WASHINGTON, D.C. – With the largest number of broadband subscribers of any country in the world – 49 million at the end of 2006 – deployment and adoption of high-speed Internet service in the U.S. is a success story that shouldn’t be portrayed as a failure because of misleading statistics, National Cable & Telecommunications Association President & CEO Kyle McSlarrow said today in a letter to members of the Senate Commerce and House Energy and Commerce Committees.

McSlarrow said the U.S. cable industry has invested $110 billion over the last decade to deploy high-speed Internet and other advanced services.  Cable’s broadband service is available to at least 94 percent of all U.S. homes, McSlarrow pointed out.  At the same time that broadband availability has increased, McSlarrow said, the speed of the service also has jumped while prices have declined.  Cable’s standard speed offering has more than tripled in recent years, and some providers are now offering connections with speeds up to 50 megabits per second, he said.

To accelerate broadband deployment to areas that lack access to high-speed Internet service, McSlarrow said the cable industry supports a number of legislative initiatives and government programs:

• Tax credits or other tax incentives to providers that build out in rural areas that are unserved by an existing broadband provider.
• Reform of the RUS broadband loan program so that funding is targeted specifically to unserved areas.
• Any use of USF money to support broadband deployment should be targeted to unserved areas.
• Expansion of the FCC's Lifeline and Link-Up Programs to help ensure that broadband access is extended to low-income households
• Public-private partnerships to provide broadband in unserved areas.
• Passage of H.R. 743 and S. 156 that would make permanent the current moratorium on Internet access taxes and unfair taxes on electronic commerce.

The full letter is attached.