IP: Article on national broadband strategy by Karen Kornbluh

[Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>]

> Los Angeles Times, Commentary
> June 13, 2002
>
> Fill Potholes on America's Info Highway
> by
> Karen Kornbluh
> Fellow, New America Foundation
> Former Director, Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs, FCC
>
> The Bush administration has largely ignored the nation's $700-billion
> telecommunications industry's free fall, a costly mistake for the U.S.
> economy. Stock prices are down 75%, and telecom companies are expected
> to reduce their capital spending for the second year in a row.
>
> President Bush should use today's White House high-tech industry forum
> to announce a national broadband strategy.
>
> U.S. broadband usage--the number of households that use high-speed
> Internet connections--is stalled at less than 10%. This delays the
> productivity-enhancing new applications that require faster
> connections and puts us well behind South Korea, where more than 50%
> of households use broadband. The administration has yet to develop a
> broadband strategy and has slowly unraveled rules granting
> entrepreneurs access to the network. A House-passed bill would do more
> of the same. Democratic congressional leaders and some Republicans are
> calling for universal broadband; Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.)
> has asked the president to submit a plan to Congress.
>
> The U.S. government took a leading role in such productivity-enhancing
> infrastructure technologies as canals, railroads, highways,
> electricity and telephone service. Now it should create the conditions
> for the private sector to innovate and invest in this new highway.
> Here's how:
>
> * Bush can create a more favorable investment climate by announcing a
> national goal--much as President Kennedy focused on getting a man to
> the moon--of universal, affordable broadband access by 2005 and
> extra-high-speed access by 2010. He should restore the government's
> commitment to competition and regulatory certainty by announcing his
> administration will enforce rather than dismantle current rules. Bush
> also should announce that he will bring together the various
> industries to resolve issues such as how to handle intellectual
> property to benefit consumers--and warn that the government will step
> in if they can't solve the problems on their own.
>
> * State and local governments should be required to get out of the
> habit of protecting existing businesses by imposing fees and permits
> on newcomers. Michigan Gov. John Engler took the lead in overriding
> anti-competitive local measures. Federal standards must move quickly
> to sweep away such rules around the country.
>
> * Regulators need to free the spectrum. During the last decade,
> investment in wireless skyrocketed and prices declined as competition
> thrived. This happened because in the mid-1990s, the Clinton-Gore
> administration auctioned off parts of the spectrum that established
> companies were warehousing to competitors eager to invest in new
> services.
>
> Today, entrepreneurs have found new ways to provide wireless,
> broadband connections at minimal cost by sharing airwaves--but no
> spectrum is available for their new services. Broadcasters hold, for
> free, twice as much spectrum as they need because the transition to
> digital television is stalled. The president must insist on a hard
> deadline for the broadcasters to go digital. A chunk of the freed
> spectrum should be set aside for the new shared technology and the
> rest auctioned off to new entrants.
>
> * The Bush administration should lead by example. Think of the
> difference that could have been made a year ago by an automated system
> that used artificial intelligence to follow up on FBI agents' hunches
> by checking flight school rosters. Intel Chairman Andy Grove once said
> that there are two kinds of companies: those that use e-mail and those
> that will. Government needs to move from the second category to the
> first. The sooner it starts using information technology in innovative
> ways, the sooner spillover benefits will begin.
>
> * Government should issue high-tech vouchers. Today's system is
> anything but market-based; regulatory artifacts of the old Ma Bell
> system of big monopoly-big bureaucracy distort prices and hinder broad
> access. Far better would be a pro-competition broadband voucher for
> low-income users or those in sparsely populated regions of the
> country.
>
>
>






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