket the US and get us up in the global broadband coverage numbers, but keep it at a nice affordable rate, and I think there will be some great gains across the board. Do this too cheap, and cut out the telecom and cable companies that have spent so much of their resources laying the physical backbone foundation needed for such an endeavor, and you are going to kill a massive amount of jobs, and face some serious lobbying against the measure.

They'll have to be careful how they introduce and word this plan when they introduce it for legislation. There's already far too much "big government" sentiment right now, it's going to be a major uphill battle unless they just let the private enterprises make it happen, and provide basic regulation to make sure it meets their established criteria.
Click to expand...

I agree with you though it will be a tough battle knowing the interest of the isp, they probably won't want to budge an affordable rate per high speed internet. I think there will be much debate and might be fixed through its way.
 
Look at Australia's broadband plan that ended up as one of the biggest failures in all of recorded history.

Now look at America's broadband plan that may or may not work but at least makes sense and looks like something that might just work.

The Australian government is just a group of old men who have no idea what the internet is and the US government is the same but at least they have the FCC that SEEM to know what they're talking about.
 
What good do 100mbps connections do if the end users have caps? I know there are many good points to this, but being able to reach your downloading limit in just a few days isn't going to help. I'm lucky that my connections is unlimited and i feel sorry for you guys from the US.
 
They want 100mbps connections, I want to win the lottery.
Just about the same chance of actually happening in the near future.
 
This is going to get a lot of opposition from corporations, but I am totally for getting rid of the wired phone system and going to broadband and VOIP for all. I think this would be great!!
 
Well, as Vrmithrax said at the beginning, this is better than "free internet for all" plans that simply won't happen and aren't very well thought out at all. But again, I won't hold my breath. The FCC is seriously overstepping their bounds on this. The current status of broadband speeds is set by the free market. People won't pay what it takes to provide these higher speeds. I've worked in the isp industry and know that while isps are making money, most aren't making enough to throw in the gear required to make 100 MB/s work without seriously increasing fees. Most people in my state have between 1 and 12 MB/s and like it, but complain about the cost. If my isp had to suddenly increase my speeds to 100 MB/s they'd have to raise costs. Splitting nodes, adding more routers and more fiber gear to their network isn't cheap but it's what would be required.

As far as what Guest said near the top: My phone company goes offline in power outages too along with my cable and all of my electronic phones in my home. The last time I had a non-all-electronic phone was in the 80's. Of course I've now done away with my phone line (and for now due to a real steal of a deal I have one through my isp) but when I still had one the phones wouldn't work during a power outage even when they ran on batteries.
 
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