FCC Michael Copps: Give me a broadband New Deal
The first thing that stands out as you peruse the Federal Communications Commission’s latest report on rural broadband is that it reads like it was actually written by somebody.
“As long as a grade-school child living on a farm cannot research a science project, or a high school student living on a remote Indian reservation cannot submit a college application,” the 78 page document begins, “or an entrepreneur in a rural hamlet cannot order spare parts, or a local law enforcement officer cannot download pictures of a missing child without traveling to a city or town that has broadband Internet access, we cannot turn back from these challenges.”
Who penned these words? If you guessed William Booth of the Salvation Army, you are getting warm. Bringing Broadband to Rural America is the first big FCC published survey that I’ve come across that is signed by the head of the agency, in this case interim Chair Michael Copps. It definitely has the senior Democrats’ crusading tone, and turns an otherwise dreary list of bureaucratic recommendations into a Rooseveltian call to arms.
“A complementary government role in broadband deployment can yield advantages that a free market solution cannot achieve alone,” the report concludes. Give me a broadband New Deal, Copps is whispering to Congress.
The “advantage” is that the government can use the threat of violence to steal money and invest it in such a way that the free market wouldn’t because it’s not in great enough demand. So these people who choose to live in rural areas will get land internet access. What isn’t being created because of these malinvestments? What is the unseen?
May 28th, 2009 at 10:01 pm
Awesome.. the main thing holding me back from getting that condo on the moon was access to public education and high speed internet. This Rooseveltian call to arms is just what I was waiting for. While they’re at it they should build some laser grid to protect me from those damn space rocks.
May 29th, 2009 at 11:08 am
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