Flickr Photo by Chi KingThe Federal Communications Commission is seeking public comment on how to draft America's national broadband plan. It's essential that they hear from us.

If you're an NTEN Member -- or have been lurking around for awhile -- you know that Universal Broadband Access is an issue we care deeply about.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 set aside $7.2 billion for broadband stimulus. It also requires the FCC to begin drafting a national broadband plan. The plan will help determine the future of Internet access across the country.

As organizations with a stake in the future of communications, we must ensure that the commissioners hear our call for fast, affordable, ubiquitous, and open Internet access.

You have until Friday, June 8, to file comments online at the FCC website.

I learned about the public comment period in an email from Free Press. They're doing some fabulous organizing around universal access and have provided some basic talking points for comments to the FCC. Read the quick facts below, see Free Press for more info, and comment today!

(If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact Misty Perez, Campaign Coordinator at Free Press.)

Competition and Choice

• Giant corporations are profiting at consumers' expense. As the United States continues its fall in international broadband ratings, it is clear that our current system, devoid of competition and consumer choice, is putting private interests above the public good.
• We need real competition instead of the cable and phone company duopoly. None of the nation’s largest telephone companies compete against one another. The same is true for the nation's top cable companies. These phone and cable companies control 97 percent of the residential broadband market.
• The FCC should review policies governing competition and pricing. Deregulation has produced monopolistic practices that have resulted in higher prices for consumers and slowed the deployment of competitive networks. Bad policy decisions should be reversed.
• We should look to other models. The United States has dropped to 22nd place in terms of broadband penetration. Consumers in South Korea and Japan can get broadband speeds reaching 1 Gigabit per second (Gbps) for less than the monthly price a U.S. consumer would pay for service that’s 100 times slower.

• Stimulate broadband demand. Broadband is no longer a luxury — it's a public necessity.
• Encouraging residential adoption should be a top priority through educational programs and funding for schools and community organizations.
• Transition the Universal Service Fund from supporting telephone service to supporting broadband. This $7 billion-a-year program promotes universal phone service by subsidizing phone networks. With broadband now an essential service, the USF program should be transformed to subsidize broadband infrastructure and to bring broadband to unserved and underserved areas.
• Provide better data collection and analysis. In order to achieve universal broadband, we need to know which areas are unserved and underserved, as well as prices, speeds and technologies. We need to have comprehensive data to deploy broadband to the most people possible.
• Explore opportunities to open more public airwaves to unlicensed use. The FCC should look to its recent success in allowing wireless Internet to operate on unlicensed spectrum. A thorough review of commercial and government spectrum holdings should be held to identify bands that could be opened for broadband deployment.

• Adopt Net Neutrality requirements that go beyond the FCC's current broadband policy statement. Additional nondiscrimination requirements are necessary to ensure that corporations don’t become the Internet’s gatekeepers, picking and choosing which Web sites and services load faster and which won’t load at all.
• Apply Net Neutrality rules to all wired and wireless networks. Internet users do not differentiate between "wired" and "wireless" Internet. In drafting the framework for open Internet policy, we must guard against discrimination and anti-competitive practices on all Internet platforms.
• Establish a better complaint process for companies that break the rules and penalties for violators. Without effective deterrents, Internet providers will continue to discriminate against lawful content. The FCC should also require disclosure of providers’ network management techniques as well as specific information about the quality of the service being purchased.

If you're looking for more info on how this issue affects the nonprofit sector, check out the what emerged from the Affinity Group on The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (The Obama Stimulus Package) and Nonprofits at the 2009 NTC hosted by Sheldon Mains. You can check out the live blog notes and Sheldon's list of resources for more info.

If you can't make the time to comment on the FCC's site, comment on this post and we'll make sure it's included!