Not surprisingly, the FCC’s broadband plan [pdf, 11.5MB, 376 pages] is more inspirational than the disappointing executive summary suggested to me on my first reading Monday evening.

As an aside, I read that an influential thinker was quoted saying that Canada is being left behind because of a “failure of imagination.” I’ll simply agree with an implicit conclusion that Canada will benefit from progress in defining the national digital strategy, which was placed on this government’s agenda in the Speech from the Throne earlier this month. The inability to find details in the Budget should not deter us from expecting to see more in the coming months.

The Throne Speech set a broader scope than the mandate handed to the FCC last year by the US Congress.

The national broadband plan required by this section shall seek to ensure that all people of the United States have access to broadband capability and shall establish benchmarks for meeting that goal. The plan shall also include:

• an analysis of the most effective and efficient mechanisms for ensuring broadband access by all people of the United States,
• a detailed strategy for achieving affordability of such service and maximum utilization of broadband infrastructure and service by the public,
• an evaluation of the status of deployment of broadband service, including progress of projects supported by the grants made pursuant to this section, and
• a plan for use of broadband infrastructure and services in advancing consumer welfare, civic participation, public safety and homeland security, community development, health care delivery, energy independence and efficiency, education, worker training, private sector investment, entrepreneurial activity, job creation and economic growth, and other national purposes.

Contrast this language with the Throne Speech:

To fuel the ingenuity of Canada’s best and brightest and bring innovative products to market, our Government will build on the unprecedented investments in Canada’s Economic Action Plan by bolstering its Science and Technology Strategy. It will launch a digital economy strategy to drive the adoption of new technology across the economy. To encourage new ideas and protect the rights of Canadians whose research, development and artistic creativity contribute to Canada’s prosperity, our Government will also strengthen laws governing intellectual property and copyright.

Looking beyond the plumbing at what it takes to ensure leadership by Canadians in all aspects of the digital economy.

There are a number of reasons that Canada needs to look at a broader range of issues than our friends south of the border. Regardless, the resultant FCC’s plan is instructive. It should be helpful as a resource as Canada preserves its broadband leadership through a more comprehensive national digital strategy. 

On Tuesday June 8, The 2010 Canadian Telecom Summit will be featuring panels looking at International Perspectives on ICT Strategies and progress on the development of Canada’s National Digital strategy.

Have you registered yet?

The FCC offered a handy guide to its National Broadband Plan [pdf, 11.5MB, 376 pages] by way of a series of tweets. For your handy reference, here is what they said about each chapter, with links to the online version of each chapter:

• Chapter 1: It is time to connect America anew. Broadband is today’s great infrastructure challenge. We seek access for all
• Chapter 2: Goals: 100m homes w/ 100mbps; lead in mobile; affordable access; civic 1gbps; public safety network; lead in energy
• Chapter 3: Ecosystem is a cycle: apps & content drive devices drive network services. Many strong points, but can do better
• Chapter 4: Spur competition with spectrum release. Empower consumers with broadband performance labeling, like nutrition info
• Chapter 5: Spectrum: the great enabler. For mobile the need is unmistakable. Think 10 years ahead. Reform allocation system
• Chapter 6: Providers build networks on public lands. Improve utilization of existing infrastructure. Foster further deployment
• Chapter 7: Invest in R&D, long & short term. Use tax credits. Fund 1 Gbps testbeds on military bases. Urge experimentation
• Chapter 8: 2020 universalization target: 4mbps actual. Review every 4 years. Improve USF, form Connect America & Mobility Fund
• Chapter 9: Adoption:Pursue affordability. Consider free wireless. Launch Digital Literacy Corps. Make Web relevant, accessible
• Chapter 10: Healthcare: Incentivize e-care. Get better data & give patients control over it. Get centers connected
• Chapter 11: Education:Develop, broaden online learning; open content. Make use of data. Bolster e-rate for schools & libraries
• Chapter 12: Energy: Integrate broadband into the Smart Grid. Provide access to digital data; will result in lower consumption
• Chapter 13: Economic Opportunity: Small businesses should harness the Web. Promote virtual job training & placement, telework
• Chapter 14: Government Performance: Improve service delivery. Prioritize efficiency. Use government as a broadband anchor
• Chapter 15: Civic Engagement: Advance an open & transparent government. Utilize social media. Innovate. Modernize democracy
• Chapter 16: Public Safety: Create a public safety wireless network. Ensure cyber security. Roll out next-gen 911 and alerts
• Chapter 17: Plan will always be in beta. Establish a Strategy Council, a timetable for proceedings and a Performance Dashboard

More tomorrow – including relevance to Canada.

