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Students enrolled in programs that will allow them to earn college degrees online might have a quicker time with even more innovative coursework. The Federal Communications Commission has devised a plan to expand broadband network access and speed up Internet services and has provided this plan to Congress.

The National Broadband Plan is reportedly intended in part to encourage online education and online education tools as well as to enhance education connectivity. And Congress reportedly required it as part of a federal stimulus bill known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Virginia Congressman, Rick Boucher, in a CSPAN interview called the Internet the biggest platform for commercial innovation and business success this country has seen. A Strategy for American Innovation report, prepared by the National Economic Council’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, recommends creating online bachelors that combine high quality subject expertise with the latest technological advancements.

The federal government over the next 10 years intends to invest as much as $500 million to create online college classes at community colleges that would be freely available to students to extend their learning opportunities and complete coursework, according to the American Innovation report. Colleges, universities, publications and others would be invited to compete in creating state-of-the-art online courses, the report notes.

Many students already take part in online school programs, access a broad array of online databases and link up with worldwide scholars, a broadband plan news release noted. But while reports show that students in online college classes do at least as well academically as students in traditional college classes do, a pilot program at one university suggested that online school work might take more time to complete.

Students enrolled in online school offerings and pursuing online degrees can access their class work through wireless services, dialup and high speed DSL services that telephone companies offer and by broadband services with wireless and satellite options. With broadband service a transmission “pipeline”, as the FCC calls it, carries content. Broadband also provides quality access to high-tech Internet features such as streaming media, Internet telephone services, interactive offerings and games, the FCC’s broadband Web site notes. And many have expressed a desire to move toward HD video, Boucher noted. The federal government would continue to give money to local telephone companies, which have been expanding their DSL services, until broadband becomes more widely available and even telephone service is carried through the Internet, Boucher said.

President Barack Obama has cited a desire to make higher education more accessible to many students. And online college classes and distance learning masters provide flexible formats that allow many students with work and family responsibilities to fit studies into their schedules. Obama in March signed an education bill into law that’s designed to increase federal loans and grants and can help students pursuing distance degrees pay the tuition.

Many areas of the broadband plan would reportedly involve passing new laws and setting new agency rules. Its goals by 2020 include increasing download speeds from what Boucher said is as few as 5 megabits per second to 100 megabits. The FCC in the plan also notes that network connectivity needs to be expanded. Florida Congressman Cliff Stearns told CSPAN that some 7 million people throughout the United States don’t have access to broadband network services and that, of the 95 percent of households that do, two-thirds use high-speed Internet services.

It seems that a lack of time is one of the reasons students obtain college degrees online as this allows them to take care of real life responsibilities as they go to school. A faster connection will make getting an online bachelor degree, an associates, or even a masters, quicker and easier for all students.