February 2007

Benton Receives Hadden Pioneer Award,
Renews Call for National Broadband Strategy

On February 09, 2007 Benton Foundation Chairman and CEO Charles Benton received the Susan G. Hadden Pioneer Award from the Alliance for Public Technology. The award recognizes “pioneering efforts in telecommunications and consumer access.”

In his remarks while accepting the award, Benton identified four steps to restore the country’s Internet competitiveness:

1) Better data. Benton noted, “As management gurus always say, you can’t accomplish something if you can’t measure it – and the tools we are using today to measure our progress on broadband are about as sharp and refined as Fred Flinstone’s hammer.”

2) A strategy. “Despite President Bush's announcing the goal in 2004 of achieving Universal Affordable Broadband Access by 2007, we still have a long way to go in developing the plan, let alone implementing it. We are likely the only industrialized nation without a comprehensive and coordinated national broadband strategy,” Benton said.

3) Restoring funding for the Department of Commerce’s Technology Opportunities Program which from 1994 to 2004, played an important role in realizing the vision of an information society by demonstrating practical applications of new telecommunications and information technologies in the public and non-profit sector.

4) Universal Service Reform. Benton said, “As we celebrate the 10th anniversary of the E-rate later this month, we need to remember the critical role that the universal service program can play in advancing universal broadband – while also fostering competition, keeping rates affordable, and advancing speeds that enable digital voice, digital video and the vision Susan Hadden had where anyone can be a producer.”

Read Mr. Benton’s remarks at: http://www.benton.org/index.php?q=node/4772

The Alliance for Public Technology (APT) established the Susan G. Hadden Pioneer Awards in honor of the late Dr. Susan Hadden, Chair of APT's Policy Committee and a tireless advocate for widespread public access to advanced telecommunications. The Awards support the efforts of other pioneers in consumer access who carry on her legacy.

In his remarks, Benton noted the Benton Foundation’s support for Dr Hadden’s work in the 1990s that outlined two alternative visions of our digital future. One future saw a world where people were merely consumers. The alternative future is one in which everyone is on the network, creating and sharing information with interested people. But to get there, she believed telecommunications policy needed to play a role. In that 1994 paper Professor Hadden said, "we need to adopt a long-range goal that calls for expanded universal service.”

The 1994 Hadden paper can be found online at: http://www.benton.org/index.php?q=node/4771

The Benton Foundation is a private foundation that is committed to articulating a public interest vision for the digital age and demonstrating the value of communications for solving social problems. Along with media policy, the foundation is also committed to strengthening public service media, including community media. Further information regarding the foundation and its work can be found at its website, www.benton.org.