June, 08 2009, 02:37pm EDT
National Broadband Plan Must Promote Competition, Openness and Access
WASHINGTON
Today, Free Press filed comments with the Federal Communications
Commission as part of the agency's "national broadband plan" to bring
high-speed Internet to all Americans.
"The FCC's broadband plan must chart a new direction for technology policy in this country," said S. Derek Turner,
research director of Free Press and author of the comments. "Success
will depend on policies that promote robust broadband competition,
guarantee strong Net Neutrality protections, and produce concrete data
about the broadband market. The agency must set a high bar for
broadband -- our digital future cannot rest on today's slow, expensive
standards."
Free Press offered the following recommendations:
- Conduct a thorough review of the current state of the broadband market and the impact of past policies.
Over the last decade, the FCC has not evaluated the broadband market to
assess the real impact of its decisions on consumers. The FCC should
produce an honest assessment of broadband deployment, develop a
data-driven standard to identify local areas where providers are
abusing their market power, and evaluate the impact of all past
policies. - Encourage broadband adoption through policies that increase competition.
The FCC must move beyond availability. One of the main underlying
barriers to broadband adoption is value -- the speeds are too slow and
the prices are too high. The national broadband plan should focus on
the policies that spur the deployment of high-capacity networks and
drive down consumer costs. - Treat broadband as infrastructure. President
Barack Obama recently said that America's digital infrastructure is
"the backbone that underpins a prosperous economy and a strong military
and an open and efficient government." The FCC should prioritize
policies that promote next-generation networks, ensuring that
commercial market failures do not result in weakening the nation's
economic foundation. - Protect the open Internet through strong Net Neutrality rules.
The economic and social value of broadband is derived from the content
and services it delivers. The FCC should expand and codify the
"Internet Policy Statement" into permanent Net Neutrality rules. The
FCC should also reverse the decision to classify broadband Internet
access service as a pure information service, which would allow the
agency to reinstate open access rules where appropriate.
Read Free Press' broadband comments: https://www.freepress.net/files/FP_National_broadband_plan.pdf
Free Press was created to give people a voice in the crucial decisions that shape our media. We believe that positive social change, racial justice and meaningful engagement in public life require equitable access to technology, diverse and independent ownership of media platforms, and journalism that holds leaders accountable and tells people what's actually happening in their communities.
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