It is widely understood that broadband is a crucial driver of economic recovery, job creation and global competitiveness.  As the nation’s largest broadband provider, cable’s high-speed Internet service is available to 92 percent of American households but a small percentage of the country remains unable to receive this important service.

To stimulate the construction of new broadband infrastructure and to increase broadband adoption for households in communities where it already exists, Congress in early 2009 provided more than $7 billion for broadband projects as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The cable industry supports the federal government’s efforts expand broadband access and spur adoption and has encouraged targeted programs that can make a difference in America’s broadband gap.

The federal government agencies charged with implementing the broadband grant and loan programs established by the Recovery Act include the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) of the Department of Agriculture, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) of the Department of Commerce, and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).  These agencies have been collecting comments to establish the “rules of the road” that will guide how the broadband funding is allocated.

Cable has encouraged these agencies to focus this funding on the small percentage of the nation’s homes with no physical access to broadband and to explore programs that can overcome other barriers to adoption – such as affordability, the lack of a computer or other equipment needed to connect to the Internet, and low levels of basic “digital literacy”, particularly among low-income, unemployed, elderly, and others.

To ensure that broadband fulfills its full promise as an engine of job creation, a facilitator of educational and health care opportunities, and a means of shrinking the distances between isolated communities, NCTA has suggested that the broadband grant and loan programs created should be structured around the following priorities:

• Extending broadband facilities to unserved areas.
• Supporting programs that enable underserved populations to acquire and to make effective use of broadband service where it is already available.
• If funds remain, extending broadband facilities to underserved areas defined in terms of below-standard speed and other qualitative measures relative to today’s current generation broadband service.

These grants and loans should also be awarded on a competitively and technologically neutral basis to maintain an already-competitive marketplace, and should be awarded through a process that is transparent and coordinated with other agencies providing similar aid.