Commerce Committee Backs Broadband Bill
Jul 20, 2007
The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee, chaired by Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI) announced today that the full committee unanimously voted in favor of the Broadband Data Improvement Act, S.1492.
Introduced by Sen. Inouye and co-sponsored by a number of his colleagues, including Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), former presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) and aspiring presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), the legislation aims to "improve the quality of federal and state broadband data collection and encourage initiatives that promote broadband deployment."
Some of the specific provisions include:
- Directing the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to decide whether the current 200 kilobit standard for broadband--which was adopted in 1999--should be revised. The issue of how broadband is measured has been the subject of debate for some time, with industry leaders like Cisco's CEO John Chambers stating at the WSJ's D conference in May that it should be defined as "at least 100 megabits per second."
- Authorization of a five-year, $40 million per year program that would provide matching grants to state non-profit, public-private partnerships in support of efforts to more accurately identify barriers to broadband adoption throughout the state.
- Directing the FCC, Census Bureau, the Government Accountability Office and the Small Business Administration, separately, to collect data and develop metrics to help in assessing the state of broadband in the U.S..
The bill is now awaiting a full vote by the Senate. Read more in this press release.
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