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Universal Broadband Plan Calls for $44 billion in Spending

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  • 25-12-2008 2:44am
    #1
    bealtine
    Registered Users Posts: 4,051 ✭✭✭


    http://www.websiteoptimization.com/bw/0812/

    President-elect Obama is calling for a massive $850 billion or more economic stimulus package to jump start the US economy and rebuild neglected infrastructure. As part of this plan the Obama administration has pledged to deploy next-generation broadband to every community in America. What the new administration has not offered is more specifics on their plan to achieve broadband for all. The Free Press has put forth a $44 billion plan to achieve universal broadband availability for the United States.

    According to change.gov, the Obama administration pledges to:

    "Deploy next-generation broadband: Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe we can get broadband to every community in America through a combination of reform of the Universal Service Fund, better use of the nation's wireless spectrum, promotion of next-generation facilities, technologies and applications, and new tax and loan incentives."

    The Free Press Broadband Deployment Plan

    Using a series of coordinated tax credits, incentives, grants, and appropriations the Free Press plan urges the new administration to "future proof" the new broadband infrastructure. They cite 5 Mbps as a bare minimum speed to deploy video and 100Mbps speeds to future-proof the network for next-generation applications. Some of the programs that the Free Press recommends include:

    * Bonds for broadband
    * Every child online
    * E-rate@home program
    * Lifeline/Linkup Broadband Pilot Program
    * Broadband Data Improvement Act
    * Rural Development Community Connect Grant Program
    * Health Care and Public Service Digital Modernization Program

    The spread of high-speed broadband could be a major factor in the economic salvation of the US. A 2007 study by the Brookings Institute and MIT found that for every one-digit increase in the U.S. per-capita broadband penetration rate an additional 300,000 American jobs would be created. A modest 10 point boost in US broadband penetration would mean 3 million additional jobs.
    Future-Proof with Fiber

    To future-proof our network we'll need to radically change the makeup of our broadband infrastructure. The only current technology that will support symmetric 100 Mbps speeds is fiber. The US is well behind leading countries in fiber penetration, which reduces our average download speed. The median download speed of the United States is from 2.3 Mbps to 8.9Mbps, compared to that of Japan at 63 Mbps to 93.7 Mbps, some 10 to 27 times faster. Estimates range from as low as 3% of all broadband connections in the US are on fiber to as high as 4% on fiber (see below). In contrast, leading countries have from 23.1% to 45% of broadband subscribers due to fiber. Japan (45%), Korea (39%), and China (23.1%) have the largest share of broadband subscribers on fiber, some 5 to 15 times more fiber subscribers per population than the US. The Free Press study found China with 23.1% of broadband connections due to fiber, nearly 6 times the US rate of 4% (see Figure 1).


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