While I find a National Broadband Plan to be a reasonable and positive national priority, I’m a little concerned about it’s weak modest goals. The aim is to have 4Mbps Internet service in every home (including the often daunting last mile) by 2020. Many other nations have already rolled out 100Mbps fiber to their national residents, and are aiming for 1Gbps soon. If we are to put that last mile of cable into every U.S. residence, it would seem to me that a more lofty goal should be set, beyond the targeted 4Mbps that is considered slow by today’s standards, and useless in 10 years. Think about it… 10 years ago, 56K modems were far more common in homes than cable, ISDN, or DSL connections were. Imagine if today we finally realized the goal of a 56k modem and phone line in every home! How utterly useless that would be to most of us, and such a waste of resources to accomplish a goal that is archaic far before it is realized.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski received written questions today regarding the level of aggressiveness this goal represents. We will have to wait and see if the bar is set higher on the capacity that this plan will seek to achieve.
Read more about this story: Senators grill FCC Chairman over ‘modest’ National Broadband Plan goals.