Several pieces of the plan have received significant attention, including the goal to provide 100M bps (bits per second) service to 100 million U.S homes by 2020. The plan would pump US$15.5 billion into broadband deployment over the next decade by shifting the focus of a large part of the Universal Service Fund, which now largely subsidizes traditional telephone service.

The plan also sets the goal of freeing up 500MHz of wireless spectrum for broadband use in the next 10 years, with 120MHz coming out of existing television spectrum. It's obvious that the U.S. needs more spectrum available for mobile broadband, and the FCC so far has had an ad hoc policy toward spectrum allocation, Levin said.

"The fear of action in this regard has led to a lot of inaction," he said.

But Levin and Carlos Kirjner, senior adviser to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, said that one of the most important pieces of the plan, over the long term, may be its . That section, which takes up more than a third of the plan, focuses on ways that broadband can help transform other industries, including health care, education and energy.

The national purposes section hasn't generated a lot of headlines so far, but it may end up being the most "transformative" section of the plan, Levin said.