The Internet Innovation Alliance is a broad-based coalition of business and non-profit organizations that aim to ensure every American, regardless of race, income or geography, has access to the critical tool that is broadband Internet. The IIA seeks to promote public policies that support equal opportunity for universal broadband availability and adoption so that everyone, everywhere can seize the benefits of the Internet - from education to health care, employment to community building, civic engagement and beyond.
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Rick Boucher
Honorary Chairman
Bruce P. Mehlman
Co-Chairman
Jamal Simmons
Co-Chairman
Tracey Sawicki
Executive Director
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Monday, May 14
Via FOX News comes the tale of film company Kodak, an industrial facility in Rochester, NY, and the bizarre nuclear reactor in the building’s basement.
Via Brendan Sasso of The Hill, the Commerce Department is moving forward with a planned national public safety network:
The Commerce Department agency responsible for the government’s use of the airwaves will ask for comments on a planned nationwide public-safety broadband network.
Larry Strickling, the administrator of the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), announced the request for information Monday in a speech at the National Broadband Summit and Expo.
The agency will ask for input on the distribution of $135 million in grants for state and local governments to plan the deployment of the network.
It’s going to be a big week for Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg. First up is his birthday, which is today. Then later in the week, Facebook’s IPO, which is expected to be massive. But as Alistair Barr of Reuters reports, the 27-year-old tech titan isn’t slowing down — in fact, he’s aiming to better position Facebook for the future of the Internet:
Zuckerberg, 27, who started Facebook in his Harvard dorm room 8 years ago, said Facebook’s key priorities in 2012 were to improve its mobile application, to build stronger ties incorporating its social network with other online apps and to create a “transformative” advertising experience.
The company is “just getting started” with its mobile app, said Zuckerberg, who appeared on stage in a grey T-shirt and dark trousers at Palo Alto’s Crowne Plaza, flanked by Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg and finance chief David Ebersman.
Friday, May 11
What did the Internet look like on a cellphone in the mid-’90s? Thanks to this dusty ad from Qualcomm, we can take a trip back in time.
At the Daily Yonder, Nicole Palya Wood of the National Grange (which is one of our members) writes about the promise of 4G networks in rural areas, and how government must ensure the private investment necessary to connect every corner of America to mobile broadband continues to be encouraged:
This year alone, wireless companies will invest about $26 billion in these networks – far more than the government can or should spend at a time when private companies are vigorously competing for customers in all but the handful of communities targeted by the FCC’s auction program.
Let’s hope Washington can keep its end of the bargain – by making sure that the new fund works as promised and by implementing smart policies that support private investment. The universal service fund alone can’t reach every high-cost rural area across the country.
Earlier this week, our own Rick Boucher appeared on Capital Insider to talk about the FCC, incentive auctions, and ensuring enough spectrum is available to keep investment and innovation in mobile broadband going. Here’s the video:
Wednesday, May 09
One billion. That’s how many times the game Angry Birds has been downloaded since its launch on Apple’s iPhone in 2009.
In my opinion, Holman Jenkins is consistently one of the smartest and most engaging writers about the intersection of broadband, investment, and policy. In today’s Wall Street Journal he has a doozie of a column on how dysfunction in Washington is knee-capping broadband investment. The full column is required reading, but here’s a highlight:
Today the cry of “spectrum crisis” is being used to regulate wireless.
But there is no shortage of spectrum; as much spectrum exists as ever has existed. Rather, there is spectrum starvation—a new and fast-growing user, the wireless industry, is being starved of spectrum its customers would willingly pay for because of an archaic government allocation system in which economic logic does not penetrate.
Like food rotting on a dock, only politics and policy prevents spectrum from getting where it’s needed.
If you care about the health of the wireless industry — and if you care about the health of America’s economy, you should — then head on over to the Wall Street Journal and check out what Jenkins has to say.
Tuesday, May 08
There’s an old saying that the longest journey begins with a single step. It’s important to keep that saying in mind as we, as a nation, work to fulfill President Obama’s goal of bringing advanced wireless broadband services to all Americans.
The figures involved are staggering. At one point in 2009, the FCC offered an estimate that ubiquitous broadband could cost up to $350 billion — that’s almost 10 percent of the entire Federal budget for 2011 or about half the defense budget. Obviously, the government has other things to which it has committed money — Medicare, defense, education, housing – and money of this sort is simply not available for the asking, even if we were not living in times of large Federal deficits.
Even if $350 billion isn’t the right number, it is going to take a lot of money to be sure all Americans have equal access to the opportunities afforded by the broadband revolution.
Fortunately, there is a better way. Actually, there are two better ways.
The first is to harness the resources of the private sector. The good news is that private telecom companies are already eagerly playing their part in wiring America for the future. Telecom companies made tens of billions of dollars in investments last year alone, and much of that investment is focused on getting advanced broadband services (usually marketed as 4G) deployed in hundreds — soon to be thousands — of cities across the country. Those investments also promote wireline connections and maintain existing service for earlier wireless systems and networks.
The second better way is to focus on wireless rather than just wireline to make the connections of the future. America’s a big country and the best and quickest way to reach millions of Americans living in rural areas will be through advanced wireless services. These will offer the same speeds and ease of access that Americans in cities and suburbs enjoy and the deployments can be achieved much more quickly. At the very least, 4G wireless gives us another tool to reach more Americans; at the best, it provides a solution that reflects the needs of rural America as well as urban dwellers checking their smartphones or tablet computers.
But that smallest step I mentioned earlier? That’s important, too.
The FCC has just announced a $300 million grant for broadband deployment to rural areas. That sounds like a pittance in comparison with the private investment now taking place, but as the Commission notes, it “expects that carriers will likely supplement the [government] funding with private investment. While carriers are not required to participate, hundreds of thousands of Americans will gain access to broadband even if carriers only accept a portion of the money.” For those hundreds of thousands, access to broadband will open a new world of opportunity for business, jobs, education, healthcare, and entertainment. It puts rural America on an equal footing for competitiveness, and that alone makes the FCC program worthy of our support.
But as the FCC recognized, not only is much more needed, but the lion’s share of effort and investment will come from the private sector. The director of the National Broadband Plan seconded this view in stating that “[w]e have to recognize that most of this [broadband deployment] is funded by the private sector, and we expect that to continue.”
In short, government has a vital role to play, but only with private sector investment can we reach our national goal of near ubiquitous broadband. That’s why, in a global marketplace for capital, it is so important to ensure that the right regulatory policies are in place to attract capital to telecom — and to America. Private sector network operators have proven they are willing to make bold investments, if federal policy makers do not put up regulatory barriers to investment. And with the right mix of regulatory policies, strategic investment by the government, and large-scale private investment, all Americans can have 21st-century high speed advanced broadband services. It’s important for our economy and our future.
Monday, May 07
After months in confirmation limbo, FCC nominees Jessica Rosenworcel and Ajit Pai have been given the nod by the Senate. Via Broadcasting & Cable’s John Eggerton:
Both Rosenworcel and Pai had been reported favorably out of the Senate Commerce Committee Dec. 8, 2011, but a full Senate vote was blocked by Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) over an issue unrelated to their nominations—the FCC’s LightSquared waiver.
With Grassley’s hold lifted two weeks ago, it freed up the nominations for the vote, which, as expected, was a big thumbs up.
They will face some big decisions early on, including media ownership rule review, the definition of multichannel video provider and the framework for spectrum incentive auctions.
Rosenworcel and Pai will be sworn in by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski sometime this week.
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