BROADBAND FOCUS SHOULD BE ON ADOPTION, MEHLMAN SAYS

The broadband challenge is spurring adoption, not deployment, a key Commerce Dept. official said Mon. As he did 18 months ago, Asst. Secy.-Technology Policy Bruce Mehlman told the National Summit for Broadband Deployment hosted by NECA and NARUC that the focus should be on the demand side of broadband, saying supply continued to grow. He said that the Technology Administration had been focusing on the demand side of broadband while the FCC and NTIA examined regulatory barriers.

With as many as 90% of Americans having access to at least one broadband provider, “the broadband revolution is alive and well,” Mehlman said, acknowledging that only about 1 in 5 with the option of broadband took it. He said this was his 24th speech on broadband since his summit speech in 2001 and he continued his cheerleading for the technology. From a policy perspective, he said the good news was that “there is universal agreement that broadband is a very good thing… [it] is not a question of whether we should do it, but when we can do it by… not why but how.”

Mehlman outlined several steps the Bush Administration was taking to promote broadband: (1) Pushing economic stimulus plans, such as the one that passed last year with accelerated depreciation schedules and the one pending in Congress now that would triple expensing write-offs for small business. (2) Opposing Internet access taxes. (3) Supporting a permanent extension of the R&D tax credit. (4) Coordinating broadband usage in the federal govt. (5) Making efforts through NTIA Dir. Nancy Victory to improve and standardize interface with federal rights of way. (6) Using efforts by Victory’s deputy Mike Gallagher, whom Mehlman called “the spectrum king,” to clear much-needed spectrum. Mehlman also had praise for FCC Chmn. Powell for the Triennial Review that Mehlman said “purports to adhere” to the recommendations of the High-Tech Broadband Coalition.

Sen. Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and Rep. English (R-Pa.) hope to use the economic stimulus debate as a way to move their legislation that would offer tax credits to rural broadband providers. Asked about that after his speech, Mehlman cautioned that he wasn’t speaking for the Administration’s economic team, but that the Rockefeller-English bill, while laudatory, “isn’t economic stimulus legislation.” Meanwhile, NECA Vp-Gen. Counsel Kenneth Levy announced at the conference that a study to be released this summer would suggest that technological innovations had reduced the cost of rural DSL deployment, with the cost now less than half that of 2 years ago. A study 2 years ago suggested that upgrading the remaining nonbroadband rural telephone lines, all 3.3 million miles of them, would cost $10.9 million.

The Administration also can encourage broadband adoption by creating a more comfortable environment for consumers, for example by cracking down on ID theft, online fraud and piracy, Mehlman said, and by partnering with the private sector on cybersecurity. “One thing we have not yet done, and I personally hope we do not, is mandate technologies, standards or performance requirements,” he said. Noting that many had promoted a public policy goal of 100 Mbps broadband to 100 million homes by 2010 (those include TechNet and the Telecom Industry Assn.), Mehlman -- a former Cisco Systems executive -- said “with the unrelenting pace of innovation I personally fear 100 Mbps may not be enough.”

“We've got to solve the digital copyright challenges,” Mehlman said, as a way to lead to more legitimate digital content being offered on broadband networks. “I believe the federal government has a role” in the debate, he said, “but this is primarily a market challenge.”