Exactly one month before the FCC's National Broadband Plan is due to Congress, public interest groups held a press conference on Capitol Hill to pressure the agency to be ambitious with the plan's goals.

The FCC was originally supposed to deliver the report to Congress today, as mandated by the Recovery Act. In January, the FCC asked for a one-month extension because it needed more time to work on it.

Groups including Public Knowledge, Media Access Project, Free Press and New America Foundation laid out five benchmark priorities they want the FCC to pursue in the plan. Since the plan is so far-reaching and has to address so many aspects of broadband expansion from adoption to deployment, public interest groups worry the final product will be too vague and amorphous to have teeth.

Lawmakers share those concerns. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) has said he's concerned the plan will not be specific enough with its recommendations.
The Broadband Task Force at the FCC has spent the better part of the past seven months collecting data and holding workshops about the plan.

"The Obama FCC stands at a crucial digital crossroads," said Jeff Chester, executive director for the Center for Digital Democracy. "Will it act now to ensure all Americans have affordable and real high-speed broadband access? Or will Washington special interest business as usual--shaped by high-paid corporate lobbyists--determine the country's digital destiny? It's time for Chairman Genachowski to provie he will help American consumers, not the telecom and cable giants."

The five benchmarks pushed by the groups are:

1. Set a goal that U.S. broadband adoption shall equal the current rate of telephone adoption (over 90 percent) by 2020.

2. Set a goal of substantially improving the level of competition between providers of broadband Internet access to move away from a duopoly of cable and phone companies by 2012.

3. Set a goal of establishing real consumer protections, such as clearer billing practices, for broadband customers within 12 to 18 months.

4. Set a goal of implementing new broadband data collection standards and rules for utilizing that data in market analyses by end of 2010.

5. Set a goal of establishing rules protecting open markets for speech and commerce on broadband networks as soon as feasible.

"The incumbent carriers have had well over a decade to meet U.S. broadband needs, but they have failed to do so. The FCC has more than enough data to craft a visionary and effective National Broadband Plan, and the agency should embrace all of the tools at its disposal to fulfilll Congress' mandate,' said Parul Desai of Media Access Project.