In defining broadband, the FCC should collect and analyze data ba...

commenters tended to focus on FCC Form 477, required of carriers who offer Internet access at speeds of 200 kbps in one direction. Rather than defining broadband based on a particular speed, the FCC could use “speed tiers as a vehicle for measuring the deployment and success of various kinds of advanced-telecommunications capabilities in different customer and geographic markets,” said SIA. Broadband services need to be flexible to meet consumers’ varying needs, it said. “Consumers should have a choice of varying broadband offerings, based on the considerations that are important to them, including cost, speed and other capabilities. One size simply does not fit all,” it said, adding that any such fixed definition would be outdated almost immediately. Last month Senate Commerce Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) introduced a bill that would create two broadband tiers -- one for 200 kbps and one for bandwidth-hungry applications like video. SIA prefers to keep the definition given in Section 706 of the Communications Act, which has no regard for “any transmission media or technology,” because it “contemplates the kind of services that are widely considered broadband by consumers today, and is flexible enough to make sense in evaluating different technologies,” it said.