LIEBERMAN CALLS FOR NATIONAL BROADBAND STRATEGY
Bush Administration is unclear on whether to develop national broadband strategy (CD May 23 p1), but Senate Governmental Affairs Chmn. Lieberman (D-Conn.) said Tues. he would introduce legislation requiring plan. “For high-tech industries and the American economy at large, bringing on the broadband boom can spark the next sustained surge of economic growth,” Lieberman said while visiting Internet services company called Wind River in Alameda, Cal.: “Unfortunately, the case for making broadband deployment a pivotal piece of our economic puzzle has yet to be understood adequately by government.” At his Cal. appearance, Lieberman released 61- page White Paper, Broadband: A 21st Century Technology Productivity Strategy, that defended active govt. involvement in broadband rollout by comparing it with federal promotion of railroads, electricity, telephone, radio, TV, interstate highways and launch of men to moon. He acknowledged term “broadband” itself to many Americans was “as obscure as the word ‘Internet’ was in 1990.” Lieberman defined broadband as referring to Internet carrying capacity, and said compared with dial-up Internet “it is like the difference between the word ‘car’ and the word ‘NASCAR.'”
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“Many in Washington have been focusing, almost myopically, on short-term obstacles to the next small jump in speed,” criticism that has been levied against broadband bills promoting Bell DSL deployment, one by House Commerce Committee Chmn. Tauzin (R-La.) and ranking Democrat Dingell (Mich.) and another by Sen. Breaux (D-La.) and Senate Minority Whip Nickles (R-Okla.). Lieberman’s visit was arranged by TechNet, which in Jan. called for federal govt. to help launch plan to have 100 Mbps broadband network nationwide by 2010 (CD Jan 16 p2). Lieberman has been perhaps Senate’s biggest proponent of e-govt. (related to his committee chairmanship) and is sponsor of E-Govt. Act of 2001 (S-803) with Senate Internet Caucus Co-Chmn. Burns (R-Mont.), bill that would create federal chief information officer and help facilitate govt. IT decisions. On various broadband bills under debate in Congress, however, Lieberman has been less visible, due in part to fact that he’s not on either Commerce or Judiciary committees. (Throughout his White Paper, Dingell’s name was consistently misspelled “Dingle.")
Lieberman, who has said he’s likely to run for White House in 2004 if former Vice President Al Gore declines, decried what he saw as lack of initiative by Bush Administration, saying “decisions are piling up -- on spectrum, competition, rights management, spam, privacy, child protection and more.” He said “broadband buck” still was awaiting action on federal govt.’s desk, and said his bill -- National Broadband Strategy Act of 2002 -- would require Administration to develop coherent, cross-agency broadband strategy within 6 months of bill’s passage. Plan’s long-term goal would echo that of TechNet and other advocates of super-fast Internet networks such as Information Technology Assn. of America (ITAA), Computer Systems Policy Project (CSPP), Software Information Industry Assn. (SIIA), American Electronics Assn. (AeA) and Telecom Industry Assn. (TIA). In his paper, Lieberman said any plan should be technology-neutral and recognize that “demand will drive the next phase of broadband expansion” by allowing development and adoption of “killer applications.” Bush Administration is examining demand side of broadband through its President’s Council of Advisers on Science & Technology (PCAST), which plans to issue report later this year.
Multiple Bills Planned
Beyond his initial bill mandating national strategy, Lieberman said he would introduce several others in next several months addressing 4 broadband issues -- FCC regulations, tax credits, advanced infrastructure R&D and application R&D. On first issue, White Paper said Lieberman’s legislation would direct FCC “to explore all of the broadband deployment and delivery technology options to enable us to reach advanced broadband speeds.” Commission would be tasked with developing technology-neutral regulatory framework “to deploy this advance Internet capability” of 10- 100 Mbps. In calling for use of tax credits, Lieberman suggested ones for infrastructure deployment and equipment implementation. Sen. Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) introduced broadband tax credit bill last year that has 66 co-sponsors, and it could be added to separate bill this year (CD May 20 p3).
Lieberman’s focus on R&D echoes work of House Science Committee and its chairman, Rep. Boehlert (R-N.Y.), and Senate Commerce Technology Subcommittee Chmn. Wyden (D-Ore.). Last week House Science Committee passed 2 bills, HR-4664 and HR-3130, to bolster basic IT R&D and related education, while 2 weeks ago Senate Commerce Committee passed several Internet-related bills, including antispam measure (S-630) by Burns and Wyden, cybersecurity bill (S-2011) by Wyden based on Boehlert bill (HR-3394) passed by full House, critical infrastructure bill by Wyden (S-2037) and digital divide bill (S-414) by Sen. Cleland (D-Ga.). Lieberman said govt. agencies should be required to promote development of applications such as “e-education, e-medicine, e-government, e-science and homeland security,” areas in which he said federal govt. played leading role. He also advocated cooperation of govt., industry and universities as “critical to advanced broadband.”
Traditional obstacles such as last mile and rights-of- way were addressed by Lieberman’s White Paper. He said 10- 100 Mbps speed had to be done either by connection “directly to the fiber optic backbone” or by satellite, although report saw promise in certain unlicensed spectrum services such as Wi-Fi and ultrawide band, and he gave FCC credit for encouraging those technologies. As for rights-of-way, Lieberman’s report said “broadband distribution suffers from a hodgepodge of state and local access rules that vary widely from location to location and with the delivery technology.” “It is time,” he wrote, “for the federal government to consider preempting the patchwork of state and local regulations to bring coherence to the laws.” Paper is available at lieberman.senate.gov/press/Whitepaper/ Broadband_Lieberman_5_28_02.pdf.
Lieberman outlined several pieces of planned legislation for introduction over next several months, but time is running out on 107th Congress. Tentative adjournment date is Oct. 4, allowing members to run for re-election (Lieberman was re-elected to a 6-year term in 2000). After taking into account July 4 and Aug. recesses, and assuming no votes are held on Mon. or Fri., there are only 37 legislative days left in this Congress, with much of that expected to be dominated by appropriations bills.