NCTA Urges Government to Concentrate On Serving the Unserved

The National Cable & Telecommunications Association is weighing in before the National Telecommunications & Information Administration, the Federal Communications Commission, and the Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service decide how to dole out the $7.2 billion in broadband deployment grants and loans. Here's the message: the federal government should put a priority on extending broadband service to areas that can't get it at all, and to helping underserved populations buy and use the service that already exists there. Only after that, and if there is any money left over, should the government start putting money into essentially overbuilding underserved areas according to faster speeds or some other measure of "underserved." Before funding new competitors to existing cable operators, the NCTA told Congress that the broadband programs should address affordability, computer ownership and computer literacy.