But as Cohen told the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee this week: The U.S. has dropped to 15th among the world’s advanced economies in home broadband penetration. There is a serious digital divide based on income and geography….The U.S. is the only industrial nation without a national broadband policy.
Cohen supports S. 1492, the Broadband Data Improvement Act, as a “good first step” in putting the United States in the broadband fast lane. The act would provide funding for research and for creating public-private partnerships to increase both supply and demand for high-speed broadband. The House passed a similar bill last year.
In August, CWA released the results of its latest Speed Matters survey that show U.S. Internet speed lags so far behind world leader Japan that, at the nation’s current rate of speed improvement, it would take 100 years to catch up. The survey found that real time median download speed in the United States in 2008 is just 2.3 megabits per second (mps) versus Japan’s 63 mps.
Cohen told the committee high- speed Internet means more than just faster movie and music downloads. Job creation, rural development, telemedicine, distance learning, even solutions to global warming all rely on truly high-speed universal networks.
Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D- Hawaii) pointed to the economic benefits of reliable, high-speed broadband: By some estimates, universal broadband adoption would add $500 billion to the U.S. economy and create more than a million new jobs.
Add to this hundreds of millions of dollars in savings through e-government and telemedicine initiatives and untold riches we can reap by tapping the genius of web-based entrepreneurs in every corner of this country. The case for better broadband is clear.
Bringing the economic argument for broadband to the daily lives of working people, Cohen cited several examples of job and economic growth in areas where high-speed networks are available.
Just ask any of the 500 CWA members working at an AT&T call center in southwestern Virginia, an area suffering from the decline of the coal and tobacco industries. They’ll tell you that building a fiber backbone to their region was literally a lifeline for themselves and their families.
Or ask Daniel and Karen Fortin of rural northern Vermont, who told us that their broadband connection allowed them to double their maple syrup business through Internet marketing and sales. A hog farmer in Iowa let us know that direct marketing to customers around the globe using broadband boosted his profit margin.
And the owners of several small businesses in the Appalachian region of southern Ohio told us that they were able to create 60 new jobs once Connect Ohio’s public-private partnership found a way to bring a high-speed connection to their industrial park.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Mike Hall
Quelle/Source: AFL-CIO, 18.09.2008
