TIA Gives Congress Ideas for Broadband Deployment

Talk of a national broadband policy is gearing up as President-elect Barack Obama prepares to take office. Obama, arguably the most tech-savvy presidential candidate in history, has made no secret of his intent to revolutionize health care with electronic medical records, create a CTO cabinet position and work toward ubiquitous broadband access. To that end, the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) on Thursday asked federal lawmakers to consider specific broadband deployment and adoption incentives in the economic stimulus bill the House and Senate will debate during the 111th Congress. TIA proposes "targeted incentives" to stimulate investment across wireless and fixed broadband platforms. The idea stems from a Communications Workers of America (CWA) plan that would create 97,500 direct jobs and 2.5 million jobs throughout the country with every $5 billion investment, according to CWA estimates. TIA builds on that by suggesting the inclusion of new tax incentive tiers that apply to fixed and wireless broadband, satellite broadband and broadband core and backbone transport.