Unplugged: How Obama’s bid to expand Internet access ran into big trouble

[Commentary] More than a quarter of Americans do not have home Internet access and more than a third lack a high-speed, broadband connection. Compared to 30 other industrialized countries, the U.S. ranks fifteenth in broadband quality and penetration. The most egregious disparities are predictable: The poor, the disabled, minorities, and seniors have abysmal rates of broadband use. Ostensibly the most powerful, prosperous, technologically advanced country in the world has left over a fourth of its citizens disconnected.

President Obama has made closing this digital divide a priority. In December 2008, when he signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, he declared that we would “renew our information superhighway.” The $787 billion stimulus allotted $7.2 billion for the increase of broadband use in rural and underserved areas, and mandated the creation of a National Broadband Plan (NBP) by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to devise a way to connect 100 million more Americans -- a third of the U.S. population -- with affordable broadband by 2020. It has been nine months since the NBP was delivered to Congress, and those billions of dollars have been spent. And yet, we are only slightly better off than we were at the outset. Achieving better Internet access will not be easy, but widespread broadband access is essential. For every person like my father who has opted out of the Internet revolution, there are communities of people who are scrambling to catch up.