Broadband needs a Marshall Plan
We need a national broadband policy.
March 12, 2002
herring.com
The stricken U.S. technology industry needs the popular adoption of high-speed Internet access, or broadband.
One way out of the current recession is to repair the technology industry by fostering widespread broadband use. After all, computer manufacturers, software vendors, and consumer electronics companies had bet that by 2002 broadband access would be the rule, not the exception. But only a measly 8 percent of American households currently have broadband access, and that at speeds of just 400 Kbps. That's enough bandwidth to surf the Web faster than with a dial-up modem, but it's nowhere near the 100 Mbps necessary for high-quality digital audio and video transmission. The industry that built the chips, boxes, and gizmos to exploit the broadband boom is still nursing its hangover.
But the more U.S. households and businesses that have high-speed access to the Internet, the more likely they are to buy the latest broadband devices and software services, like Microsoft's Xbox. Therefore, Red Herring supports the proposals of TechNet, a Silicon Valley policy advocacy group associated with the venture capitalist John Doerr, and the Computer Systems Policy Project, an advocacy group comprised of executives from companies like Dell Computer and Intel. We need a national broadband policy--a broadband Marshall Plan of sorts. Specifically, we endorse the goal of making 100-Mbps broadband available to 100 million U.S. homes and small businesses by 2010. Congress should offer technology-neutral tax breaks to encourage innovation; to spur competition it should not excessively regulate nascent technologies (like voice transmission over the Internet); and it should increase funding for development of new data-transmission technologies. Both President George W. Bush and Senator Tom Daschle (D: South Dakota) have recognized the need for broadband, so a new national policy would have broad, bipartisan support.
Technology purchasing drove U.S. economic growth through the '90s; a Marshall Plan for broadband today might be the most efficient stimulus package for the entire U.S. economy now. |
