The Internet Innovation Alliance is a broad-based coalition of business and non-profit organizations that aim to ensure every American, regardless of race, income or geography, has access to the critical tool that is broadband Internet. The IIA seeks to promote public policies that support equal opportunity for universal broadband availability and adoption so that everyone, everywhere can seize the benefits of the Internet - from education to health care, employment to community building, civic engagement and beyond.
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Blog posts tagged with 'National Broadband Plan'
Thursday, March 11
Immediately following the unveiling of the FCC’s national broadband plan next Tuesday, Chairman Julius Genachowski will be fielding questions on YouTube about the plan and the FCC’s steps moving forward. Questions can be submitted via CitizenTube.
Geoff Daily of App-Rising has concerns about how projects are being chosen for broadband stimulus funds:
Last night CNN aired a story during the Situation Room highlighting two participants in the first round of the broadband stimulus.
The first was Hiawatha Broadband, a terrific rural broadband deployer in southeastern Minnesota. They interviewed a host of people about how the hardscrabble rural towns Hiawatha was aiming to serve don’t have broadband at all, and as a result their public safety is in jeopardy as they have no efficient way to communicate during an emergency. Unfortunately, despite the fact that they’re a poster child for the types of communities the broadband stimulus is intended to help, their application was denied.
Then CNN went up to Bretton Woods, NH, where RUS did find a project it deemed worthy of funding, namely building fiber to 400 skiing chalets. I’d been suspicious about this program already, but CNN put an even finer point on it: only 40 of those homes actually have full-time residents.
Wednesday, March 10
As part of its upcoming national broadband plan, the FCC has announced it wants to create a “digital literacy corps” to help educate people in low broadband adoption areas about the benefits of broadband. Reports Broadcasting & Cable:
[FCC Chairman Julius] Genachowski said that rural, minority, low-income, seniors, the disabled and tribal communities have fallen behind in broadband, and the cost of digital exclusion is “high and growing higher every day.”
Other inclusion proposals include creating an “online skills” portal with free lessons and digital education, though of course that will require broadband availability.
The FCC will also recommend public funding for the National Telecommunications & Information Administration to support public-private partnerships for outreach and education and targeted support for senior citizens.
In a surprising move — for government, anyway — the FCC has announced that it’s much anticipated national broadband plan will now be released on March 16 — a day earlier than originally scheduled.
Tuesday, March 09
Reuters reports that as part of its national broadband plan — due to be presented before Congress in just eight days — the FCC will recommend dedicating some spectrum to provide free or low-cost wireless Internet service to low-income and rural communities.
With broadband stimulus funds slowly making their way to applicants, a new wrinkle has emerged that may slow down recipients putting the money to good use. As Phone Plus reports, it comes down to the question of taxes:
[I]f the government doesn’t clarify whether the grants are considered taxable income, onlookers fear recipients won’t use the money any time soon – defeating the purpose of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
When asked whether recipients would be taxed on the stimulus funds, the Treasury Department reportedly offered no concrete answer. Stay tuned…
Thursday, March 04
Via Reuters, some insight into where funding for a national broadband plan will come from:
The U.S. National Broadband Plan set for release this month will not call for additional spending beyond the existing programs, a move likely to garner support from lawmakers, a Federal Communications Commission official said on Wednesday.
The highly anticipated blueprint will be “revenue neutral” overall because spectrum auctions will compensate for any needed spending, said the official, who was not authorized to speak before the public release of the plan.
Outside of the spectrum auction — which could bring in as much as $50 billion for the plan — the FCC is also set to recommend redirecting the universal service fund to connect four percent of Americans currently lacking broadband access.
Wednesday, March 03
In just 14 days, the FCC will present a national broadband plan to Congress. Today, the Wall Street Journal highlights some of what the plan will entail:
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski’s coming National Broadband Plan will propose up to $25 billion in new federal spending for high-speed Internet lines and a wireless network for police and firefighters as part of a broader plan that appears to be a win for wireless companies.
