Hawaii Broadband Task Force Aims to Tackle Problems of Speed, Competition

In an attempt to increase speeds, lower prices and enhance consumer choices, the Hawaii legislature last year created a Hawaiian Broadband Task Force to study problems associated with high-speed Internet access. Download speeds on the island state are the slowest in the nation, according to a May 2008 report by Akamai, a company that helps web operators manage and accelerate bandwidth delivery. Only 2.4 percent of Hawaiian users reached Akamai's network at speeds of more than 5 Megabits per second, according to the report. That compares to 60 percent of Delaware users, 42 percent of Rhode Island users, and 36 percent of New York users. The goal of the Hawaiian Broadband Task Force is to "encourage lower prices for broadband services and create more consumer choices." The task force highlighted the role of "gaining wider access to public rights-of-way" in its December 2007 initial report. In addition to removing barriers to broadband access, the Task Force is assigned to finding ways to increase broadband deployment and adoption and enable the development and distribution of new communication technologies in the state of Hawaii.