Description: This is
a VOA Special English Economics Report.
See text below
Text:
A newly released proposal calls for almost everyone
in the United States to have high-speed Internet
service at home within ten years.
On March sixteenth the Federal Communications
Commission sent its
National Broadband Plan to Congress.
The F.C.C. wants one hundred million homes to have
inexpensive Internet service at ten times current
speeds. Another goal for twenty twenty is to have
the fastest and most extensive wireless network of
any nation.
The United States invented
the Internet. Yet a recent
study placed it sixteenth in broadband access.
F.C.C. Chairman Julius Genachowski says the
service available is slow and
costly compared with other
developed countries.
Currently, about two-thirds of Americans have
broadband at home. But almost one hundred million
do not. The government says
fourteen million of them cannot get broadband even
if they wanted it.
The United States built a national highway system to
expand transportation. Now President Obama says a
similar effort is needed to expand broadband
networks.
His administration says expanding access is an
economic development issue. Fast connections, it
says, are important to business and job creation,
and to other areas like education and health care.
The government proposes to spend
up to sixteen billion dollars
on a wireless network for public safety agencies.
Most Americans get broadband service through their
cable television provider or telephone company.
There are rules for companies that supply utilities
like electricity and water to let competitors use
their wires
or pipes. But some experts point out the lack of
such "open access" rules for telephone and cable
companies. This is unlike some other countries with
better broadband access.
Expanding service to some areas
of the country will require
wireless transmission. But there is a limited amount
of radio frequency spectrum available. To help pay
for the plan, the F.C.C. wants to sell five hundred
megahertz of spectrum. But it says the plan will
require ten times more unused spectrum than it can
now offer. TV stations are worried that they will be
forced to give up some of their frequencies.
Some members of Congress have questioned the costs
of the
F.C.C. plan and how it may
affect competition. At the same time, a court case
has raised questions about the agency's
legal powers to regulate
broadband service.
And thats the VOA Special English Economics Report.
For more business news, go to voaspecialenglish.com.
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is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
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