A First Step to Our National Broadband Plan

[Commentary] With the rush to implement the broadband-related provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, little attention has been paid to a provision of the 2008 Farm Bill with requires the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Agriculture to craft a comprehensive rural broadband strategy. This plan is due to Congress this Spring and the FCC has requested public input. On March 25, the Benton Foundation filed comments at the FCC based mainly on our Action Plan for America. We argue that the rural broadband strategy should address the rural aspects of the comprehensive national broadband plan required of the FCC in the Recovery Act and due in early 2010. With historian Michael Copps at the helm of the FCC, we remind the Commission that the plan should not depart from the over arching purposes of U.S. Telecommunication Law: "to make available to all people of the United States a rapid, efficient, nation-wide and world-wide, wire and radio communications service with adequate facilities at reasonable charges."