No Mo' Status Quo

After just returning from NXTcomm in Chicago last week and seeing thousands of broadband professionals with assorted hardware and services for the industry, it's hard to believe that the United States trails other industrialized nations for broadband access. But that's the findings of a report by the Communications Workers of America.

The report says the median real-time download speed is 1.9 Mbps in the United States, compared to 61 Mbps in Japan, 45 Mbps in South Korea, 17 Mbps in France and 7 Mbps in Canada. The report also says that the United States is 16th in the world in deployment and availability of high speed networks.

Broadband is not a priority and the federal government has been status quo about the subject since the 1996 Telecommunications Act. The government has defined "high speed" as 200 kbps since 1999. Not quite with the times. A current Senate bill, introduced in May by Commerce Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), would update that definition and establish a new standard of second generation broadband that encompasses the ability to reliably transmit full-motion, high-definition video.

The bill, called the Broadband Data Improvement Act (SB 1492), would help lift the United States out of the Internet doldrums. The proposal would also direct the Federal Communications Commission to conduct inquiries into broadband deployment on an annual basis, rather than periodically. It would direct the Census Bureau to include a question to assess subscriber trends on its American Community Survey. Furthermore, it would authorize a five-year, $40 million per year program to provide matching grants to state non-profit, public-private partnerships to facilitate broadband adoption.

"The broadband bottom line is that too many of our international counterparts are passing us by," Inouye said when he introduced the act. "For this we are paying a price." The senator estimated that universal broadband adoption would add $500 billion to the economy and help create new jobs.

In New York the city council is considering whether broadband access should become the fourth utility and join water, gas and electricity as services available to all residents, according to the Gotham Gazette. Residents from senior citizens to high school students are in favor of the measure because they know that if they don't have broadband they'll be out of touch and behind the curve.

The Broadband Data Improvement Act and local initiatives like the one in New York City are exactly the leadership communities need to break out of last century's ideas of cutting edge. Local, state and federal government leaders need to stop lagging behind and jump to the forefront of broadband access. The days of the Information Super Highway are past. Where we're going, we don't need roads. We need teleportation machines.