Investment Incentives Key for National Broadband Plan, McDowell Says

As part of the recently passed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 ("stimulus package"), the Federal Communications Commission must create a national broadband plan.

Commissioner Robert McDowell says “it is essential that our plan give current and prospective broadband network and service providers the proper incentives to deploy new technologies."

"We must also provide entrepreneurs with the flexibility to make full use of all available spectrum, including the television white spaces, to backhaul broadband traffic," McDowell says. "In order to attract investors to fund the build-out of new networks, we must not engage in rulemakings that produce whimsical regulatory arbitrage."

"Rather, we must allow market players to succeed or fail on their own merits and not due to the government picking winners and losers," McDowell says. "In short, our rules must allow network operators to have a reasonable opportunity to pay back their investors. That’s the only way to improve existing networks and build new ones.”