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Feb. 23, 2010

In its upcoming National Broadband Plan (NBP), the Federal Communications Commission has named healthcare and education as two of its top priorities.

The FCC's new recommendations are expected to be released March 17.

The commission also named energy, the environment, government performance and public safety as other priorities in its plan.

The FCC's Broadband Plan update also held good news for public safety officials. The U.S. government agency recommended the creation of a nationwide, interoperable, wireless broadband public safety network that would support next-generation 911 emergency services.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski also called for increased investments in "smart grid" technology. In a statement, Genachowski said "every home in America should be connected to the smart grid and have access to actionable energy data."

Smart grid technology also has been a priority of President Barack Obama since he came into power in January 2009.

These news could be a small bonanza for the nascent telehealth care industry.

The FCC is calling for expanded reimbursement for e-care, increased pilot programs, revised credentialing requirements and clarified regulations for converged communications and healthcare devices.

Telehealth frequently uses smartphones and M2M (machine to machine) technology in remote monitoring devices for patients.

The soon to be proposed FCC Broadband Plan will also include various recommendations for boosting civic engagement in the U.S. government and strengthening homeland security.

Missing from the update were expected reforms for the Universal Service Fund and proposals for increasing spectrum availability for wireless broadband.

In other FCC news, commission officials Phil Bellaria and John Leibovitz, director of scenario planning for the FCC's Omnibus Broadband Initiative and deputy chief of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, respectively, say the increased traffic that could be generated by the iPad is probably reminiscent of the huge congestion that first-generation Internet dialup users experienced following AOL's 1996 decision to allow unlimited Web access.

Yes, the FCC has many reasons to be worried. But wait, there's more...

For many months now, wireless users had trouble connecting and, once they did connect, they experienced frequent service outages, network sluggishness, etc."

Although Leibovitz and Bellaria didn't name AT&T specifically, the iPad's 3G connectivity is currently only available on AT&T's network. So-- that's pretty easy to figure out...

"With the iPad pointing to even greater and increased demand for mobile broadband on the near horizon, we must ensure that network congestion doesn't choke off a vital service that wireless consumers clearly find appealing or frustrate mobile broadband's ability to keep us competitive in the global broadband economy," said Bellaria and Leibovitz."

Recently, AT&T has come under heavy criticism for its slow and sluggish network performance, which appears to have been severely hampered by massive network traffic linked to the data-intensive iPhone.

The wireless carrier recently completed wide-scale network upgrades to HSPA 7.2 to address traffic concerns.

The officials said that wireless service operators will only be able to deal with future congestion issues if they have adequate spectrum, referring to 4G technology and LTE.

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Source: The Federal Communications Commission.