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What Is Broadband? FCC Doesn't Know
By: Roy Mark
2009-08-21
Article Rating:    / 4
There are 8 user comments on this Government IT story.
In the middle of its massive review of broadband in America, the Federal Communications Commission seeks an answer to a fundamental question: Just what is broadband?As required by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, aka the stimulus
package, the Federal Communications Commission has until February 2010 to
develop a national broadband plan to be presented to Congress. With an emphasis
on an open dialogue with all stakeholders through a series of public workshops,
the FCC is busily compiling a public record on the state of broadband in America.
First, though, the FCC wants to know just how to define broadband.
"We seek tailored comment on a fundamental questionhow the [National
Broadband] Plan should interpret the term 'broadband' as used in the Recovery
Act, recognizing that our interpretation of the term as used in that statute
may inform our interpretation of the term in other contexts," the FCC
stated in an Aug. 20 Notice of Inquiry. "An understanding
of what constitutes broadband thus is essential to evaluating the extent to
which 'broadband capability' is available, and informs the evaluation of
particular policy approaches intended to ensure access to broadband
capability."
The FCC currently defines broadband service as a static 768K bps downstream and
200K bps upstream, a definition a number of public interest groups claim is
entirely too low a bar for 21st century telecommunications. In addition, the
FCC notes, it is unclear what the endpoints of the connection are over which
throughput is measured or whether the performance of the endpoints is reflected
in the stated throughput.
The FCC also says there are network characteristicssuch as latency,
reliability and mobilitythat are relevant for certain applications but not
others.
"As the [Public Notice] points out, much of the recent debate tends to
center on throughput speeds. Engineers know that these numbers by themselves
are most often misleading," The FCC's Carlos Kirjner wrote Aug. 20 in the agency's new broadband blog.
"For example, in most cases the 'advertised' throughput speed has a
tenuous relation with the actually delivered speed, which will actually vary
over time, depending on the application, the server, and many other
factors."
The FCC is seeking public comment on whether to develop a single definition or
multiple definitions of broadband; whether an application-based approach to
defining broadband would work, and how such an approach could be expressed in
terms of performance indicators; what segments of the network each performance
indicator should measure, such as the local access link to the end user, or an
end-to-end path; and how factors such as latency, jitter, traffic loading,
diurnal patterns, reliability and mobility should specifically be taken into
account for broadband speeds.
The notice also asks whether different performance indicators or definitions
should be developed based on technological or other distinctions, such as
mobility or the provision of the service over a wired or wireless network; and
the feasibility and verifiability of measuring different performance
indicators.
"If we want to decide who has and who does not have broadband, we actually
need to agree on what we mean by broadband," Kirjner wrote. "If we
want to decide who can take advantage of one type of application or another, we
need to know what they are actually getting today, and what is the gap between
that and what they actually need to get?"
You can submit brief comments
on the inquiry to the FCC here. Click on the radio button for the National
Broadband Plan Notice of Inquiry Docket 09-51. If you want to file
longer comments using an attachment, file comments here
using the same docket number.
| | Reader Comments: What Is Broadband? FCC Doesn't Know | | >>> Post your comment now!
| | What Do We Need These Twerps For Again?I don't know why it should surprise anybody beyond the age of 9 that any particular bureaucracy is clueless about the technologies they supposedly... Posted At: 09-01-09 By: Miss Thepoint | | | | | | | | | | | | BewareWhen the FCC starts defining broadband, they have an ulterior reason...and they need money. The FCC is chomping at the bit to restrict free speech.... Posted At: 08-26-09 By: Chasa | | | | | | BroadbandIn my role as System Safety Engineer I preach exact terminology to avoid misinterpretation. Unfortunately Broadband is a term taken from... Posted At: 08-26-09 By: Micheal A. Morgan | | | | | | Pay (up to) $49.95Maybe we should do like the suppliers of the service. All their ads and always in fine [color=#C0C0C0] Light Gray Print[/color] it says 'Up To' a... Posted At: 08-26-09 By: Chris | | | | | | A user comment on this articleSounds to like the FCC needs to hire some real IT admin to tell what they want to know instead of make up a bunch of carp (misspelled on purpose) to... Posted At: 08-25-09 By: PM | | | | | | Dir. of Comm, nuMetraSince when does the government get to define the standards of a single product? Not too sound overly reactive, but are they going to mandate the... Posted At: 08-24-09 By: Rachel Parker | | | | | | >>> Post your comment now! | | | | | |
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