Rural Broadband To Be FCC Priority, Acting Chair Says
TMCnet.com | June 1, 2009 | By David Sims, TMCnet Contributing Editor
What with everything else going on these days, the government has concluded that “all rural Americans must have the opportunity to reap the full benefits of broadband services,” according to Federal Communications Commission officials.
To that end, Acting FCC Chairman Michael J. Copps released a report providing what he characterized as a “starting point” for the development of policies to deliver broadband to rural areas.
Congress in the 2008 Farm Bill required the FCC Chairman, in coordination with the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, to submit a report to Congress describing a rural broadband strategy. Catchily titled “Bringing Broadband to Rural America: Report on a Rural Broadband Strategy,” the report by Copps identifies such common problems affecting rural broadband as “technological challenges, lack of data and high network costs.”
This is an agricultural concern? Mais oui, city slicker. According to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack: “Providing broadband access to rural communities will not only enhance farmers and ranchers’ ability to market goods and enhance production, it will help residents in rural communities obtain needed medical care, gain access to higher education, and benefit from resulting economic activity and job growth.”
The report’s recommendations include enhancing coordination among and between federal, Tribal, state, and community agencies, governments and organizations, as well as reviewing existing federal programs to identify barriers to rural broadband deployment.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 provides $7.2 billion for broadband grants, loans and loan guarantees administered by the Agriculture and Commerce departments, and the law requires the FCC to develop a national broadband plan by next February.
In April TMC’s Patrick Barnard reported that the FCC announced that it had begun “developing a national broadband plan to ensure that every U.S. citizen has access to broadband services.”
In general, Barnard wrote, “the goal is to bring high speed Internet services to people living in rural or economically-depressed regions of the United States. Recent research puts the U.S. residential broadband penetration rate at about 57 percent.”
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To that end, Acting FCC Chairman Michael J. Copps released a report providing what he characterized as a “starting point” for the development of policies to deliver broadband to rural areas.
Congress in the 2008 Farm Bill required the FCC Chairman, in coordination with the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, to submit a report to Congress describing a rural broadband strategy. Catchily titled “Bringing Broadband to Rural America: Report on a Rural Broadband Strategy,” the report by Copps identifies such common problems affecting rural broadband as “technological challenges, lack of data and high network costs.”
This is an agricultural concern? Mais oui, city slicker. According to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack: “Providing broadband access to rural communities will not only enhance farmers and ranchers’ ability to market goods and enhance production, it will help residents in rural communities obtain needed medical care, gain access to higher education, and benefit from resulting economic activity and job growth.”
The report’s recommendations include enhancing coordination among and between federal, Tribal, state, and community agencies, governments and organizations, as well as reviewing existing federal programs to identify barriers to rural broadband deployment.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 provides $7.2 billion for broadband grants, loans and loan guarantees administered by the Agriculture and Commerce departments, and the law requires the FCC to develop a national broadband plan by next February.
In April TMC’s Patrick Barnard reported that the FCC announced that it had begun “developing a national broadband plan to ensure that every U.S. citizen has access to broadband services.”
In general, Barnard wrote, “the goal is to bring high speed Internet services to people living in rural or economically-depressed regions of the United States. Recent research puts the U.S. residential broadband penetration rate at about 57 percent.”
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