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Broadband Plan Elements: Facilitating Rural Deployment

  • Devote nonexclusively licensed spectrum to wireless broadband, with mandatory spectrum etiquettes. Possibilities:
    • AWS-3 Spectrum (Could become "National Broadband Deployment Band")
    • 700 MHz "D Block" (Cellular industry would not share with public safety, but WISPs would)

  • Open upper half of 3650 MHz band with IEEE 802.11y
  • Increase power  limits in rural counties (Population <200K) for Part 15 WISPs

  • Do not define "broadband" so as to make it unaffordable in areas where wholesale bandwidth is very expensive. (At $100 per Mbps, 768K = $76.80 at wholesale!)

  • Do not prohibit network management techniques that "stretch" bandwidth

  • Fix the broken "middle mile" (special access) market

  • Incent (or, if necessary, require) nationwide fiber backbone providers to offer access at amplifier sites
  • Ensure that Form 477 and broadband mapping data are kept confidential and released only in aggregate to protect competition