ZDNet reports that President Bush called for universal broadband access in the United States by 2007. His initiative includes:
- streamlining the process of granting broadband providers access to federal land,
- backing the Federal Communications Commission’s efforts to deregulate fiber-optic connections,
- supporting the U.S. Department of Commerce’s development of specifications for broadband over power lines, and
- curbing taxes on Internet access.
Is anything missing?
I am not a consumer rights advocate, but I agree with the Consumer Union when they say that the administration currently allows cable operators and phone companies to charge a premium to customers who only take broadband access. So, in his effort to make broadband affordable to everybody, President Bush should go one step further and demand that broadband carriers eliminate the premium that they charge customers who only subscribe to broadband.
How much is the premium? It varies from place to place and carrier to carrier, but Jamie Zawodny recently reported that the price difference on Comcast is $14 a month in his area. It should be zero.