Who Will Fix America's Broken Broadband Policies?

[Commentary] There can be no argument against the current deficiencies of America's broadband policies. A third of Americans don't subscribe to broadband, and the rate of adoption is slowing. Upwards of ten percent of American's can't subscribe, and there's no clear plan in place yet to provide them access to fix that. Many Americans only have access to broadband that's too slow, too expensive, and not reliable enough. Most of America is not yet realizing even a fraction of the potential that broadband has to offer.

And we ignore at our peril the reality that "broadband" in America means less bandwidth for more money than countries like South Korea, Sweden, and soon Australia.

Yet despite these undeniable truths about our shortcomings as a nation, our policymakers in DC continue to focus almost all attention on the issues of net neutrality and reclassification. It was just two years ago that the Obama administration swept in a Democratic Congress with a wave of promising appointees that filled us with hope that a new day had dawned for broadband policy making. These were people who were supposed to get it. Who weren't afraid to take on big challenges. Now two years later little progress has been made on directly addressing the issues listed above. At best the government's thrown $7 billion at the problem and made some tweaks around the edges of a system that's failing to deliver equal access to all Americans and to maximize the potential of this 21st century infrastructure.