Advocates Call Broadband Recommendations 'A Good Start'

A Cabinet-level council (The Broadband Opportunity Council) released a report on ways the Obama Administration can do a better job to support broadband for low-income and rural communities. The recommendations are good but need to go further to encourage and support small communities, advocates say. The recommendations would make adjustments in programs such as the Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service and the Department of Commerce’s New Market Tax Credits.

Rural broadband advocates praised the Broadband Opportunity Council’s recommendations, though some expressed disappointment that the administration couldn’t do more to support broadband in rural areas. “These actions and reforms are heading in the right direction,” said Christopher Mitchell of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. “But we need to go in that direction much faster.” The recommendations show that the president “is more serious about expanding broadband in rural areas than Congress,” Mitchell said. “Unfortunately, the kind and amount of funding that needs to be available – ideally in the form of loans for co-ops and municipal networks – need to come from Congress.” Communications scholar Sharon Strover, a University of Texas at Austin professor, said the report could have placed more emphasis on making broadband affordable. “What a lot of our research suggests is that two factors figure in explaining why people don’t use broadband connections: affordability and lack of interest,” Strover said. “I don’t really see much in the report that grapples with affordability.”