One of the major proposals in the plan is to revamp the high-cost program in the FCC's Universal Service Fund, which now largely subsidizes traditional telephone service in rural areas. The national broadband plan would phase out the telephone subsidies in the US$4.6 billion-a-year program over 10 years and put the money into a new broadband deployment program. The FCC's plan would take $15.5 billion [b] from the USF high-cost program and put it into broadband deployment over the next decade, and FCC officials said Monday they believe they can revamp USF without approval from Congress.

That doesn't mean USF reform will be smooth sailing. Some rural lawmakers and rural carriers may balk at the switch, and many people in the telecom industry have been calling on the FCC to reform USF for years without much action.

AT&T Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson called USF reform an important part of the national broadband plan. "Reforming universal service and ensuring affordable broadband for all Americans are the two most critical components of achieving universal broadband," he said in a . "At the same time, they are also the most difficult and perplexing issues the FCC has struggled with over the last 15 years. But we cannot shy away from addressing the hard issues if we are serious about achieving universal broadband deployment and adoption, and we commend the FCC Broadband Team for taking the first steps in this long but crucial journey."

The FCC also makes a series of recommendations to the executive branch and to U.S. government agencies. The proposals to the Obama administration largely focus on the "national purposes" section of the broadband plan, which talks about how broadband can help improve the U.S. education, health-care, and energy industries.

For example, the broadband plan recommends that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services identify broadband applications that could immediately be driven forward with incentive-based reimbursements. The U.S. Department of Education, with help from other agencies, should establish federal standards for the sharing and licensing of digital learning content, the FCC plan recommends.