Why we need affordable broadband for anchor institutions and communities

[Commentary] Schools, healthcare providers, libraries and other anchor institutions are the gateway to the community. These non-profit and governmental organizations increasingly provide essential Internet services to students, patients, patrons and underprivileged people. But their ability to meet these community needs depends on being able to obtain affordable, high-capacity broadband connections that often do not exist, especially in rural and non-competitive markets.

The 2010 National Broadband Plan Goal #4 called for every community to have affordable gigabit level broadband to anchor institutions by the year 2020. While we have made significant progress in the last six years, there is much more work to be done to meet that goal. The Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition (SHLB Coalition) will be releasing an important Broadband Action Plan for Community Anchor Institutions on Wednesday, July 13. One of the most important recommendations of this Action Plan is the need to rein in the prices for special access services, also called “business data services.” Communities are clamoring for better, faster, more affordable broadband to support their public institutions. As we’ll outline in our Grow2Gig+ Action Plan, we believe addressing a lack of competition in business data services is an important step forward. We have the opportunity to dramatically improve teaching and learning, to offer equal and ubiquitous access to broadband for our communities and begin to reach goals we have set for ourselves.

[John Windhausen is Executive Director of the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband (SHLB) Coalition]