by John N. Rose, OPASTCO President
The FCC just announced that 93 million Americans are not connected to high-speed Internet connections at home. It’s written in black and white in the FCC’s latest National Broadband Plan Consumer Survey, “Broadband Adoption and Use in America.”
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has stated “We need to tackle the challenge of connecting 93 million Americans to our broadband future. In the 21st century, a digital divide is an opportunity divide. To bolster American competitiveness abroad and create the jobs of the future here at home, we need to make sure that all Americans have the skills and means to fully participate in the digital economy.”
Chairman Genachowski, we agree. Connecting these Americans will have long-term economic benefits for our country. However, we have a question for the FCC and Congress: How will policymakers and lawmakers ensure that each and every one of these 93 million Americans is given the same opportunity to join the digital economy?
National Broadband Plan comments are flying around Washington, D.C. Some have merit; others have the potential to broaden the digital divide through cherry-picking schemes and creating more digital have-nots. Some are real; others are smoke-and-mirrors.
The National Cable Telecommunications Association’s (NCTA) Broadband Plan Comments are based on old voice policies that have the potential to hamstring the federal government’s efforts to connect all Americans to high-speed Internet. In essence, the plan is to lessen universal service funding that supports networks that serve high-cost areas, while diminishing competition in more densely populated areas—where more cable companies serve. It’s cherry-picking, plain and simple, and it will make investment in rural America’s broadband networks even less attractive than it is today. The opportunity divide for Americans in high-cost areas will only grow if NCTA’s plan is adopted. It’s pro-metropolis and let rural America be damned.
Those same 93 million Americans won’t benefit from Google’s planned 1GB network, either. The Internet behemoth is dangling a carrot to policymakers and lawmakers, offering the potential of 1GB networks in select areas of the company’s own choosing—in exchange for ensuring that Net Neutrality rules favor their business model—that the Internet remains “open for everyone.” But is the Internet truly open for everyone if cherry-picking behavior is rewarded with federal policies that benefit the individual company instead of incenting high-speed Internet connects to those 93 million Americans?
We all want our country to have a thriving digital economy. Now, it is up to Congress and the FCC to sift through the easy-sounding National Broadband Plan ideas and the high-wire political juggling acts to ensure that all Americans, everywhere, have the opportunity to participate in that digital economy.
Keep Cherry-Picking Out of a National Broadband Plan Designed for All Americans
Posted on February 24, 2010 at 02:42 PM
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2 Comments
NTIA is screwing America with if patchwork of networks for government bureaucrat to tied schools and government offices together at the expense of the end users. Once the connections to these locations are removed from the network the remaining part is not worth pursueing by anyone. They would have been much better off to have given the schools and government offices the money directly to purchase the connections from the local service providers so it would have sped up the connections to everyone. In the end we will have a bunch of disconnected networks without funding to maintain properly. What Google proposes is a smoke screen for it open network comcept at our expense.
The funding awarded in the first round by both the NITA and RUS have done little to provide Internet services to the have nots - - much of the funding awarded will actually be a hinderence to getting Internet to the have nots. Funding completely new region wide or state wide networks that do not involve the inplace ILECs, CLECs and IXCs is setting up a cherry picking situation that will be taking dollars away from the companys that have made great strides to provide Internet to all customers and are the companies who need the funding to reach the have nots that are the most costly to serve in these companies areas of operation. It looks to me like a lot if not most funding decisions are being made with little or no real knoledege of the real world Internet inviorenment. Funding a new fiber network in one of the upper New England States, funding one in one of the Carolina's and the possiblility of funding a new vast fiber network in Montana is only going to make it harder to solve the Internet have not issue <> really stupied decisions probably just to put money in the pockets of some new venture capitalist or to give glory to some public institution along with creating unneeded new job positions at the public institution - - in some cases a University << the know it all group of people who really know nothing about real life enviorenments.