Broadband: Four Legislative Steps To Ensure Economic Growth

State legislators can take the four following revenue-neutral and widely supported steps to lead in broadband policy.

1. Create a Broadband Task Force: As each state has its own needs - a unique geography, a unique demography, and a unique economy - its policy makers must assess on their own how to best invest in broadband to achieve full access. To accomplish this, more than 22 states have established broadband councils or task forces, and out of these, 19 were created by the state legislative branch. For instance, Oregon established the Oregon Broadband Advisory Council and the Oregon Broadband Advisory Council Fund to encourage and support the deployment of broadband telecommunications services and reduce barriers to broadband adoption, especially within un-served and under-served populations.
2. Map High-Speed Internet Infrastructure: Mapping high-speed Internet availability and adoption, and making that information accessible to the public, is an important tool for legislators and local planning groups who seek to evaluate the current status of their states’ high- speed Internet infrastructure and utilization. In Washington state, progressive legislators enacted a bill to collect and map data on broadband access and adoption. The bill directs the state’s Department of Information Services to develop a map that demonstrates where broadband services are and are not currently available, and to work with other agencies to identify the communities most in need of new or additional broadband services.
3. Create and expand programs to bridge the digital divide: The federal government and states already have programs that subsidize telephone services for low-income and rural residents. With the success of this program, called the Universal Service Fund, we can direct a portion of those existing monies to high-speed Internet. In its 2010 Telecommunications Plan, the Vermont Department of Public Service recommends the inclusion of broadband in the state’s Universal Service Fund so that it can become affordable to low-income and rural households.
4. Launch Digital Literacy Programs: Beyond investing in broadband infrastructure and finding ways to make broadband services more affordable, state legislators should promote investments in education and community media programs to overcome the digital divide. Washington state legislators recently established a program to provide resources to community technology centers that provide hands-on technology access and training to residents. And New Mexico enacted a bill allowing media literacy courses in secondary public schools - incorporating media literacy as a more central part of a school curriculum to give New Mexico children better economic opportunities in a global market.

If enacted, policies like these will encourage true access to, as well as adoption and utilization of broadband - sparking job growth and securing infrastructure needed to grow the American economy. Legislative oversight over broadband does not undermine competition, it encourages it by creating mechanisms that assess the need for broadband access and takes the steps to stimulate broadband adoption by making it affordable and usable. Modernizing communications policy does not mean deregulating it, but ensuring that no one is left in the digital dark. In short, state government must propel action that will result in more investment and broadband for all.