The Fiber to the Home Council, which describes itself as nonprofit consortium of telecommunications and networking companies as well as utilities and municipalities promoting the deployment of Fiber To The Home (FTTH), is calling on Congress to promulgate a national policy objective of providing next-generation (fiber versus metal wire based) broadband networks to a majority of Americans by 2010 with universal access by 2015. "To ensure that consumers can both receive and transmit video and other high-speed services, applications, and content, these networks should have transmission speeds in excess of 100 Mbps and symmetrical access capabilities," the FTTH Council said.
The FTTH Council is also urging Congress to enact legislation providing tax incentives for next-generation broadband deployment, preempting state laws barring local governments from building broadband infrastructure, reauthorizing the Rural Utility Service Loan Guarantee Program for next-generation broadband networks, permitting the Universal Service Fund to be used for next-generation broadband network deployment and earmarking $500 million in USF funds for broadband deployment in rural areas. In addition, the Federal Communications Commission should be required to issue annual reports on next-generation broadband network deployments and include recommendations on additional policies that would accelerate the deployment of next-generation broadband networks, the FTTH Council said.
2 comments:
It's refreshing to see a proposal using Fiber to the Home as the basis for a national broadband plan. It's the only technology that will bring us the speed we need. I also absolutely agree that it will take public policy on the national and state levels to make sure the buildout occurs, to require it is truly affordable and universal. There is some really good information and proposals at http://speedmatters.org.
As we move increasingly into more and faster digital communications, copper will go the way of the rotary telephone as a symbol of the era of analog based communications.
This paper acknowledges that reality and the need for an all fiber-based telecommunications system in the U.S. Public policymakers should be debating not when but rather how to make it happen as quickly as possible. America must free itself of its legacy metal cable-based telecommunications albatross that threatens to hold it back technologically while other nations advance.
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