FCC Democrats Say Private-Public Partnership Needed for U.S. Broadband Strategy
Democratic FCC commissioners said Monday that a study on broadband deployment in North Carolina illustrates the need for federal government involvement in a national broadband strategy. At a New America Foundation forum, Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein said such a plan should be based on a partnership between the public and private sectors.
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A national broadband strategy must “rely on the private sector,” but also needs “greater focus” from policy leaders, Adelstein said. He met with telecom CEOs at the NXTcomm show in Las Vegas, and found “enormous common ground,” Adelstein said. It’s in the private sector’s interest to have policies that could assist in broadband deployment, he said.
Copps said the effort requires a “White House broadband czar, someone to take charge of coordinating the effort.” The task should follow the example of efforts in the late ‘90s to prevent Y2K problems, he said. The upcoming election will create “new opportunities to focus on broadband,” Copps said. “We will have a new president and, according to many pundits and handicappers, a more activist Congress.”
The FCC should “refocus” Universal Service Fund subsidies to broadband, Copps said, citing a figure in the report that 16 percent of North Carolinians don’t have broadband access. Last century, USF worked to get plain old telephone service across the U.S., Copps said. “But in this century, it’s not the POTS but the PANS we need to focus on - - the Pretty Awesome New Stuff.”
Debate over the legitimacy of the U.S.’s apparent 15th place ranking in an OECD study is moot, Adelstein said. Rather than make excuses for the ranking, such as citing population density differences, the U.S. should be “more ambitious” and work on getting to No. 1, he said.
Officials from EduCause, Corning and New America Foundation also praised the report, which was written by the Baller Herbst Law Group for the e-NC Authority. The paper correlates unemployment and other economic problems in the state’s rural regions to low broadband deployment levels. Even with state efforts, North Carolina won’t get broadband to the last 16 percent without a national strategy, said e-NC Authority Executive Director Jane Patterson.