Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski addressed the Organization for the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies in Seattle on July 28.
He sought support for the National Broadband Plan's recommendation to fund broadband connections at speeds of 4 Mb/s downstream and 1 Mb/s upstream, but OPASTCO members seemed unconvinced. "Four megabits is the initial level for minimum service that would apply to funding," Chairman Genachowski said. "It is designed to increase over time." The chairman added that the plan specifies "actual" download speeds of 4 Mb/s and that actual download speeds often are lower than those advertised. An actual download speed of 4 Mb/s would be equivalent to a connection advertised at 8 Mb/s today, he said. Four megabits per second also would be a 20-fold increase over the broadband definition used today of just 200 kb/s, Genachowski added, and would represent a 40-fold increase if actual speeds were taken into account. Most other countries have not set a specific level for broadband service, and those that have typically have focused on speeds of 2 Mb/s or lower, the chairman said.
"We can't deal with four meg," said John Rose, chairman of OPASTCO, in a panel presentation immediately following Genachowski's address. "We'll have to wear them down," he added later. Rose also expressed concern about the disparity between the 4 Mb/s funding level for rural broadband and the National Broadband Plan goal of 100 Mb/s connectivity to 100 million homes by 2020. "If we divide 100 meg by four meg, that's 25 times more," Rose said.
