Boosting the Broadband Nation

Correct me if I am wrong, I believe that our equivalent of US' Federal Commission on Communication (FCC) is the National Telecommunications Commission. I saw an interesting article in Yahoo! yesterday about FCC's efforts in improving the state of America's internet infrastructure.

As mandated by the US congress, the FCC, should develop key strategies until 2010 to address controversial issues as Internet openness, definitions of affordability and what speeds are fast enough.

The FCC now defines broadband speed at about 768 kilobits per second, slow by most standards, most experts agree.

Bold move by the American state and it is reminiscent of what I wrote a week ago. That the Philippine government, in the jurisdiction of NTC, should allow itself to be a catalyst of industrialization. It must present an interventionist role in the telecommunication players arena.

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Even the Australians are joining the Broadband Boost campaign.

The Australian government said on Tuesday that it would create a publicly owned company to build a national high-speed broadband network worth 43 billion Australian dollars, or $31 billion, in one of the largest state-sponsored Internet infrastructure upgrades in the world.

The plan is “the most ambitious, far-reaching and long-term nation-building infrastructure project ever undertaken by an Australian government,” Mr. Rudd told reporters.

The government’s announcement was a surprise rebuff to five private telecommunications firms, including Optus of Singapore and Axia NetMedia of Canada, which had been bidding to build a slower, less expensive network, with fiber optic cables reaching as far as local nodes, worth around 10 billion Australian dollars.
(Source: NY Times Online)

Cybernation: Now, that's a lot of money...