>Last fall, when Ontario was getting to set to implement its handsfree driving laws, I wrote about a number of solutions that I had come across to help drive safely while staying connected.

One of the solutions I talked about was Waterloo’s iLane, which is an adjunct device to provide an automated concierge / assistant through your Blackberry and bluetooth audio.

Through the weekend, I was introduced to an application that resides on your smartphone itself which will notify you of a new incoming message and read it to you. DriveSafe.ly has a free version which will read just the first 25 words to you and it is available for Blackberry and Android platforms today. Or for a one-time payment of $13.95, DriveSafe.ly Pro will read 500 word messages, allow you to choose the type of reader (male/female), or even auto select the reader based on the gender of the message sender.

DriveSafe.ly can be set up to send auto-responses, but it does not yet offer the full suite of two-way capabilities that iLane can provide. Still, it appears to be a great application to get people to let go of their mobile devices when behind the wheel.

The FCC has been trickling out information about the contents of its National Broadband Plan over the past few weeks. Earlier today, it released the 6 page executive summary [pdf, 888 KB]. The report is scheduled for release Tuesday.

During a number of the consultation sessions, I got the impression that many of the speakers were confusing access to broadband with access to basic connectivity. For example, during the small business session, some speakers talked about benefits of having a website or a web storefront, neither of which need broadband at all. You want to make sure your web host is powerfully connected to multiple networks, but that doesn’t require a lot of power in the umbilical to the ‘net. 

In reading the goals in the Executive Summary, I was disappointed that one of the 6 items to be tracked “as a compass” over the next decade is:

To ensure that America leads in the clean energy economy, every American should be able to use broadband to track and manage their real-time energy consumption.

Why do we need broadband for this? Isn’t this a low bandwidth application? How many bits per second do you think it takes to tell you about your water, electricity and natural gas flow? How many bits do you think it takes to send a message to dial down the air conditioner or turn off the water? I was able to do this with a Radio Shack X-10 system and a touch tone phone nearly 30 years ago. Maybe I am confused.

Once the FCC realized that home health care won’t justify 100Mbps service, the regulator must have been looking for some other application that would appeal to the Democratic agenda. After all, how many of us are going to buy a Binford 9000 MRI machine to generate the high resolution images to transmit to Radiologists-R-Us for diagnosis? Instead, let’s set a goal to enable all Americans to have remote access to watching the meters on the side of their house – in high definition, no less! Of course, as I wrote before, earlier FCC consultations were equally modest in saying that broadband enables the IRS to save money with e-filing of tax returns, another low bitrate application.

This isn’t the only place that the Executive Summary fails to inspire. The FCC has set a bold vision for bringing affordable 100 Mbps service to 100 M households, the majority of American households. But for the rest of America, the plan falls short. Over the next 10 years, the FCC wants to have 4 Mbps service universally available. That’s it. 4 Mbps to the hinterlands after another decade of subsidy.

There is much to applaud from what is rumoured to be in the FCC’s plan to be released tomorrow. For example, it is encouraging to see the drive to improve digital literacy.

Maybe the executive summary doesn’t do the plan justice. I hope to find greater inspiration in the full document.

On Tuesday June 8, The 2010 Canadian Telecom Summit will be featuring panels looking at International Perspectives on ICT Strategies and progress on the development of Canada’s National Digital strategy.

Have you registered yet?

The CRTC issued a consultation notice on Friday [2010-149] to ask for input on whether there are current regulatory measures that could be left to the discipline of a competitive marketplace.

The Commission set out a list of 17 items that could be up for review and it asked parties to comment on whether such a review is warranted for each of them, considering changes in the telecommunications industry.

This is a follow-up to a process that actually began 3 years ago, triggered by the Policy Direction given to the CRTC from Cabinet in late 2006, that ordered:

1. the Commission should
   1. rely on market forces to the maximum extent feasible as the means of achieving the telecommunications policy objectives, and
   2. when relying on regulation, use measures that are efficient and proportionate to their purpose and that interfere with the operation of competitive market forces to the minimum extent necessary to meet the policy objectives;

So, the Commission has issued a number of decisions to implement changes following a set of priorities established after the initial consultation in 2007. Friday’s notice of consultation continues the process of letting the marketplace regulate more of the industry.