Copps: Our Window for Reform

Federal Communications Commission member Michael Copps spoke Friday at a Rainbow PUSH Coalition event and stressed that the 2008 election opened a window of opportunity for telecommunications policy reform. He said universal broadband is our central infrastructure challenge and warned, "If we fail, the diversity gaps and rural gaps and inner city gaps and technology gaps and regional gaps that have been such brakes on our progress can only get worse-much worse." He called for "A broadband policy for the American people should be, after all, a broadband policy of and by the American people."

He also stressed the importance of Network Neutrality saying, "no one will benefit more from the opportunities of an open Internet than those who have suffered lack of opportunity for generations. It would be a lost opportunity of huge proportions for diversity groups and civil rights organizations to be doubting Thomases when it comes to the bedrock of preserving Internet openness."

He closed asking, "How do we optimize this unique window of opportunity for change that we have open before us? Will we squabble about who has more pressing needs-those in rural areas or those in urban areas? Will we wait for the federal government to make all the decisions and then express our concerns? Will we insist on picking and choosing which broadband technologies are favored in this process? Will we see a broadband plan as a zero sum game? Will we just wait to move on public interest media until the moment has passed us by? Will we allow diversity's hour to become diversity's missed opportunity?"