the US Federal Communications Commission will soon announce a national broadband plan

Jared Newman, PCWorld, Feb 23, 2010 7:42 pm
PC WORLD

With the United States falling behind other nations in broadband adoption, the Federal Communications Commission will soon announce a national broadband plan aimed at getting more people online at faster speeds. A new survey by the FCC shows why 93 million Americans don't get broadband -- a combination of high costs, poor understanding, and a general apathy for the Internet -- highlighting how difficult implementing a national broadband plan will be.

Here are four things I hope will come of the FCC's proposal, which will be submitted to Congress on March 17:

100 Mbps: Affordable, Not Just Available

A key goal for the FCC is to bring 100-megabit-per-second broadband to 100 million homes by 2020, but the current market shows that the speed you get isn't necessarily the fastest possible. Many Internet service providers offer a few speed tiers, with cheaper plans for casual Web browsers and pricey turbo speeds for power users. This will have to change for 100 Mbps Internet to be adopted on a grand scale...