Congress Takes Step Toward High-Speed Broadband

by Mike Hall, Oct 1, 2008

This week Congress took, what Communications Workers of America (CWA) President Larry Cohen called, “a good first step” to moving the nation toward high-speed broadband when it approved the Broadband Improvement Act. (S. 1492). The final action came yesterday, when slight variations between the U.S. House and Senate versions were ironed out and the bill was sent to the president’s desk.

The legislation requires the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to conduct annual studies on status of broadband deployment throughout the country to better assess the levels of residential and commercial high-speed Internet use. It also would encourage private and public partnership efforts that identify barriers to broadband adoption on the state level.

Last month, Cohen told the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation the United States ranked at bottom of the world’s top industrialized nations in high-speed broadband access. He noted that the recent study by CWA’s Speed Matters initiative found the Internet speed in this country is so slow that, at the current rate of improvement, it would take 100 years to match the world’s current speed leader, Japan.

He said improving both access and speed would have a major economic impact.

Job creation, rural development, telemedicine, distance learning, even solutions to global warming all rely on truly high-speed universal networks.

Says Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), the bill’s chief sponsor:

If the United States is to remain a world leader in technology, we need a national broadband network that is second-to-none. The federal government has a responsibility to ensure the continued rollout of broadband access, as well as the successful deployment of the next generation of broadband technology.

President Bush is expected to sign the bill.

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