FCC Requests More Time To Complete National Broadband Plan

January 8, 2010 – By Stephen Hardy – Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski yesterday formally requested from Congress an additional month to complete the National Broadband Plan it has been tasked to complete under The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. If granted, the extension would move to March 17, 2010 the deadline for delivery of the plan to Congress.

Such an extension would be “in the interest of advancing a national broadband plan that reflects the extraordinary importance of the task and that is responsive to the unprecedented record developed during the comment and workshop period,” wrote the FCC chairman to Congress. The request was made in three letters, one each to Senator John D. Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation; Senator Kay Hailey Hutchison, ranking member of the same committee; Representative Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce; and Representative Joe Barton, ranking member of the same House committee.

Genachowski pointed to the amount of work the FCC has already put into the plan (see “FCC: Critical gaps undermine drive toward universal broadband” and “FCC broadband policy update raises funding questions” for examples). He cited more than 50 public workshops and field hearings, more than 12 public notices, “and significant hours devoted at Commission hearings.” The requested extension would enable the commission to do more research and more fully brief the two Congressional committees on aspects of the plan “as it comes together.”

The extension would not affect the plan’s budget or other FCC activities, Genachowski stressed.