Internet Adoption Rates, Spectrum Access the Real Broadband Problems, Former Officials Say

The conclusions in the report rely on technology that “isn’t commercially available and may not be commercially available” in the near future, Irving said. Though government agencies may treat it different, “it’s our spectrum” and should be used to the benefit of the American people, he said. But unless there’s backing at the White House level, “we're going to be years from getting the spectrum we need cleared,” he continued.

Not only does the PCAST report do nothing to further the conversation around spectrum use, “it could be counterproductive,” said former Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H., and Broadband for America co-chair. Agencies use the report as “a political obstacle” and “an excuse to drag their feet,” he said. The federal government should sell the spectrum it does not need, said Ev Ehrlich, former undersecretary of commerce under President Bill Clinton. If the General Services Administration discovered an unused piece of physical real estate, they would look to sell it, but “digital real estate is still run like feudal fiefdoms,” he said.

Regulators need to have “a light regulatory touch to the Internet,” Sununu said. The Internet will fuel job growth and economic growth “but only insofar as we maintain those policies that have served us so well” in the last few decades, he said. Finding the right balance “is really the challenge for the next FCC chair,” he said.

Deployment is not the biggest problem with broadband in the U.S., said Rob Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. “I think our biggest issue to tackle, frankly, is Internet adoption. … That’s where we're going to make progress or not.” People who don’t subscribe to broadband services don’t choose to do so because of concerns about price, he said; they often don’t find Internet access relevant to them.

The digital divide still exists and needs to be addressed, Ehrlich said, citing the example of a hypothetical mother who drives her children to McDonald’s so they can use the free Wi-Fi access to do their homework. The problem is “really about being shut out of the economic thoroughfare of life,” as Internet access is “a passport to economic and social citizenship,” he said. “The digital divide still exists, and it risks becoming entrenched."

Minorities rely on mobile devices, which is “a paradigm shift that folks aren’t looking at,” Irving said. Efforts to bring Internet access to those communities without it should look at the way people in those communities actually want to access the Internet, he said. In the past, the government has incorrectly focused on putting “a laptop in every backpack” as a way to increase access and literacy, but the focus should have been on putting a mobile device in every backpack instead, he said: “We weren’t thinking progressively. We weren’t thinking, ’the world is changing; lets change with it.'"

Irving said he’s launching a new mobile technology initiative, Mobile Lines for Global Good. Irving told us the organization would include domestic and international not-for-profits and companies working “to figure out how we can use mobile technologies to address problems” including hunger and HIV/AIDS. The various groups often have trouble collaborating to use the technologies effectively, Irving said. “We're trying to build some bridges.” Mobile Lines for Global Good has had a soft launch, and will fully launch later this year, he said.