The National Broadband Plan: Unanswered Questions and Next Steps
New America Foundation and Free Press Release Joint Analysis of The National Broadband Plan:
New Issue Brief Highlights Plan's Unanswered Questions and Details Next Steps
Washington, D.C. - Today, the New America Foundation's Open Technology Initiative and Free Press released The National Broadband Plan: Unanswered Questions and Next Steps. While the National Broadband Plan represents vision and an important policy shift for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the analysis finds the Plan's goals and policies must be bolder if the U.S. is to close digital divides in rural and urban areas, and allow the U.S. to improve its international broadband ranking.
"It's great that we have a National Broadband Plan, but we have a long way to go before we have a great plan - this joint analysis clearly identifies the key problem areas and provides constructive feedback for how to make much needed improvements," said Sascha Meinrath, director of New America Foundation's Open Technology Initiative. "The future of U.S. telecommunications will be determined by the outcomes of the FCC proceedings coming out of the National Broadband Plan - thus, the stakes have never been higher for public interest groups to make their voices heard at the FCC."
Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press said, "In critical areas, this plan does not go far enough fast enough. In order to achieve the goals in the National Broadband Plan, the Commission will need to take immediate steps. Now is when the rubber meets the road for the National Broadband Plan."
The joint analysis confronts nine key facets of the plan: goals and benchmarks, competition, universal service, adoption, spectrum, infrastructure, transparency, data collection and analysis, and jurisdiction. For each area, The National Broadband Plan: Unanswered Questions and Next Steps provides a three-fold analysis:
1) Highlights the problems with the current state of broadband deployment and adoption in the United States and compares the goals set in the Plan with those of other industrialized countries.
2) Summarizes and evaluates the Plan's recommendations, with a particular emphasis on whether the Plan's recommendations will enable the Commission to meet its goals.
3) Recommends next steps for new policy and calls attention to the work that remains if we are to bridge the digital divide at home and abroad.
The National Broadband Plan: Unanswered Questions and Next Steps is available here: http://oti.newamerica.net/publications/policy/the_national_broadband_plan.
More from the New America Foundation on the National Broadband Plan at: http://newamerica.net/nationalbroadbandplan.
About the Open Technology Initiative:
New America Foundation's Open Technology Initiative formulates policy and regulatory reforms to support open architectures and open source innovations and facilitates the development and implementation of open technologies and communications networks. For more information, visit: http://oti.newamerica.net.
Please contact Kate Brown with media inquiries at 202-596-3365 or brown@newamerica.net.
About the New America Foundation:
The New America Foundation is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy institute that invests in new thinkers and new ideas to address the next generation of challenges facing the United States.
