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The FCC (News - Alert) has until mid-February to put together the National Broadband Plan, which will be the blueprint for the country’s broadband effort going forward.

This plan, I am told, will lay out not only how to make broadband more available and accessible, but how to make sure the support systems are in place to allow for that. Indeed, the National Broadband Plan is positioned to be a guide for how broadband can help improve our collective quality of life by enabling new efficiencies and capabilities across a broad spectrum of applications and industries.

However, I was not encouraged when I read the National Broadband Plan status update issued this fall by the FCC. Instead of offering some new information indicating that this significant effort is moving ahead, the update was simply a rehash of what the FCC has been talking about since the inception of the National Broadband Plan as laid out in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 back in February.

Maybe the FCC doesn’t want to let the air out of its big unveiling of the plan, which is expected Feb. 17. I certainly hope that’s the case because putting together the National Broadband Plan is big job and, in the end, it could either be an important document to the future of our country or just another empty effort requiring a lot of time but little value.