The Push for a Real, No-Hype National Broadband Strategy

World-class broadband speeds aren't just something leading-edge computer geeks dream about. Fast broadband interconnectivity lies at the heart of American business and agricultural competitiveness. Fortunately the Obama administration clearly sees a comprehensive U.S. national broadband strategy as a federal government priority.

President Barack Obama's first major push to build a high-speed Internet superhighway across America in the form of the $7.2 billion stimulus funding announced in February may be considered insufficient by many. But Michael Copps, acting chairman of the FCC, said whatever has been announced so far is just the beginning; America can expect more doses of impetus coming from the Obama administration that will ultimately connect every citizen to broadband.

Speaking at the International Telecommunication Union's World Telecommunication Policy Forum -- a high-level international meeting to exchange views on key policy issues held on April 21 in Lisbon, Portugal -- Copps said the Obama administration is committed to every American citizen in the broadband plan that's still under formulation.

Copps admitted that the government is fully aware that America is falling behind many developing countries in its broadband reach.

"If you go back in the course of our history, we have always managed to figure out that role with active participation of the public sector and private sector in the early days of building turnpikes, bridges and railroads, rural electricity and basic telecom. The government has always found a way to do all those things," he said.

"Somehow over the course of several years, we got away from that, but we need to go back in the past, and that's what we are doing now," he added.

According to Copps, although the American government was involved in planning infrastructure for the last eight years, there was no conscious effort to provide a stimulus because the general feeling was that somehow the magic of the marketplace would get everything done.

"But that did not really happen," he said, "and that's why we find ourselves where we are in the present comparative broadband rankings among the nations of the world."

However, he said, that state of affairs has changed. "We have a new government and we have an American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that carves out a very active role for the government," Copps said. "This administration is a believer that the government has a central role to play in promoting infrastructure."

"Part of that is the stimulus of the $7.2 billion for broadband. But that is short-term stimulus. I call that the down payment," Copps said.

He emphasized the federal government's resolve to roll out a broadband plan. "In the long term, there is a commitment to formulating a strategy to get broadband to all of our citizens, and the FCC has been put at the center of this and instructed within the next 10 months to come up with a national broadband plan," he said.

And that will lead to a new plan, said Copps, as well as a longer-term investment and investment stimulus. "So the role of the government is growing, and it is not just on the economic side, but I think we will see a really proactive effort here to make this process open and transparent," Copps said.

Clarifying the doubts some have about whether the new broadband plan would include all sectors of American society, Copps said, "As we develop the national [broadband] plan we will be talking not only to the business and people, but also what I call nontraditional stakeholders