America at the Crossroads

History at the crossroads, one of those inflection points when we have the opportunity to learn from our experiences and use them to build a better future. Coronavirus brings us to another of those crossroads. Which road will we take? We could retreat again to the outdated policies and decisions of the past several years without recognizing how they set us up for a pandemic that is worse than it might have been. Or we could take stock of the unpreparedness that paved the way for this scourge and avoid what will surely be more, and perhaps even worse, plagues ahead. There is plenty to praise in the coverage of the coronavirus contagion, so praise that I do. But every day brings news of more fired journalists and newsroom cut-backs, costing us dearly. Communities across the nation depend upon reporting that is both wide and deep, but each lost reporter deprives citizens of information that we urgently need, and each expands the opportunity for a misinformation contagion to spread alongside the virus.

One lesson from the pandemic is the glaring shortfall of our telecommunication infrastructure. There are millions, tens of millions, of people who lack broadband at home. They are the still-employed trying to do their jobs online, the unemployed searching desperately for jobs, students who cannot attend classes online, potential entrepreneurs wanting to build new businesses from remote areas, communities of color and native lands by-passed because of the constricted build-out we have endured these many years, and sick people denied the opportunity for healthcare. Telework, tele-education, and telemedicine are must-have resources in the twenty-first century. I have long called this a civil right because without these things no one can fully participate in our democracy and society. We should have advanced far beyond where we are by now. But it cannot be accomplished without a true and comprehensive private-public sector partnership. It is time to stop the mind-numbing, fatuous debate of the past 25 years and finally get the broadband job done. 

[Michael Copps served as a commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission from May 2001 to December 2011 and was the FCC's Acting Chairman from January to June 2009.]