Obama Adviser Lowers Broadband Expectations
New Administration Wants to Avoid Funding Projects That Disrupt Competition
By Ted Hearn -- Multichannel News, 1/14/2009 9:15:00 AM
Washington—An Obama transition adviser on communications policy said Wednesday that the economic stimulus package will not be the vehicle for addressing all of the new administration's concerns about the availability of high-speed Internet access nationally.
"The broadband piece of the Obama agenda is not going to be done solely in the economic recovery package," said Blair Levin (left), a member of Obama's Technology, Innovation & Government Reform working group that includes Julius Genachowski, reportedly Obama's pick as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.
On the campaign trail, Obama said he would make national access to broadband a priority, viewing the Internet as a key driver of jobs and economic growth.
Obama's economic recovery plan has swollen to $850 billion, a massive package that includes tax cuts for business and individuals, spending on new bridges and highways, and billions in aid for state and local governments.
In remarks on Capitol Hill, Levin indicated that the Obama administration will adopt a piecemeal approach to broadband and wouldn't try to create new institutions for funding broadband projects in the pending stimulus package.
"The only thing you are doing in the economic recovery are those things that you can accomplish that are timely, targeted and temporary," Levin said. "In order to do something on a timely basis, you have to move quickly and, in order to do that, you kind of have to use existing structures."
Levin declined to be more specific about the funding size or structure of the broadband piece of the stimulus package.
Levin, on leave from his position as managing director of Stifel Nicolaus, told the "State of the Net Conference" that those who expected more on broadband in the recovery package needed to be patient.
"Don't confuse a piece of the puzzle with the puzzle. Don't confuse an inning of the baseball game with the baseball game," Levin said.
Levin was critical of recent news reports about where Obama and the incoming administration were heading on broadband policy.
He said those stories were "off target" because Obama's policy won't really be known until the public and Congress have had their chance to contribute their views.
"We're trying to develop a process in which the best possible ideas will ultimately prevail," Levin said.
The Obama transition team has been focusing on broadband "gaps," Levin said, mentioning communities without broadband or with inferior infrastructure, such as the lack of fiber optic cables.
He noted that the country still doesn't have a nationwide interoperable broadband wireless network for use by fire, police and emergency crews responding to crises.
Levin said his team is also focused on broadband subscriber penetration.
Far more homes have access to high-speed data links than actually subscribe to the service. If satellite broadband providers are included, every home in the lower 48 states has access to broadband.
Obama's advisers, Levin said, want to guard against directing funds in a way that might disrupt market dynamics. The cable industry, for example, has complained that the Rural Utilities Service has been subsidizing broadband in markets with multiple providers instead of stimulating companies into serving areas that lack wireline broadband access.
"You…don't want do anything that makes a competitive market more difficult," he said.
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