Broadband Obama

Our President-elect has his work cut out for him – a flagging economy, a housing slump, unemployment, foreign wars – and that’s just the first day! President-elect Obama already has stated that his first priority is to get the economy stabilized and turned around “sooner than later.”

Obama knows that economic stability and growth are enabled by a strong, viable infrastructure. Not just public transportation and utilities, but telecommunications, especially broadband. He demonstrated that he understands the power of the Internet to raise funds for his campaign and to rally masses of voters to the polls. He shows that, in the 21^st century, politicians must understand that broadband infrastructure is as important as highways and public works. Obama was the only candidate to mention broadband during the televised debates! Check the video!

The 21^st Century is the Internet Age, and the United States is a laggard in making broadband widely available to its citizens. Despite having the largest base of users, broadband penetration is only 25% of our population. Moreover, the U.S. is not even in the top 10 countries ranked by broadband penetration, even after billions of capital investment.

Such a poor showing after more than 10 years since DSL broadband technology was introduced only exacerbates the criticism that the U.S. is not doing enough to close the ‘digital divide’ between major metro areas and rural America, and between the broadband haves and have-nots.

What’s needed is comprehensive Federal policy that mandates universal broadband just as the Communications Act of 1934 mandated universal telephone service. Call it the Broadband Act of 2009!

Some states - Pennsylvania, New York and California - already have mandated that service providers operating within their borders make broadband available for every state citizen by a prescribed deadline.

Left on its own, every state will probably implement a broadband policy. Why? Because it’s good for the state, and good for the state’s people and businesses. Broadband is an economic development tool and a competitive differentiator that can help attract new domestic and foreign investment to the state.

But, that’s not enough!