No communications industry company came right out and said the FCC’s national broadband plan, released today, is either really good or really bad. Instead, most businesses and associations reacting to the year-long project patted the FCC (and themselves) on the back for its work, pointed out their favorite parts and that was that.
To be fair, the report, “Connecting America: The National Broadband Plan,” does number about 360 pages and 17 whole chapters, and lawyers have yet to dissect them all.
Still, it would seem that a study on America’s lagging broadband status would have come across as more hard-hitting and attracted equally passionate responses. After all, this is a nation where broadband speeds don’t even come close to those in the developing countries of Eastern Europe, for example. But the reason could be that the FCC doesn’t have much enforcement power – Congress must act on the recommendations and observers agree that’s not likely to happen until health care reform is addressed.
‘Move With Urgency’
“Connecting America” is a bit overwhelming in its scope. Pared down for service providers, some of the key bullet points include wholesale access, spectrum allocation, the Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation.
First of all, for incumbents worried the FCC would try to impose requirements such as network-sharing or net neutrality, well, any sleep lost was for naught. The agency pretty much avoided those issues; the furthest it went was to call for a “comprehensive review of wholesale competition rules to help ensure competition in fixed and mobile broadband services.” Stifel Nicolaus telecom analyst Rebecca Arbogast did say this portion of the plan “seems sympathetic” to some CLECs’ requests for wholesale access to Bell networks. What the FCC did not do, she added, was “prejudge the issues.”
If any topic turns into a debate in the near term, it probably will be spectrum. As wireless broadband access becomes the norm thanks to smartphones and other mobile data-greedy devices, the FCC wants to ensure there’s enough spectrum – “the oxygen for all of these devices,” FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski told the PBS NewsHour on Monday – to handle demand.
“We think we have to move with urgency to free up enough spectrum so that we can lead the world in mobile,” Genachowski said.