The plan will also offer a variety of ideas for expanding Americans’ access to affordable Internet over the next decade. Mr. Genachowski has been slowly releasing details about the plan, which will be released in mid-March, and last week suggested that Congress spend $12 billion to $16 billion for the wireless Internet network for police and firefighters.
Yesterday, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski sat down with the Washington Post to talk about the national broadband plan and the importance of being connected.
Monday, March 01
We’re excited to announce that seven community leaders have joined our Broadband Ambassador program today. Coming from diverse professional backgrounds, each ambassador shares our enthusiastic support for broadband Internet access and adoption for all Americans.
The new ambassadors are:
• Sylvia Aguilera, Executive Director of HTTP: Hispanic Technology and Telecommunications Partnership
• Harry Alford, President and CEO, National Black Chamber of Commerce
• Ed Foster Simeon, President, United States Soccer Foundation
• Joseph P. Fuhr, Professor of Economics, Widener University and Senior Fellow, American Consumer Institute
• Jimmy Lynn, Managing Partner, Lynn & Associates
• Marcia Thomas-Brown, Program Manager for the National Health IT Collaborative for the Underserved
• Navarrow Wright, Social Media and Internet Consultant, Maximum Leverage Solutions
More information on each ambassador can be found on our Broadband Ambassador Program page.
Friday, February 26
As part of its presentation to Congress of a national broadband plan, the FCC has announced it will recommend a federal grant program of $6 billion to build a wireless public safety network. An addition $6-$10 billion will also be proposed in order to operate it.
Thursday, February 25
Yesterday, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski revealed that as part of its impending national broadband plan, television broadcasters would be asked to volunteer some of their spectrum. From Ars Technica:
The FCC’s boss has to maneuver somewhat gingerly around this issue. The broadcasting industry has given a distinctly cold reception to wireless and consumer device maker proposals for ways that television license holders could dramatically reconfigure their high altitude, high power transmission systems to free up as much as 180 MHz of spectrum. Now the FCC and NTIA are talking about 500 MHz.
So Genachowski emphasized that this would be a “voluntary program.”
With the unprecedented adoption of mobile Internet in recent years, America is facing what Genachowski himself has called a “looming spectrum crisis.” Wireless carriers agree. Which means if broadcasters refuse to volunteer spectrum for wireless use, the fight could quickly turn heated. Stay tuned…
Tuesday, February 23
IIA Co-Chairmen Bruce Mehlman and David Sutphen respond to the FCC’s new study “Broadband Adoption and Use in America.”
I commend the FCC for its leadership on broadband adoption and for recognizing the role the Internet plays in the American job market. We no longer operate in a brick-and-mortar economy. Broadband increases opportunities for American businesses large and small to succeed and advance and enables new job creation as well.Investing in Internet technology and infrastructure benefits all business sectors, and at a time when economic recovery is at the top of our national agenda, broadband advancement has never been more critical.
— Bruce Mehlman
The new FCC study underscores the need to remain focused on closing the digital divide by addressing the American public’s attitudes about broadband and reinforces the IIA’s belief that digital literacy must be a key component of the National Broadband Strategy, due to Congress next month. In a 2009 survey of 900 African Americans and Hispanics by Obama pollster Cornell Belcher, 43 percent of respondents cited not knowing how to use the Internet or not seeing the need for the Internet as the reason why they are not online, and 44 percent of those same minorities polled said they would be more likely to subscribe to Internet services if they were provided free lessons on how to use the technology. Bridging the digital divide and getting every American online should be our top priority—broadband Internet is the great enabler and the great equalizer.
— David Sutphen
In advance of its deadline to present a national broadband plan to Congress on March 17, the FCC conducted a consumer survey on Internet usage. The commission will be presenting the results at the Brookings Institute today, but via Multichannel News here are some highlights:
The survey, a random phone survey conducted in October and November, found that 80 million adults (and 13 million kids) do not have high-speed Internet at home.
More than one-third of the non-adopters (28 million adults) indicated that they don’t have broadband because either the price of service is too high (15%); they can’t afford a computer; installation costs are too high (10%); or they don’t want a long-term service contract (9%). According to the survey, the average monthly broadband bill is $41.
