Broadband Task Force

The primary technological obstacles are the need to lower the cost of providing next generation broadband services and the need to recognize that new technologies are needed to support next generation broadband service to every end user.

The lack of connectivity in the First Mile.defined as the connection from your home to the carrier network.is another primary obstacle to today's and next-generation broadband deployment. Homes and businesses do not have the fiber interconnectivity required for next-generation broadband. Wireless broadband will be an important technology to address the high-cost/hard-to-reach locations isolated by today's wireline broadband limitations or cost.

The goal of this task force is to explore research and development in both industry and academia to determine if:

• current R&D agendas are developing technologies to allow 1Gbps ubiquitous broadband by 2010,
• what needs to be added to the R&D agendas to drive appropriate technology developments, and
• areas of prime interest for pilot projects to solve industry-wide issues in large-scale, high-performance network deployment.

The products of this task force will be:

• White paper identifying current R&D agendas that foster the deployment of a ubiquitous one Gigabit network.
• Workshop and resultant white paper identifying new R&D drivers for broadband deployment.
• List of suggested pilot projects.