Dems: Wire Up Libraries, Hospitals
House Trio Wants High-Speed Internet for Anchor Institutions
by John Eggerton -- Multichannel News, 9/21/2009 9:40:00 AM
WASHINGTON —
House Democrats have made it clear to the FCC, and now to the National Telecommunications & Information Administration, that the national broadband plan should include getting high-speed broadband service to libraries and other anchor institutions.
At an Federal Communications Commission oversight hearing last week, House Communications Subcommittee chairman Rick Boucher (D-Va.), told agency chairman Julius Genachowski that the plan should focus on "extraordinarily high bandwidth" to libraries.
Libraries typically have free computers with free Internet, and can become Internet hubs for hundreds, while the high-speed fiber can also be a last-mile solution for nearby homes and businesses.
Adding their exclamation point were two Democratic subcommittee members, Reps. Doris Matsui and Ann Eshoo, both of California, and former subcommitee chairman Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.).
In a letter to the National Technology and Infrastructure Administration, which is handing out billions in government grant money for broadband deployment, adoption and education, the trio urged the adminstration to put a priority on "anchor institutions, including libraries, schools and health facilities."
A number of those institutions did not apply for that money, the lawmakers said, because they did not fit the categories established by the Broadband Technologies Opportunity Plan. Those that did apply found the process "confusing, complicated and discouraging," the letter added.
The legislators suggested that the anchor institutions needed connections of 100 Megabits per second to 1 Gigabit per second to provide distance learning and healthcare services, for example.
The NTIA set 768 Kilobits per second as a floor for defining high-speed Internet service -- the same speed the FCC recently adopted in defining its minimum standard for broadband.
The agency has said it would learn from the first round and apply the lessons to the second, and perhaps final, round next year. Matiu and company "strongly urged" prioritizing very-high-speed connections for those institutions as one potential change to the program.No related content found.
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