On March 16, 2010, the FCC released ¿Connecting America: The Nat. Broadband Plan.¿ The National Broadband Plan (NBP) contains 208 specific recommendations directed to the FCC, to the Exec. Branch, to Congress, and to non-fed. and non-governmental entities. Contents of this report: (1) Background; (2) Overview of Plan; (3) Broadband Adoption and Availability and the Fed. Universal Service Fund: The Evolution of the Universal Service Concept; Universal Service and Broadband; 4) Reform of Intercarrier Compensation; (5) Fostering a Market for Set-Top Boxes; (6) Spectrum Policies for Wireless Broadband; (7) National Purposes: Meeting Policy Goals; (8) FCC¿s Authority to Implement the NBP; (9) Towards a Nat. Broadband Policy? Illus.

An analysis of the failure of U.S. broadband policy to solve the rural–urban digital divide, with a proposal for a new national rural broadband plan. As much of daily life migrates online, broadband—high-speed internet connectivity—has become a necessity. The widespread lack of broadband in rural America has created a stark urban–rural digital divide. In Farm Fresh Broadband, Christopher Ali analyzes the promise and the failure of national rural broadband policy in the United States and proposes a new national broadband plan. He examines how broadband policies are enacted and implemented, explores business models for broadband providers, surveys the technologies of rural broadband, and offers case studies of broadband use in the rural Midwest. Ali argues that rural broadband policy is both broken and incomplete: broken because it lacks coordinated federal leadership and incomplete because it fails to recognize the important roles of communities, cooperatives, and local providers in broadband access. For example, existing policies favor large telecommunication companies, crowding out smaller, nimbler providers. Lack of competition drives prices up—rural broadband can cost 37 percent more than urban broadband. The federal government subsidizes rural broadband by approximately $6 billion. Where does the money go? Ali proposes democratizing policy architecture for rural broadband, modeling it after the wiring of rural America for electricity and telephony. Subsidies should be equalized, not just going to big companies. The result would be a multistakeholder system, guided by thoughtful public policy and funded by public and private support.

The Measuring the Information Society Report, which has been published annually since 2009, features key ICT data and benchmarking tools to measure the information society, including the ICT Development Index (IDI). The IDI 2016 captures the level of ICT developments in 175 economies worldwide and compares progress made since the year 2014. The MISR 2016 assesses IDI findings at the regional level and highlights countries that rank at the top of the IDI and those that have improved their position in the overall IDI rankings most dynamically since 2014. It will also use the findings of the IDI to analyze trends and developments in the digital divide. The report will present 2015 prices for about 160 countries and provide a detailed analysis of mobile-cellular, fixed-broadband and mobile-broadband prices over the period 2008-2015. It will highlight the role of ICTs in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and present the newly agreed SDG indicator framework, including the ICT indicators. The report will also include a chapter looking into new metrics to measure mobile uptake, and a chapter presenting data analyzing Internet use and uptake.