Broadband stimulus hopefuls race to define 'broadband'

One of the principal tasks now undertaken by the agencies that will distribute roughly $7.2 billion in federal broadband stimulus funds is defining what exactly they mean by "broadband."

In addition to other key terms such as "unserved" and "underserved areas," "broadband" is one of the terms that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration is currently asking the public to help define for the purposes of distributing that funding. Public input so far has been voluminous.

AT&T, which may or may not seek broadband stimulus funds, joined OPASTCO, the advocacy group for small telcos, and others in suggesting sticking with the definition of broadband adopted by the FCC last year: 768 kilobits per second or faster downstream and 200 kb/s or faster upstream.

The Communication Workers of America joined with the California Public Utilities Commission in pushing for a faster definition of broadband than the FCC's – namely, 3 Mb/s downstream and 1 Mb/s upstream. The Wireless Communication Association recommends a similar threshold, defining underserved areas as those with less than 3 Mb/s downstream and 768 kb/s upstream.

In a report issued in March, the Consumer Federation and Consumers Union jointly recommended a focus on middle-mile fiber and mobile computing, but regarding speeds, the two groups suggested 4-Mb/s systems with a balance between downstream and upstream speeds of "at least 3 to 1." As justification, the groups pointed to a January report from the British government citing a long list of applications, from VoIP and peer-to-peer file-sharing to videoconferencing, deliverable on 2-Mb/s systems.

But several parties cautioned against trying to find a single standard to apply universally to all geographies and economies.

"Broadband speed is relative to the area of service," the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association pointed out in its comments. "There are too many rural areas where terrestrial service is not an option and where satellite service may be the only feasible choice for service."