Boucher Wants to Improve America's Broadband

BOUCHER WANTS TO IMPROVE AMERICA'S BROADBAND
[SOURCE: Public Knowledge, AUTHOR: John Bergmayer]
[Commentary] Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA) gave the opening keynote at the Broadband Policy Summit on June 7. He detailed a number of plans he thinks would help improve broadband penetration in America: 1) He urged summit attendees to contact their Congressional representatives to ask them to support his Universal Service Reform Act of 2007 (HR 2054 see http://www.benton.org/index.php?q=node/5674). 2) He would eliminate legal barriers to municipal deployment of broadband, including municipal WiFi and mesh networks. 3) He sees the pending agriculture bill as providing an opportunity to reexamine funding for rural broadband deployment [see related story]. 4) He discussed the connection of telecommunications to possible “smart grid” power systems, and discussed the potential of broadband over power lines (BPL) for providing broadband competition. 5) He cited the example of “Connect Kentucky,” which he believes has been a successful program for increasing broadband deployment. He thinks that it is an example worthy of emulation and for which a federal complement might be developed.
http://feeds.publicknowledge.org/~r/publicknowledge-main/~3/123048366/995