Levin Details FCC, White House Work that Will Show if Broadband Plan is on Track in 2011

STANFORD, Calif. -- The benchmarks for whether the National Broadband Plan is making enough progress the first year will be FCC action on universal service and intercarrier compensation, and the creation by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy of a task force of officials from throughout the government on matters such as health, energy and education as they relate to broadband, said Blair Levin, who headed work on the FCC’s plan. Last summer, the FCC’s broadband staff debated offering just three proposals, he said late Tuesday at Stanford Law School. Then it was inundated with about 2,300 recommendations in filings, Levin said. Research for the plan found state laws to be “huge impediments,” unintentionally, to applying broadband to health and education, he said.

Investors in broadcasting are thinking about a proposed auction of TV spectrum “more clearly” than some broadcasters are, Levin told us. An indication is a comment by a Wells Fargo analyst that it would be good for operators to be able to take part in the sale, he said. Referring to the NAB’s opposition to Congress giving the FCC the incentive auction authority it would need to hold the auction, Levin said, “It’s not clear why some broadcasters want” to keep “other broadcasters from having the ability to participate.” Economics says that the “weakest stations” by market share in the largest metros -- “which is where you want the spectrum” -- would be the most eager to take part in the auction, because they would have the most unrealized value to gain, he said.

Technology and business march on, and developments since the plan was released “may turn out to be significant,” Levin said in the forum: An announced breakthrough in greatly increasing DSL speeds and mobile satellite services plans for the first new 4G network since Clearwire’s -- a prospect which requires FCC actions and about which “there’s some skepticism,” but which could pressure DSL speeds up or prices down.

Levin lamented that AT&T keeps saying closing “the availability gap” will cost $350 billion, when the real figure is $24 billion. And there’s “legitimate” criticism, in the sense that “reasonable minds can differ,” that the plan’s goal of making access with 4 Mbps downloads available nearly everywhere in the U.S. by 2020 isn’t ambitious enough, he said.