Many of us may take broadband for granted, but the fact is many in this country can’t afford high-speed Internet access or live in areas where its availability is limited. Just how big a role should the government have in making broadband services more universally available? EnterpriseNetworkingPlanet reports on FCC Commissioner Michael Copps’ advocacy of a National Broadband Plan.
PALO ALTO, Calif. — Stumping in favor a national broadband plan the Federal Communications Commission’s Michael Copps spoke at Stanford University’s Law School Thursday, the first stop of a Silicon Valley tour that will also include visits to Apple and Google.
Copps, the longest-serving commissioner at the FCC, repeatedly asked for the public to get more involved in the issue. “If this is an inside-the-Beltway issue, we lose,” he told reporters following his address here.
Copps wants to publicize the issue because he worries that telecom and other well-funded lobbying groups have the ear of government officials who he fears will follow those special interests unless there is more advocacy by the public in favor of broadband deployment and efforts at the commission to clarify its regulatory authority.
