Please people, don't drop the ball on this. This is effectively what everyone on Slashdot has been praying for and waiting for- our government to do something about the fact that broadband access in the United States lags behind The Republic of South Korea, Rural Finland and many countries which have only recently emerged from the rule of military dictatorships. The FCC is asking you the People how universal broadband should be delivered- I would think 15 to 20 thousand slashdot subscribers would actually have something constructive to say in this regard.
In the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 ("Recovery Act"), Congress directed the Commission to create a national broadband plan by February 17, 2010, that seeks to "ensure that all people of the United States have access to broadband capability and
... establish[es] benchmarks for meeting that goal."1 Among other things, the Commission is to provide "an analysis of the most effective and efficient mechanism for ensuring broadband access by all people of the United States"2 and "a detailed strategy for achieving affordability of such service and maximum utilization of broadband infrastructure and service by the public."
The point of this move by the FCC is to respond to a mandate from the Congress of the United States to move from an obsolete model of providing universal dial tone on the POTS network to provide universal broadband access. The FCC is asking for comment for their proposal that once universal broadband access is delivered, would we really need POTS lines for anything other than Neo and Morpheus to come and visit us? Or should they provide two expensive subsidized networks? Should rural network subscribers (such as myself) have TWO expensive subsidized networks, a subsidized broadband access and a subsidized POTS access? Or could the broadband access be delivered in such a way that the services we enjoy with POTS (911 calls, calls to grandma, faxes, ability to tunnel through the POTS network to other network providers) be effectively delivered with a standardized national broadband infrastructure?
"Engineering without management is art." -- Jeff Johnson
