Markey Bill Would Create Nationwide Broadband Map
Democrats are scrambling to fill broadband gaps in rural America, with House Telecom Subcommittee Chmn. Markey (D- Mass.) drafting a bill based partly on a successful state program that mapped high-speed service holes. Markey’s bill would have NTIA draw and maintain the map, to be posted on the Internet and searchable by users, according to a copy of the discussion draft. A hearing on the bill is set next Thurs.
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On a separate track, Sen. Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) proposed a national broadband plan in a resolution he introduced Wed. The resolution has a 2-step plan: A national goal of 10 Mbps nationwide by 2010 and 100 Mbps by 2015. “That is ambitious, but achievable,” Rockefeller said. The 2nd part of his plan is aimed at devising a strategy to get the job done, by using tax incentives, low-interest loans and Universal Service Fund (USF) reforms to encourage broadband deployment.
Markey’s draft bill calls for $36 million supplemented with at least $8 million in federal grants through 2010 to help state and local govts. tell the project what it needs to know. The bill reflects some ideas in a Ky. mapping program getting Congressional and corporate attention (CD May 8 p5) as a way to get broadband to rural areas and create jobs. Ky. went from about 60% high-speed penetration in 2004 to around 93% today, Brian Mefford, CEO-Connected Nation told us after a House Small Business Rural Subcommittee hearing Wed.
Ky. Gov. Ernie Fletcher (R) started the public-private project in 2004. It gets about $2.5 million yearly in public grants, Mefford said. A key to its success was ensuring service providers that proprietary information would be protected, he said. Ky. used an independent 3rd party to manage the program and had providers sign non-disclosure agreements, factors that raised companies’ confidence, Mefford told lawmakers.
“The mapping process seems to be half science and half art,” said Subcommittee Chmn. Shuler (D-N.C.), asking whether what happened in Ky. would work federally. Mefford said his company actually is part of a nationwide effort. He also said Congress could consider a plan that would work state-by- state as well as a federal mapping project.
FCC Comr. Adelstein told lawmakers that the FCC hit “a lot of resistance” trying to get providers to contribute to a mapping project: “It took a lot of cajoling to get providers to give us that data.” He called mapping an “essential solution” for helping close broadband deployment gaps.
GAO has been very critical FCC data gathering, Adelstein said, noting that one possibility would be to use 9-digit zip codes for isolating addresses getting broadband service. “We need to know more about the demographics,” Adelstein said, but it will take time to collect the data. He added that Congress could help by funding the effort. The Ky. model could help as solve the broadband deployment problem, said William Deere, vp-govt. affairs, USTelecom.