Good News for Higher Education: FCC's National Broadband Plan Endorses UCAN

Yesterday, the FCC released “Connecting America: The National Broadband Plan,” which reflects many recommendations from EDUCAUSE and affiliated communities. Not only does the plan open up high-speed and affordable broadband to all Americans, it also endorses Unified Community Anchor Network (UCAN). UCAN uses the community anchor institution model established by nonprofit network organizations and recommended to the FCC by EDUCAUSE, Internet2, National LambdaRail, and many regional and state networks.

UCAN will work to extend higher education’s success in broadband networking by providing high-speed broadband connectivity to anchor community institutions that do not yet enjoy it: community colleges, K12 schools, libraries, hospitals, and college and university campuses still constrained by inadequate connectivity.

A great deal of work lies ahead translating UCAN recommendations to reality, but if it is successful, all of higher education stands to benefit. These benefits include:

• Building on, enhancing, and extending the networking capabilities that exist within our national, regional, and state networking organizations, including 1 gigabit-per-second connectivity to all anchor institutions
• Cost-efficiently enhancing a pre-existing network rather than creating an entirely new one
• Yielding substantial economies of scale
• Extending high-speed nationwide connectivity to more than 100,000 qualified institutions that lack it today

EDUCAUSE is pleased to have helped the FCC choose effective mechanisms for national broadband, and appreciates our members' support throughout the process. For more information about EDUCAUSE broadband plan contributions and position, view our press release.