Senate Hearing on Small Businesses and Broadband
Sep 27, 2007
The U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, chaired by Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), held a hearing yesterday on improving Internet access to help small business compete in the global economy. Senator Kerry described the state of broadband in the U.S. as "badly lagging behind universal standards" and said that we're in effect "placing a technological ceiling on job growth, innovation and economic production" that harms small businesses. He pointed to estimates that universal broadband would add as much as $500 billion and 1.2 million jobs to the U.S. economy in making his case for a national broadband strategy.
Among the witnesses who testified before the committee were both Democratic FCC commissioners, Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps, who strongly favor a national strategy as well. As Nate Anderson writes at Ars Technica, "The solution, according to both commissioners, is not some kind of 'command and control' economy or a huge new set of federal regulations. Both commissioners instead talked about the importance of having the FCC gather accurate broadband data (it currently defines broadband as anything faster than 200kbps in one direction and gets only ZIP code-level demographic information) and the need to spur 'meaningful competition' through tax credits and other investment subsidies."
Video of the hearing is available via the Committee's site.
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