Broadband Access
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2010-03-16/broadband-access
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski addresses America's Digital Inclusion Summit at The Newseum, March 9, 2010.
A faster, cheaper and more widely available Internet: How the FCC is proposing to remake the country’s communications infrastructure and what it could mean for consumers and the U.S. telecommunications industry.
Guests
Blair Levin
executive director, Federal Communications Commission
Dennis Wharton
spokesperson, National Association of Broadcasters
Chris Guttman-McCabe
vp, regulatory affairs, CTIA, the wireless association
Ben Scott
policy director, Free Press
Adam Thierer
Progress and Freedom Foundation
Comments
Please familiarize yourself with our Code of Conduct and Terms of Use before posting your comments.
We are watching as businesses try to make work more flexible, easing the situation for families and diminishing traffic on heavily traveled commuter routes. This will only become possible when all potential workers have full and speedy internet access.
Living as I do in a rural area with little/slow internet access, I have learned that the web has become no less important than the interstate highway system and should be treated in the same way -- as an investment in the future.
Well said. Rural areas have been left behind. I work in the IT industry, but I have to drive 30 minutes from my home to find something other than a dial-up connection, plus I can not get cell service within a five mile radius. Even if we just had broadband in our local library, that would be an improvement.
It is clear that Americans are being wholesale ripped off by the broadband internet service providers in the USA. In the USA people are charged 50+ dollars a month for substandard broadband internet service (more in rural areas). Meanwhile, in Europe and parts of Asia people are charged a minimal fee (10 dollars a month of even less) for broadband internet which is much faster and better than the American broadband network.
The chief problem is monopolization of America's broadband internet network by mega-corporations. Break up the monopolies and prices will drop in to normal territory. It might even be best to nationalize the internet networks as they have done in Europe and Asia. Some countries have made internet access a human right.
Why is there is a need to charge Americans outrageous prices for a basic/necessary service like internet access when the physical networks are already fully built and set up?
I have high-speed DSL through an old phone line and it works as well as broadband. Can the rural areas not obtain this as well?
Please ask your guests, is it not true that the Government gave away the band widths to the TV networks for free in the first place? If so why do we need to ask for them back?
I live in rural America. My neighborhood got phone service 10 years ago. The phone company installed copper wires. I expect to be dust before we get broadband, despite the noble claims of the government.
I can't believe Congressman Cliff Sterns thinks the free market worked for the broadband access. My broadband price actually went UP recently (Time Warner), and I live in a big city (Cleveland)!! Plus, of course, my speeds are not nearly as good as what many other countries have.
A free market would be a great idea. In this country we have a duopoly between the phone company and the cable company, and they use the power of government to keep any smaller competition from getting into the market. They also have a tacit agreement not to compete against each other on price.
Since real broadband access would make cable TV and land line telephone service obsolete, the two members of the duopoly offer a "bundle" of all three services for $100 or more per month, when all we really need is fast broadband. Then they advertise this as some kind of great deal as they force us to buy their two unwanted services along with their overpriced broadband internet.