WASHINGTON - A group of technology CEOs met with high-ranking U.S. government leaders on Thursday to push for the creation of a national policy on rolling out high-speed Internet access across the country.
The group included Dell Computer CEO Michael Dell, Intel CEO Craig Barrett, Motorola CEO Chris Galvin, and NCR CEO Lars Nyberg, who are all members of the public policy group Computer Systems Policy Project (CSPP). Citing a report published by CSPP, the executives stressed the need for the public and private sectors to work together toward increasing the deployment of both wired and wireless broadband connections.
"It's an issue we think is important to all Americans," Dell said during a press conference after the group met with government officials. "Broadband is becoming integral to the way all Americans live and function."
The executives met with Vice President Dick Cheney, Director of Homeland Security Tom Ridge and Speaker of the House of Representatives Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), among other government officials. The CEOs said their ideas were favorably received and they are hopeful that the government will support the initiative.
Specifically, the group called on government officials to declare an aggressive broadband vision, to focus on regulation that would offer incentives for high-speed Internet deployment, to commit to further research and development in this area, and to promote industry action such as content development and technical standards.
By making broadband deployment a priority, the group claims that 80% of U.S. homes should have access to broadband services with data transfer rates of at least 1.5M bit/sec by the end of 2003, while 50% of homes should be offered 6M bit/sec Internet connections from at least two providers by the same deadline. And, by the end of the decade, 100 million homes and small businesses should be offered 100M bit/sec broadband service. There are 105 million U.S. households.
The group also calls for regulators to set aside 120 MHz of spectrum by 2004, and another 80 MHz by 2010, that would be used to harmonize high-speed wireless connections in the U.S. with those around the world.
However, the executives repeatedly declined to discuss specific policy goals or positions during the press conference. They claimed their mission in Washington, D.C., was to encourage the establishment of a national policy, not to hammer out regulatory issues.
The discussions with government officials "didn't get into specifics of competition policy," said Motorola's Galvin. "We were attempting to declare a broad national policy."
Indeed, policy issues surrounding broadband deployment are thorny. Because broadband traffic is often carried over existing infrastructures, namely telephone networks in the form of DSL or cable lines, there is much debate over how, or if, broadband services should be regulated. In order for wireless broadband services -- often referred to as third-generation or 3G -- to take off, more of the nation's rapidly decreasing spectrum needs to be allocated to companies that want to build 3G networks.
The executives stressed that the broadband service they envision for the country doesn't look much like the DSL or cable modem services of today.
The group is pushing for "broadband which is really broadband, not a few hundred kilobits per second" that current connection speeds top out at, said Intel's Barrett. "We're talking real, full-blown broadband."
Last week, a public policy group called TechNet launched a similar campaign that asked the federal government to make broadband adoption a national priority. The two groups are "very well aligned," said CSPP executive director Kenneth Kay. TechNet had also set the goal of reaching broadband deployment of 100M bit/sec to 100 million homes and small businesses by 2010.
The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.
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