FCC broadband plan criticized as not enough

WASHINGTON – The sweeping national broadband plan that federal regulators delivered to Congress last week doesn’t go far enough to satisfy some experts who warn that the United States would still trail other industrialized nations in prices and speed.

Those experts insist that the FCC plan is not nearly ambitious enough to bring faster Internet connections at lower prices to more Americans. That’s because the proposal fails to bring adequate competition, they say, to a duopoly broadband market now controlled by giant phone and cable TV companies.

According to the New America Foundation, a 100-megabit broadband connection costs as little as $16 per month in Sweden and $24 per month in Korea, while service only half that fast costs $145 per month in the U.S.

“What I want is big bandwidth for cheap prices,” said Sascha Meinrath, director of the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Initiative. “But the plan punts on competition.”