the Digital Town Hall

All of us who have been pushing for a new National Broadband Plan should be on alert today — and excited that the FCC has taken a vital step toward that goal.

Yesterday, the FCC announced an official “Notice of Inquiry” to get things started. Admittedly, “Notice of Inquiry” sounds pretty dull and lifeless, but it’s anything but. It means that all of our efforts are starting to pay off, but we’ve got a lot more work to do to make sure we get the broadband we need.

What that boring-sounding “Notice of Inquiry” means is that the FCC is, as the agency put it, “seeking input from all stakeholders: consumers, industry, large and small businesses, non-profits, the disabilities community, governments at the federal, state, local and tribal levels, and all other interested parties.”

What that means, in plain English, is the FCC is looking for ideas and goals from just about everyone – but especially from people like you. They want to know what you want from our national broadband and how you think we can get that. This is a critical point in the long hard slog you’ve been engaged in.

Broadband Status: Critical

We’ve seen the country that invented the Internet and pioneered the personal computer drop to 15th in the world in broadband. We’ve talked about it here before, and we’ve worked together to help everyone understand the urgency of building the telecommunications infrastructure our country needs.

That urgency is one of the reasons some of us in Congress made sure there was a provision in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act telling the FCC that we needed a National Broadband Plan. That urgency is one of the reasons we also made sure the stimulus package created grant funding for broadband.

Those grants are a critical down payment on a national strategy to deliver broadband to rural Americans who can’t access it and to urban Americans who can’t afford it.

This is a critically important task we’ve given the folks at NTIA and RUS to administer those grants, and you better believe I’ll be paying close attention to how the grant rules are drafted. I want to make sure we get the biggest bang for the buck from this taxpayer investment.

Julius, Mike and You

I know Julius Genachowski (the President’s nominee to head the Commission) gets it, and Acting FCC Chairman Mike Copps has championed universal broadband for more years than most people even knew it existed.

Mike said yesterday:

"This Commission has never, I believe, received a more serious charge than the one to spearhead development of a national broadband plan. Congress has made it crystal clear that it expects the best thinking and recommendations we can put together by next February. If we do our job well, this will be the most formative—indeed transformative—proceeding ever in the Commission’s history."

So when Julius joins Mike on the FCC, we’ll have some great commissioners to work with. And they need to hear from you.

They need your input on how to build an infrastructure that doesn’t just extend our current broadband, but creates the 21st century telecommunications infrastructure that we desperately need — true broadband speeds of up to 100 mbps. We need to make sure that we lock in the principle of a free and open Internet. And we need a spectrum policy that unlocks innovation and uses our airwaves in the ways that bring our country the most benefit.

Getting the Broadband We Need

Our public airwaves belong to the American people, so we need to make sure we are putting them to good use.

Last year’s 700 MHz auction resulted not only in $20 billion for the treasury but also greater opportunity and choice for consumers and businesses alike. We also took a great step forward when the FCC established a way for unlicensed devices to operate in white spaces.

Now, that’s what I’m talking about.

Those two initiatives are evidence of how valuable spectrum is, and how it is fertile ground for innovation. Last month I introduced the Radio Spectrum Inventory Act with Senator Snowe, which would require the NTIA and the FCC to conduct a thorough inventory of available radio spectrum within 180 days. Once that inventory is complete, we need to make sure we are using that spectrum in the ways that bring the most benefit to Americans.

As chairman of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet, I’ll be watching all of this closely and working with Julius and the rest of the Commission to make sure we get the National Broadband Plan we need.

The New Paradigm

Years ago, telecommunications policy was too often dominated by special interests and industry lobbyists. But through the work of so many of you, we now have a lively, democratic, and vital debate going on about the next steps in our broadband policy in this country.

With your passion and insights, you can help steer American telecommunications policy into a new paradigm, one that restores American leadership in this vital part of the global economy.

So stay focused. Stay involved. And get excited about that “Notice of Inquiry.” Because that notice is a clear sign that your hard work is getting noticed.