FCC chairman Julius Genachowski Friday issued
what he called the Gigabit City Challenge.
At a Conference of Mayors meeting -- the same
one at which Vice President Joe Biden challenged the media to better promote
content controls -- the chairman urged the Mayors, broadband providers and
community leaders, to help create at least one community with
gigabit-per-second broadband speeds by 2015, or about a hundred times what he
FCC currently defines as high-speed Internet.
The
FCC will help out by providing an online clearinghouse of info on how to lower
costs and boost speeds, which he asked the mayors' help in maintaining.
The
FCC will also convene workshops on the challenges and opportunities of that
goal.
He
also gave a plug to the high-speed initiative Gig. U of his former Broadband
Plan czar, Blair Levin, which he said has generated $200 million in private
investment for community high-speed hubs tied to leading universities.
