FCC to Ask U.S. Congress for Support for Wider Internet Access

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Yesterday I have showed you how the FCC has issued a free application meant to help you measure the performance of your broadband/mobile broadband connection and report that particular performance back to the FCC. Today we are going to shortly inspect the FCC’s intentions and why carriers and Internet service providers should worry.

The FCC is going to pitch a 10-year plan to the U.S. Congress outlining the need of high-speed Internet connection as the “country’s dominant communication network”, as the NYT puts it. In other words customers should expect better speeds and wider Internet availability which will surely put carriers and ISP on the spot.

These Internet and Internet-services providers will have to make sure they improve their own services while also expanding to more and more rural areas which don’t really have that much access to broadband Internet. That means these giant companies will have to spend more money in order to fulfill the current dream of the FCC. The Congress will surely have to approve the FCC’s plan eventually. The world we’re heading to will heavily rely on the capacity of mankind to communicate fast and very accurate and to have access to all the information currently available online. Not to mention that the Internet could become the backbone of our modern infrastructure and speed will be very important in various critical situations.

Sure the FCC is suggesting that those ISP ready to wire rural parts of the U.S. should receive government funds to do it but that doesn’t mean it will be an easy and hassle-free job to do.

The FCC will also want to sell some broadcast spectrum, about 500MHz of it in order to improve the wireless environment and it will be interesting to see if the Commission will succeed in this endeavor especially since TV stations are already opposing the move.

Ultimately the FCC dreams of accomplishing the 100 Squared plan which basically means that 100 million households will be able to surf the internet at 100Mbps speeds by the end of the decade. These are some very bold plans that will surely influence the future or fast Internet access not only in the USA but in other countries too. I’m just curious as to how much will one of those 100 million household have to pay to afford such Internet speeds. Because don’t be fooled, folks, the Internet service providers will want to make a profit off this upcoming Internet “speed bump.”

It will be interesting to see how the U.S. Congress responds to the FCC’s suggestions and we’ll also be following the reaction of the main players in the high-speed Internet game.

What kind of Internet connection do you have? Did you use the FCC’s apps to test it already?