The full FCC survey results are available via the Wall Street Journal.
Monday, February 22
Geoff Daily of App Rising, who has been keeping a watchful eye on how and when federal broadband grants are doled out, has handed out grades for the first year of the effort. The overall grade: D+.
Despite the bad grade, however, Daily is still hopeful:
Just because the stimulus is failing now on almost all fronts doesn’t mean that it can’t recover and post solid even spectacular marks. Ultimately the grade that matters most is that the best projects are funded and on that they’re not failing. They’re also learning from at least some of their mistakes. So I for one am still hopeful that the broadband stimulus will be more than just another government folly.
Friday, February 19
From a Huffington Post op-ed by Julius H. Hollis of the Alliance for Digital Equality on the national broadband plan:
More than $100 billion has already been spent to deploy high-speed systems across America. But the FCC has estimated that $350 billion is necessary to achieve universal broadband access. As such, the focus of the FCC should be on speeding this process, either through federal programs or by incentivizing the investment of private companies.
Throughout this process, we must also strive to ensure that access remains affordable. To achieve this, I see one logical solution - to have the build-out in these communities financed in part by agreements between the companies paying to lay the wires and the companies that will use those links to sell services.
Largely missing the point, proposals for new “neutrality” rules do nothing to help us realize these important goals. Instead, it is widely thought that new net neutrality regulations will reduce much needed investment in infrastructure, thus causing broadband to become less affordable and accessible to underserved and un-served populations.
Yesterday, the NTIA announced 10 new projects have received broadband grants. All told, $357 million in grants were promised to projects in eight states: California, Florida, Indiana, New York, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.
Thursday, February 18
Over at the FCC’s official broadband blog, Chairman Julius Genachowski has posted some tidbits from the commission’s upcoming national broadband plan. Writes Genachowski:
By setting ambitious goals and laying out proposals to connect all Americans to a world-class broadband infrastructure, we will help secure our country’s global competitiveness for generations to come.
The FCC’s National Broadband Plan will include the following key recommendations:
100 Squared Initiative: 100 million households at a minimum of 100 megabits per second (Mbs)—the world’s largest market of high-speed broadband users—to ensure that new businesses are created in America and stay in America.
Broadband Testbeds: Encourage the creation of ultra high-speed broadband testbeds as fast, or faster, than any Internet service in the world, so that America is hosting the experiments that produce tomorrow’s ideas and industries.
Digital Opportunities: Expand digital opportunities by moving our adoption rates from roughly 65 percent to more than 90 percent and making sure that every child in America is digitally literate by the time he or she leaves high school.
The full plan is scheduled to be presented to Congress on March 17.
Tuesday, February 16
Via the Washington Post, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has revealed some information about the commission’s upcoming national broadband plan:
In a speech Tuesday morning, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said faster speeds are important for small businesses to bring operations onto the Web and create more jobs. And he gave kudos to Google for its plan to test fiber networks with speeds of 1 gigabit per second.
“Our plan will set goals for the U.S. to have the world’s largest market of very high-speed broadband users . . . to unleash American ingenuity and ensure that businesses, large and small, are created here, move here, and stay here,” Genachowski said in a speech at conference for public utilities commissioners.
“And we should stretch beyond 100 megabits. The U.S. should lead the world in ultra-high-speed broadband testbeds as fast, or faster, than anywhere in the world,” he said.
The full FCC plan is scheduled to be presented to Congress on March 17.
Friday, February 05
Via Government Health IT, the FCC is putting a lot of thought into health care applications as it develops a national broadband plan:
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act called for the FCC to develop a plan for establishing broadband connections to the Internet as a way to spur business development, job creation and improvements in healthcare.
As part of the plan, the FCC will analyze health IT applications enabled by broadband, including electronic health record systems, video conferencing and remote monitoring, Kaushal said at a Feb. 3 conference sponsored by the mHealth Initiative, which advocates the use of cell phones and other mobile devices to improve healthcare.
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