Levin: ubiquitous, affordable broadband will be a priority for an Obama administration

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

We will see. Political speach is cheap. Doing it is much more difficult.

Dave


Begin forwarded message:

From: dewayne () warpspeed com (Dewayne Hendricks)
Date: August 22, 2008 10:59:00 AM EDT
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <xyzzy () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Levin: ubiquitous, affordable broadband will be  
a priority for an Obama administration

LEVIN: UBIQUITOUS, AFFORDABLE BROADBAND WILL BE A PRIORITY FOR AN  
OBAMA ADMINISTRATION

Blair Levin, an analyst with Stifel Nicolaus and former Federal  
Communications Commission staffer, is rumored to be a potential  
candidate for an FCC appointment should Barack Obama win the  
presidency. He said ubiquitous, affordable broadband will be a  
priority for an Obama administration and Obama's FCC would likely be  
charged to move very quickly on that agenda. Asked what exactly might  
constitute "broadband" in that context, Levin said defining the term  
will be an "interesting challenge" for policymakers because broadband  
is "constantly evolving." "I think there's a growing consensus that  
universal service, as it is today, ought to [allow one to] be capable  
of doing Web-surfing, VoIP, information gathering -- those kinds of  
things. And we want that to be available in roughly 100% of the  
country. And we'd like to achieve penetration rates similar to what  
we've achieved in voice. How do you do that? There are lots of  
uncertainties and lots of reasonable debate." "Here's the way I think  
service providers will think about it," he continued. "What is the  
level of support -- what is the speed which qualifies you that I can  
achieve but disqualifies some of my potential competitors? In other  
words, if you can achieve 3m, but your wireless guys are never going  
to get there, you want that to be, in order to qualify, you want that  
to be the level."

<http://telephonyonline.com/home/news/broadband-competition-0821/index1.html 
>

Courtesy of the Benton Foundation <http://www.benton.org>
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