The Internet is one of the most important communications tools invented. It allows us to exchange information in near realtime, search for anything and communicate with anyone. The birth of the Internet was a collaborative effort — by a number of US agencies and programs. It’s an alphabet soup of acronyms — DARPA, IPTO, SAGE, SAC, to just name a few. The Internet did not get its public face until Sir Tim Berners Lee invented the World Wide Web (1990). This gave the Internet a user interface (UI) that the average person could understand and use. Thanks to the combined efforts of people like Lee and organizations like DARPA — today the Internet is being utilized by nearly 2 billion people worldwide.

Unfortunately, since 1990 the U.S. as slipped in worldwide broadband speeds. Up until recently, the U.S. was 22nd in worldwide broadband speeds but since 2009 the U.S. has been improving. Today we are 16th in worldwide broadband speeds. According to WebSiteOptimization:

From Q4 2009 to Q2 2010, the average broadband speed in the US grew from 3.8Mbps to 4.6Mbps, according to an Akamai broadband survey.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has spent the past year building a National Broadband Plan (NBP) to present to Congress. The NBP recommends a great many initiatives but the two most important are broadband for every American and speeds of 100 Mbps.

Why is a National Broadband Plan such a critical initiative? Broadband ubiquity will not only keep the U.S competitive internationally — it will improve our standard of living by delivering broadband applications and services. This broadband ecosystem will nurture services such as teleworking, videoconferencing, telemedicine and video telephony. If we can continue improving our broadband position — we will undoubtedly improve the quality of life for each and everyone of us.

What if you paid for your Internet access as if it were a utility bill?

This is what Mr. Randall Stephenson, AT&T Chairman and Chief Executive Officer has confirmed. Stephenson made this comment during his keynote webcast at the Morgan Stanley Conference this past Tuesday.

For the industry, we’ll progressively move towards more of what I call variable pricing, so the heavy [-use] consumers will pay more than the lower consumers,” Stephenson said in the webcast of the meeting.

Read more at the Huffington Post….