I’m pleased to see that Obama’s plans for rebuilding the country’s infrastructure include the expansion of broadband access. People in rural America still lack affordable, reliable, and reasonably speedy pipelines to the Internet. In urban areas, broadband access remains unaffordable to many low-income households. We’ve been extolling the virtues of telecommuting for well over a decade, but businesses won’t truly commit to the concept until high-capacity broadband is as ubiquitous as the old copper-wire telephone network.
It will come down to implementation, of course. I certainly don’t favor rewarding the telcos for their monopolistic practices and any funds they receive should have strong consumer safeguards attached. Internet service providers are delivering a utility vital to the country’s economic health and they should be regulated as such.
