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A Broadband Action Plan for America
Submitted by Charles Benton on December 1, 2008 - 4:08pm
Additional Resources from the Benton Foundation:
A Broadband Action Plan for America
Charles Benton
In the Digital Age, universal, affordable, and robust broadband is the key to our nation's citizens reaching for - and achieving - the American Dream.
President-elect Obama can immediately exercise strong leadership to improve the competitiveness of the United States in the global economy by acting to craft a National Broadband Strategy.
On January 20, 2009, Americans will turn to President Barack Obama to make good on the promises he made during the 2008 election. One clear goal articulated by candidate Obama is that every American should have the highest speed broadband access - no matter where they live, or how much money they have. This goal is not achievable overnight nor with the simple stroke of a pen. However, President Obama can immediately exercise strong leadership to improve the competitiveness of the United States in the global economy by acting to craft a National Broadband Strategy.
A new report the Benton Foundation releases today - AN ACTION PLAN FOR AMERICA: Using Technology and Innovation to Address Our Nation's Critical Challenges - offers a draft Executive Order to implement the America COMPETES Act, legislation which Sen. Obama co-sponsored. Specifically, the Benton Foundation calls on President-Elect Obama to take immediate action on creating a National Council on Innovation and Competitiveness, a provision of the law he helped perfect, but that has been swept under the rug by President Bush.
The Presidential Council envisioned by President-Elect Obama and Congress in the America COMPETES Act would include policymakers at the highest level of government and 50 experts chosen by the President. The Council will deliver a National Broadband Strategy by January 1, 2010 -- a coherent road map of goals and policies that complement and accelerate efforts in the marketplace to achieve universal adoption of affordable high-speed Internet access and use.
In 2004, President Bush proclaimed a national goal of universal broadband by the year 2007. As we know now, that didn't happen. There was no policy initiative enacted to address his challenge.
Meanwhile, in a globally-competitive and interconnected world, America's competitors are implementing well-conceived and financed national strategies to dramatically increase their competitive advantage in broadband over the United States.
Unless our nation quickly answers this serious challenge, America will continue to export economic growth and good-paying "knowledge worker" jobs overseas to its better-connected, lower-wage competitors. Our citizens will continue to be denied the benefits of broadband already being enjoyed by citizens of other nations in job creation and economic development, in health care and education, in public safety and security, energy conservation and reduced greenhouse gas emissions, and more.
By adopting a bold and imaginative action plan on Day One to connect all of our citizens to robust and affordable broadband, President Obama will enable America to catch up to and surpass our global competitors on broadband, while at the same time utilizing technology and innovation to address our nation's critical challenges. The President will deliver to all our citizens the opportunity they seek for their children and themselves: to reach for the American Dream in the Digital Age.
Additional Resources from the Benton Foundation:
Universal Affordable Broadband for All Americans
Broadband for Everyone, Everywhere
The Future of Universal Service is Broadband
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Comments
I hope obama and the fcc help people like me
to get good access broadband out here and my friends
to east of us they can get all 5mb speeds of dsl over
there for last 3years in that area and we only get dialup
for last 12years since 1998 and i know it sucks
for us gamers out here and i know i did sat modem once it wasn't
all that great back direcpc days.
But people in rural areas need broadband out here becuase
i do alot youtubes uploading and xbox360 gaming i'm a a hardcore
halo2 and halo3 fan and would love get voip out here since
i had chatterbug while back but they must out of lack back a year
ago.
So here's link i post this topic to get my local telphone comapny to bring
dsl out here and this hads google earth maps on it and gps where is at
so places like this in amercia need dsl very badly anyway and i know this's
too sad and shameful and i know alot people go on wifi to there local libary
which is like 8miles away some places i have goto free cafes to get on wifi
to do my uploads on youtube anyway i know it sucks that way.
Here's the link!!!
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r19100717-I-need-adsl-bad-here-this-area-needs-really-bad-herehelp
I, like Mr. Benton, have sat through several meetings in DC recently that are attempting to raise the universal deployment of broadband issue to one that the President-Elect will act on. OK, we all have done that; he gets it.
Only a very few us have given him anything new that he can act upon. All the current predominate solutions are still based on repairing an antiquated telecommunications system (telephone based not data based). It is not going to work and it is not going to carry us for the next 10 years, so let's not waste money trying to fix something that truly has been broke since the 1970's!
But Internet Access to all Americans is no longer the real issue. The real issue is to build a smart network or networks that provide affordable high-capacity bandwidth to all segments of the population, both residential and commercial.
I submit to you that it is more economically feasible to build a fiber optic/wireless based private, smart network from scratch than it is to fix what we have.
What do I mean by private? I mean that every foot of the fiber backbone and every wireless tower is owned by a single company. There is no buying or leasing from the teleco's or using IRU's. Just a brand new network. This network provides symmetrical bandwidth in the 5+Mb range and does it in a very cost effective manner for the consumer.
This network provides "computing in the cloud" and "thin client" technology for the roughly 40% of Americans that don't have computers for whatever reason.
Most important of all it provides an infrastructure for businesses, both large and small. It takes telemedicine out of the "thinking about it" stage and puts it in the "using it now, effectively stage".
Video conferencing, becomes a tool for the "everyman" and not just for a few schools or big businesses.
It puts every level of the education process in a position where distance learning applies to every school in the foot print of this network.
It allows use of a supercomputer for anyone on the network who needs it and does not break their budget.
A pipe dream you say? Not at all. Even as you read this a group of private equity lenders is reviewing such a plan for implementation.
So Mr. President-Elect, how about starting out by giving company's who are willing to step and build this type of statewide or regional network some of all that incentive money or tax credits you speak about?
Also Mr. President-Elect, how about listening to the user stakeholders of such a venture instead "good old boys" provider stakeholders? Let's build what the user needs and not what the current teleco's say we need. They have tried for 100 years and still don't have it.
Lastly, let's change the word BROADBAND to what it is we really need, which is "affordable high-capacity bandwidth!"
We have all done enough talking about this issue. The time is NOW to get out of the "telecommunications box" and build a series data centric private, smart networks across AMERICA!!!!