Today Politico posted what they are calling a "late draft of a Federal Communications Commission summary of its 'National Broadband Plan,' due for delivery to Congress by Wednesday."

This is the long-awaited, and one month overdue, National Broadband Plan Congress asked the FCC to compile last year. Since that time we've seen interesting tidbits of plans to overhaul the regulatory structure of how the FCC oversees the Internet and all things broadband.

Perusing through the "late draft," a few worrisome things stand out.

1. There is a lot of talk about making the Internet affordable. As the FCC says,

"All Americans should have access to broadband service with sufficient capabilities, all should be able to afford broadband and all should have the opportunity to develop digital literary skills to take advan! tage of broadband."

So, how do you make something like broadband "affordable" to Americans? First off, what is affordable? It's a relative term and subject to all kinds of variables. The FCC plans on creating a new Connect America Fund (CAF) to support the provision of affordable broadband and voice. How will they do this? By transferring existing funding -- up to $16 billion over the next decade -- from the Universal Service Fund (USF) program. However, the USF has long been pilloried by economists and other policy analysts who have seen its futility. The USF was created to help connect underserved and unserved areas to telephone communications, however the USF still continues to collect billions every year to perform a service hardly anyone requires. 

Therefore, the FCC wants to heavily subsidize broadband rollout. This despite the fact that 95% of Americans already have access to some form of broadband.

This leads to worrisome p! oint number two.

2. The FCC wants to re-categorize the I! nternet from an "informational service," to a "telecommunications service."  Unfortunately, doing so will basically grant the FCC much tighter regulatory control over the Internet, along the same lines as how the FCC overseas the traditional wireline telephone industry. 

This will allow the FCC to micromanage how Internet Service Providers (ISPs) run their own networks. This is where the Net Neutrality argument comes into play. It also allows the FCC to manage competition -- meaning prices, network access, spectrum policy, subsidized infrastructure build-out, etc. -- would all come under the control of bureaucrats and politicians in Washington. D.C. 

This plan, granted still in draft form, has elements in it that echo sentiments expressed in more of the liberal groups and policymakers in other nations w! ho have asserted that broadband internet is a fundamental human right. 

It will be interesting to see if the FCC holds on to much of this language when the Plan is officially released tomorrow.

The Wall Street Journal editorializes today on some of these same concerns in the Plan (subscription required).