President Bush is being urged to combat the depression in the U.S. technology industries by promoting broadband the final connection to homes and small businesses that ultimately feeds the telecom infrastructure.
The broadband telecommunications industry that arose in the 1990s surpassed all expectations. But then government blunders all but extinguished its promise, experts contend, and the cost has been disastrous: with 34 major bankruptcies so far and 24 more expected, the collapsing communications industry 17 percent of the economy is the prime source of a $4 trillion dollar decline in the net worth of U.S. households.
Broadband advocates are calling on President Bush to give an emphatic endorsement of broadband deployment and encourage the Federal Communications Commission to move vigorously toward nation-wide deregulation that pre-empts state regulations.
Source: George Gilder (Discovery Institute) and Bret Swanson (Gilder Technology Report), Unleash Broadband, Wall Street Journal, July 8, 2002.
For text (WSJ subscribers) http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1026082535803835840,00.htm
For more on FCC http://www.ncpa.org/iss/reg
FMF Policy Bulletin\9 July 2002
