Levin hints at Broadband Plan

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Richard Bennett <richard () bennett com>
> Date: December 24, 2009 9:15:21 PM EST
> To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
> Subject: Levin hints at Broadband Plan

> For IP, if you wish.
>
> Blair Levin pre-announces some details of the National Broadband  
> Plan on The Communicators this weekend. Amy Schatz of the WSJ did  
> some of the questioning, and reports:
> Providing universal broadband access at 3 mbps would cost about $20  
> billion, the FCC estimates. The price tag for 50 mbps service across  
> the U.S. would cost more than $50 billion.
>
> Much of that investment would have to come from the private sector,  
> Mr. Levin says, although the agency is considering changes to a $7  
> billion annual federal phone subsidy program to fund new Internet  
> lines in rural areas.
>
> Mr. Levin also dismissed criticisms last week from public interest  
> groups unhappy the plan may not propose some ideas for encouraging  
> competition, such as rules that would require Internet providers to  
> share their lines with competitors.
>
> “I find their criticism not very productive,” Mr. Levin said Monda 
> y.
>
> FCC officials have been considering the ideas, some of which were  
> laid out in a FCC-commissioned report by Harvard University’s Berkma 
> n Center for Internet & Society.
>
> The WSJ piece is at:
>
> http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/12/21/fcc-eyes-average-internet-speeds-for-rural-areas/
>
> and you can see the video at C-Span's web site:
>
> http://www.c-span.org/Watch/Media/2009/12/21/HP/R/27505/FCC+Gives+Status+on+Natl+Broadband+Plan.aspx
>
> RB
> --
> Richard Bennett
> Research Fellow
> Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
> Washington, DC



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