High-Tech Association Pushes White House
To Set Goal for Growth of Broadband Links
January 15, 2002
By YOCHI J. DREAZEN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
WASHINGTON -- Many of the nation's largest high-tech companies are pushing the Bush administration to set a goal of getting fast Internet connections to 100 million homes and businesses by 2010 and make the regulatory changes needed to get there.
In a report set for release Tuesday, TechNet, a Silicon Valley association of industry chief executives including Intel Corp.'s Craig Barrett and Cisco Systems Inc.'s John Chambers, calls on the administration to make broadband a national priority and change the way local, state and federal authorities regulate the technology.
"The administration needs to set a visionary national goal," said TechNet CEO Rick White, a former congressman. "Broadband can do wonders for the entire economy, but the technology needs a bit of a boost."
Mr. White and other high-tech lobbyists have been working for months to convince policy makers that wider deployment of broadband can bolster the sagging technology and telecommunications sectors while triggering a wider economic recovery.
TechNet's CEO will continue the push next week during a visit here to tout the proposals, which he privately previewed to White House aides last month.
The group wants the Federal Communications Commission to free new broadband investments by the local Bell phone companies from requirements that competitors can lease the facilities at discounted rates.
The Bells have said they would invest billions in broadband technologies if the rules were dropped. But rivals say that doing so would merely cement the Bells' hold over the nascent digital subscriber line, or DSL, services. The FCC already is expected to launch a separate review later during the year that could lead to broadband being almost entirely deregulated.
Elsewhere in the report, TechNet asks state and federal lawmakers for legislation limiting local governments' ability to impose conditions and fees on companies that need access to public rights of way to build wireless transmission towers or lay underground optical fiber. Such a move likely would trigger opposition from state and local governments concerned about quality of life and aesthetic issues.
In addition, TechNet wants a swath of the Pentagon's vast wireless spectrum holdings transferred to the private sector. In exchange, companies that want to use the airwaves for high-speed data services would pay the government hundreds of billions of dollars.
The Defense Department has argued vehemently that such a move would hurt its ability to deploy advanced weapons and communications systems.
Finally, the group backs the idea of offering federal tax credits and other financial incentives to companies willing to deploy broadband to poor and rural areas in hopes of closing the so-called digital divide between technology haves and have-nots.
The move has wide backing in both houses of Congress, and recently won the endorsement of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D., S.D.).
Write to Yochi J. Dreazen at yochi.dreazen@wsj.com
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Seeking a Broadband Boost
Group's National Goal
A coalition of high-tech executives is asking the Bush administration to help increase the number of Americans with broadband Internet access by:
Offering tax credits to help companies defray the costs of bringing broadband to poor and rural areas;
Transferring spectrum from the Pentagon to the private sector;
Streamlining the approval process for new broadband projects on the state and local levels;
Exempting new Bell broadband investments from federal regulation;
Requiring the government to use at least two kinds of broadband technologies for all of its telecommunications needs.
Current State
Broadband services are still used by a relatively small number of Americans, but the technology is spreading quickly.
Broadband use increased from a total of 2.8 million homes and businesses in December 1999 to 7.1 million in December 2000.
The number of DSL lines soared from 369,792 in 1999 to 2 million in 2000.
The number of cable modem lines increased from 1.4 million to 3.6 million in those periods.
At least a handful of broadband subscribers were found in all 50 states, as well as the District of Columbia.
Sources: TechNet, the Federal Communications Commission |
