A recent article in the New York Times by Susan Crawford titled ‘How to Get High-Speed Internet to All Americans’ highlights the critical need for all Americans to have high-speed Internet access. Susan quotes President Obama’s address opening his second term that Americans need to act together to "build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores" and that "we cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries - we must claim its promise."
The president’s words are powerful and true, but how is this going to happen? The article continues to outline how incumbents are preventing competition and arguing over regulatory powers. America is lacking far behind many other countries in terms of affordable and fast Internet and there is still no solid plan to change this.
What Susan proposes are three goals for the federal government. These include, removing barriers to investment for local fiber networks, as well as the FCC making reasonably priced high-speed access available to everyone, and making more competition by changing the rules that keep the status quo in place.
There is great potential for success in America and a communications infrastructure will lay the foundation for the innovation and economic growth the country strongly needs.
For the complete article, click here.
