Rural Broadband Plan submitted to FCC by six telcos

Six telecom companies including AT&T, CenturyLink, FairPoint, Frontier, Verizon and Windstream offered a new plan – dubbed "America's Broadband Connectivity Plan" – to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which proposes the 8 billion federal phone subsidy program to pay for high-speed Internet connections in rural and other underserved areas. According to these telcos, if the plan succeed, it would bring broadband service to nearly all Americans within five years.

"To truly bring broadband services to all Americans, the rules of the road for the black rotary phone desperately needed to be updated for today's competitive, high-speed communications networks," said Hank Hultquist, vice president of federal regulatory at AT&T.

"This proposal modernises the USF and ICC mechanisms as our industry migrates toward a broadband-oriented future. Importantly, the proposal provides an adequate transition period for carriers to move from the current structure to one that will meet the changing needs of telecommunications consumers and help close the rural- rural divide that has persisted under the existing flawed framework", Mike Rhoda, senior vice president of Windstream's government affairs department, commented.

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