After many months of hard work, the FCC (News - Alert) has finally delivered the first National Broadband Plan named Connect America.
According to Julius Genachowski (News - Alert), chairman of the FCC, this plan is important because, “broadband is indispensible infrastructure for the 21st century.” He referred to broadband as the foundation not only for our country’s economy but also for our democracy and the digital age. The plan is set to create not only a platform for economic growth opportunities, but also a platform for innovation and job creation across America.
With unlimited broadband available, there is no limit to the opportunities for jobs and economic growth that can be created to solve the problems our country faces in a number of verticals including education, healthcare, energy, public safety, etc.
This plan was put in place to provide the numerous American residents with broadband solutions easily and at an affordable cost. Genachowski also noted that the National Broadband Plan will help the U.S. to get on the same playing fields as other countries to compete while getting our citizens connected, subscribed and in the know of how they can further their own personal growth and enhance their digital skills.
Currently, there are approximately 100 million Americans without broadband in their homes; this plan sets out to change that. The National Broadband Plan proposes a 100 squared initiative- 100 million households at an affordable 100 Mbps per second to increase the speeds of broadband and mobile broadband networks, according to Genachowski.
In line with the Connect America Plan, the government plans to influence the broadband ecosystem in four ways:
1. By designing competition policies to maximize consumer welfare, innovation and investment.
2. To ensure efficient allocation and management of assets government controls or influences.
3. To create incentives for the universal availability, affordability and adoption of broadband.
4. To reform laws, policies, standards and incentives to maximize the benefits of broadband in sectors such as public education, health care and government operations.
The plan will focus on seven particular areas including economic opportunity, education, healthcare, energy and environment, government performance, civic engagement and public safety.
In addition, the FCC’s Universal Service reform order intends to phase out per-minute access charges over the next five to nine years to create a recovery mechanism so carriers can still collect a part of the funding they would have obtained through the former access charge system, according to a recent report.
Access charges, which can also be referred to as Inter-Carrier Compensation (ICC), are the per-minute fees that carriers pay to one another for terminating voice traffic to each other’s customers. In many rural markets, these charges tend to be proportionately higher than in urban and metro areas to help cover the high costs of building and maintaining communications networks in those underserved areas.
Actelis Networks, provider of broadband solutions including Ethernet over Copper services, shares many of the same goals and incentives that outline what the National Broadband Plan embodies. Aside from providing broadband services to its customers, the company particularly focuses on delivering broadband access to underserved regions, to ensure that no one goes without service.
Actelis (News - Alert) leverages existing copper networks to accelerate the delivery of broadband services with fiber-like quality and reliability at a lower cost. The company has always been at the forefront of providing its customers with broadband solutions, starting trends and initiatives in the industry that other companies have followed.
"Actelis commends the FCC on undertaking the task of reforming the Universal Service Fund and proposing the alignment of subsidies with the current generation of demands driven by an Internet-based economy,” commented Vivek Ragavan, President and CEO of Actelis Networks. “Broadband services provide a critical ingredient to promoting economic development and enabling efficient commerce. In this context, making universal broadband accessible to everyone has been Actelis' goal and we are glad to see policies and regulatory support aligning with these shared goals," Ragavan added.
Stay tuned to the Broadband Solutions channel, exclusively on TMCnet, for more information regarding the National Broadband Plan.
Stefanie Mosca is a Managing Editor for TMCnet, with a particular focus in wireless technologies as well as mobile and IP communications. She holds a master's degree in journalism from Quinnipiac University and a bachelor's degree in communication from the University of New Haven. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page or follow her on Twitter (News - Alert) @stefaniemosca.
Edited by Chris DiMarco