FCC Takes on Cable But Not Carriers With National Broadband Plan

The Federal Communications Commission's interim report on the National Broadband Plan glossed over the fact that service providers in US spend roughly $50 billion a year in capital investment to bring broadband services to their customers, but that investment doesn't get spent evenly across the population. Plus, despite that investment, most Americans don't have a lot of choice about their broadband provider. The regulators formulating the plan have to keep that investment flowing while also figuring out how to deliver broadband in places where the private companies have no wish to go, as well as push providers to behave competitively and transparently. That will require not just an initial investment, but money to maintain that infrastructure and attempt to measure the value it brings back to the taxpayers and consumers paying into Universal Service Fund, which will likely underwrite some of this.