Finally, after much advance leakage, the Federal Communications Commission will unveil its National Broadband Plan on Tuesday, March 16.

The two key questions about the effort to get the United States up to speed, so to speak, with decent digital access: Will it be toothless or not and will there be any money to pay for it, given the cash-strapped federal government?

A possible highlight of the plan concerns whether spectrum should be allocated for a free or inexpensive high-speed wireless service. It was a notion mentioned by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski at a meeting in Washington, D.C., earlier this week.

This is not an idea that telecom providers have warmed to in the past, of course, since they so enjoy sticking it to consumers with spotty service and high prices.

And if the report proposes the restoration of some regulations lifted in the previous Republican administration, you can be sure the Prada-wearing political lobbyist brigade will be at the ready.

What the FCC opus will surely point out is the obvious: The U.S. needs high-speed access to improve dramatically across the nation, especially for poorer citizens and in rural areas.

As BoomTown and many others have pointed out many times, our high prices and low speed make the U.S. the laughingstock of the digital world.

And the federal government’s lack of attention to the one innovative arena this nation shines in–tech–is appalling.

The plan will be the first big move by Genachowski, the longtime Internet exec who will appear as a speaker at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference in June.

One certainty about the latest plan: It will be a long document of hundreds of pages, so save some trees and get it online here at the aptly named Reboot.FCC.gov site.

In fact, the FCC open commission meeting, where the plan is being unveiled at 10:30 am ET on March 16, will be streaming live on the Web at the site.

A recent FCC report noted that two-thirds of consumers in the U.S. have some sort of broadband connection. On average, they pay $41 for this sometimes dubious privilege.

Incredibly, six percent of Americans still use dial-up access and four percent have no broadband at home at all.

Not surprisingly, poor people access the Web a lot less, although longtime gaps among races are closing, with African-Americans and Hispanics gaining in access and usage.

So whatever the FCC proposes, at least it will shine a light on this critical issue.

And a new plan is better than none at all–I think–so let’s see what’s what on Tuesday.

It is set to be released next month and is a long, long time coming, of course, as the U.S. badly lags the rest of the world in high-speed Web access.

The plan will be the big first move by new FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski (pictured here), the longtime Internet exec who has just accepted our invite to appear as a speaker at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference in June.

There will be a lot to talk about with Genachowski, including the report the FCC is releasing today titled “Broadband Adoption and Use in America,” penned by John Horrigan.

The 52-page opus–which you can read in its entirety below–is the first of a series of working papers based on an FCC survey last fall.

It outlines a mostly wired country–as you can see from the detailed chart below (click to make it larger)–with two-thirds having some sort of broadband connection. On average, they pay $41 for that sometimes dubious privilege.

Incredibly, six percent of Americans still use dial-up access and four percent have no broadband at home at all.

Not surprisingly, poor people access the Web a lot less, although longtime gaps among races is closing, with African-Americans and Hispanics gaining in usage and access.

And what do people like to do? Well, for one, they prefer to socialize rather than watch stuff.

And they are becoming more digitally literate, with 61 percent understanding the words “reload” or “refresh.” Still, only 16 percent understand one of Silicon Valley’s favorite terms, “widget.”

Of the third without broadband access, or nonadopters, the FCC splits them into four categories.

The “Digitally Distant” make up 10 percent of the general population, finding the Internet, simply put, useless.

But eight percent are “Digital Hopefuls,” who “like the idea of being online, but lack the resources to connect using broadband.” As in, it is too expensive.

The “Digitally Uncomfortable”–also known as “BoomTown’s mother and Twitter nemesis”–are essentially afraid of having to understand what a widget means.

Finally, 10 percent are “Near Converts,” just one price point away from signing up.

Here is the full report embedded below, as well as one of two highlights videos from an interview Walt Mossberg and I did at D6 with former FCC Chairman Kevin Martin in May 2008.

In it, we harangued Martin about all these issues, using a whole lot of charts showing how the U.S. had very poor but very pricey access.

As you might imagine, we are super looking forward to having Genachowski onstage at D8!

FCCSurvey –