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TC210 Sandbox

National Broadband Plan

Additions to Lead-In:

The United States National Broadband Plan was created after Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. In the legislation, congress mandated that the FCC form a plan that would build infrastructure and implement the technology where broadband is currently unavailable.

The plan consists of over 200 recommendations, which are being implemented over a period of 10 years.

• Since its beginning, the NBP was meant to be transparent and open, and to allow input and consideration from anyone who wanted to offer it. In April of 2009, the FCC began the rule-making process by issuing a notice of inquiry, in which 31 public notices resulted in 23,000 comments (or 74,000 pages) from 700 parties.

(Expand History/Forming of NBBP…)

Goals

1. 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.
2. The United States should lead the world in mobile innovation, with the fastest and most extensive wireless networks of any nation.
3. Every American should have affordable access to robust broadband service, and the means and skills to subscribe if they so choose.
4. 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.
5. To ensure the safety of the American people, every first responder should have access to a nationwide, wireless, interoperable broadband public safety network.
6. 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 Goals

Mobile Broadband

To meet growing demand for wireless broadband services, the plan also aims to reallocate spectrum 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 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 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.

On one hand, increasing mobile broadband capacity would help mobile service providers meet the customers' demand for cutting-edge services. On the other, 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 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 Services (MSS) have been specifically targeted. In attempt to fulfill this plan, the FCC must

1. identify spaces in spectrum that can be used more effectively
2. reclaim spectrum from incumbent licensees.

The plan recommends that the FCC be given more authority to be able 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.

Exploring GOALs/Areas of Interest of the NBBP:

Health IT

Included in section 10 of the plan are recommendations for IT implementation in healthcare. “By 2018, national health spending is expected to reach $4.4 trillion and comprise just over one-fifth (20.3 percent) of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).”

(Expand Health Care-related goals and recommendations)

• e-care
• better digital records

Status quo of broadband in the United States

Survey of Broadband Network by NTIA (2008)

Previous to the adoption of the National Broadband Plan, assessments of broadband statistics were made to determine whether or not the marketplace offered robustly competitive, ubiquitous broadband Internet access. 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 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 Survey of broadband in the U.S.

In 2008, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released a compilation of statistics centered on broadband deployment and penetration. 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 notably well-above the OECD average. The average download speed in the U.S. was 4.9 Mbps, where the average was 9.2.

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, Barack Obama used the OECD findings in the sphere of political debate. 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.