Category: National Broadband Strategy

John McCain’s Perspective on Broadband

SAN JOSE, CA — U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) and Cisco President and CEO John Chambers shared a stage on Friday at the San Jose Convention Center at the Silicon Valley Leadership Group’s Annual Public Policy luncheon. Stephen Wright, editor of the San Jose Mercury News editorial page, questioned the pair about R&D, Immigration, What’s Going Right and more. No, not that Steven Wright.When asked by Wright what was the one thing that Congress could do to make the biggest impact to innovation the responses were thus: (I’m paraphrasing)McCain: Immigration reform. We need to get more H1-B workers in the US in order to have the educated workers available in the innovation creating jobs.Chambers: Broadband

Michael Copps: America’s Internet Disconnect

America’s record in expanding broadband communication is so poor that it should be viewed as an outrage by every consumer and businessperson in the country. Too few of us have broadband connections, and those who do pay too much for service that is too slow. It’s hurting our economy, and things are only going to get worse if we don’t do something about it.

America Needs a Fiber-Based National Broadband Policy Now

By Jim Baller and Casey Lide, the Baller Herbst Law Group

In his latest album, Modern Times, Bob Dylan paints a troubling picture of what may  lie ahead for the United States. In a track called “Workingman’s Blues #2,” Dylan sings of  the diminishing buying power of American workers; of low wages becoming a reality in the face of brutal competition from abroad; of our inability to give away, let alone to sell, what we have to offer; of hunger creeping into our bellies; and of our fear of sinking into lives of continual crime.

“The place I love best is a sweet memory,” Dylan laments, “It’s a nude path, that we trod.” Dylan urges each of us to choose: “You can hang back or fight your best on the front lines, singin’ a little bit of these workingman blues.”

Are Dylan’s concerns overstated? Are they premature? We think not. Whether one agrees or disagrees with the details of President Bush’s broadband policies, most of us would surely agree with his observation in his most recent State of the Union address that America’s ability to remain competitive in the “dynamic world economy” is at risk. Noting the rapid emergence of competition from India, China, and other countries, he challenged America to take the dramatic steps necessary to ensure that we will continue to occupy the position of global leadership to which we have become accustomed.

In this paper, we discuss the critical importance of an aggressive national broadband policy that emphasizes the development of high-bandwidth communications systems, particularly FTTH systems. The stakes for America are huge. It is a fight from which we cannot hang back but must give our best on the front lines.

ITIF: U.S. Continues to Tread Water in Global Broadband Adoption

According to new statistics from the OECD1, the United States remains in the middle of the pack among OECD nations in broadband telecommunications adoption. In their semi-annual survey of broadband subscribership, the OECD found that from June 2005 to December 2005, broadband subscribership in the U.S. increased 2.3 percentage points, from 14.4 percent of the population to 16.8 percent, about the same rate of growth as the OECD overall. When OECD first collected this data in 2000, the United States ranked 4th among the 30 nations surveyed, behind Korea, Sweden and Canada. Now, we are 12th, with our rank unchanged from December 2004.

Universal Service for a Globally Competitive America

It is the premise of this paper that the United States should adopt broadband as the universal service standard for its national information infrastructure—the  nation’s system of telecommunications. Derived from Section 254 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which embraces an evolving standard of Universal Service, Universal Broadband Access constitutes a new generation of Universal Service policy beyond that construed in the 20th century as plain old telephone service (POTS).