Evolving Broadband Infrastructure: Expansion, Applications, Regulation. CRS Report for Congress

摘要

Over the past decade, the telecommunications sector has undergone a vast transformation fueled by rapid technological growth and subsequent evolution of the marketplace. Much of the U.S. policy debate over the evolving telecommunications infrastructure is framed within the context of a national broadband policy. The way a national broadband policy is defined, and the particular elements that might constitute that policy, determine how and whether various stakeholders might support or oppose a national broadband initiative. The issue for policymakers is how to craft a comprehensive broadband strategy that not only addresses broadband availability and adoption problems, but also addresses the long term implications of next-generation networks on consumer use of the Internet and the implications for a regulatory framework that must keep pace with evolving telecommunications technology. Consumers have been integrating communications technologies into their lives at unprecedented rates. Trends include increased use of smartphones, increased subscribership on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, increased expectations of cross-platform accessibility, and development of cloud computing applications. Each of these trends taken alone likely would have had a significant impact on consumer behavior, but taken together they create a heretofore unseen demand for real-time access to information and an ability to share that information from wherever the consumer happens to be. Policy choices related to consumer use of the Internet, such as user authentication, privacy, digital rights management, filtering of unwanted information, wireless Internet standards, instant messaging, the deployment of IPv6 (Internet protocol version 6), and how to link the telephone network to the Internet will all have a profound impact on how broadband and next generation networks evolve. The challenge facing todays policymakers is to develop a regulatory environment that not only addresses these more recent trends, but that also contains the flexibility to accommodate future and possibly unanticipated changes in technology, applications, and consumer demands. The growth of broadband networks and the proliferation of applications and devices has placed increasing pressure on policy makers to formulate a framework to address a broadband-based world.