The goal of the workshops will be to promote an open dialogue between the FCC and key constituents on matters important to the National Broadband Plan. Key constituents will include service providers, equipment providers, applications providers, community groups, and other groups that have a stake in the future of broadband. Workshops will consist of meetings held at the FCC. The public will have the opportunity to suggest meeting topics and questions for the workshops. All meetings will be broadcast over the Internet when possible, and archived for viewing at a later time to ensure that everyone has access to the content.

The goal of this workshop is to identify potential impacts of a National Broadband Plan on Energy, the Environment, and Transportation and to explore how the broadband and communications infrastructure can play a transformative role in meeting our national energy, environmental, and transportation goals. In particular, the FCC will be interested in learning about how broadband can accelerate efforts to build a smarter electricity infrastructure, also known as the Smart Grid. The Smart Grid, an important element of our national effort to build a clean energy and low-carbon future, is critical to enabling renewable power and plug-in electric vehicles at scale. The workshop will look at the network requirements and cost of bringing our nation’s networks compatible with reducing energy use.