Broadband Plan Sparks Spectrum, USF Squabbles

When the FCC set out to draft a comprehensive broadband plan, it was bound to invite some disagreements. Now that the plan is out in the public, those grievances are coming into focus.

Enterprise Networking Planet has the story on what’s sure to be a lively fight between TV broadcasters and the FCC over the broadband plan’s spectrum recommendations, along with the challenges of USF and intercarrier compensation reform.

WASHINGTON — Now that the many industries and stakeholders that are looking ahead to the country’s next moves on Internet policy have had a chance to digest the Federal Communications Commission’s national broadband plan, most everyone can find much to agree with in the document.

“If you actually read the commentary, everyone supports large parts of it,” Blair Levin, the executive director of the FCC’s Omnibus Broadband Initiative, said on Wednesday in remarks at the Brookings Institution. But he quickly added that the far-ranging recommendations the plan proposes have inevitably sparked opposition from various corners of the Internet sector.

Levin explained that many of the plan’s recommendations were intentionally broad, leaving the details of arcane matters – like shared access to infrastructure – to the commissioners to define in rulemaking proceedings. Phoebe Yang, the broadband team’s general counsel, said she expected the plan to lead to more than 40 notices of proposed rulemaking over the next 12 months to 18 months.

“We wanted to have a document that was both visionary and practical,” Levin said, describing the balance the team aimed for in producing a plan that was “simultaneously comprehensive and targeted.”

Read the full story at Enterprise Networking Planet:


Broadband Plan Spoiling for a Fight Over Spectrum, USF