The Free Press has filed comments wtih the Federal Communications Commission asking for a "future-proof" definition of "broadband" that takes into account the services and applications consumers can use, especially high-quality video communications.
Derek Turner, research director of Free Press, says the definition has to be flexible, evolving over time and not unduly restricting speeds or capabilities.
In all likelihood, though service providers will likely always have some differences with Free Press, broad agreement on standards that relate more to capabilities than specific immutable numeric targets makes good sense.
Everybody believes speeds will continue to increase over time, but carriers obviously do not want rigid standards set that distort investment priorities or have negative implications as far as raising investment capital to build those capabilities into networks.
Free Press, on the other hand, does not want targets set so low that carriers do not have incentive to keep upgrading.
The good news here is that a greater degree of understanding about broadband standards seems to have developed over the past couple of years, between policy advocates and industry suppliers.
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