Vision of a nationwide, 21st-century infrastructure for communications

In the 1930s, as the country confronted the Great Depression, throughout the South and rural West, Americans lived lives that would have been more familiar to their countrymen in the 1850s than the 1950s – vast tracts with no running water and no electricity.

Slowly (but profoundly) the Tennessee Valley Authority and rural electrification changed all that.

 {mosads}Today, in communities rural and urban, too many Americans live in communities similarly out of time. The conditions are not as dire, but the distance from opportunity and the modern economy is no less dramatic. They rely on a 20th-century information infrastructure – phone lines and dial-up modems – even as cutting-edge businesses move at 21st-century speed. The result? Millions of Americans are effectively cut off from the new economy, while old-economy jobs disappear. Meanwhile, their children must leave communities they’ve called home for opportunities that exist only outside the limits of their towns.

 We can begin to change that.

 During his candidacy, then-Sen. Barack Obama called on us to “be the generation that reshapes our economy to compete in the digital age.” With the stroke of a pen three months ago, President Obama breathed life into this mission when he signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, allocating $4.7 billion to the Commerce Department’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program.

 At the Commerce Department, we’re working to bring broadband service to unserved and underserved parts of rural, urban and suburban America and realize President Obama’s vision of a nationwide, 21st-century communications infrastructure that encourages economic growth, enhances competition and offers significant benefits to American consumers.

 This is a big goal, and we know that current funding does not represent payment in full on that vision. But we also know it’s an important first step toward realizing a transformation as significant as the one created by rural electrification.

 Access to high-speed Internet networks opens doors to the world.

 At Commerce, we are moving forward to provide high-speed Internet service to more Americans with five straightforward goals for broadband stimulus funding:

 • First and foremost, create jobs – from the construction work necessary to build out the network to technical support to customer service jobs.

 • Begin to fill the broadband gap in America and extend high-capacity pipes closer to users in rural, remote, and underserved communities to connect them to the network.  And, as Congress has instructed, companies will be able to connect to those “pipes,” which will spur competition and get service to more people and businesses.

 • Stimulate investment by requiring companies that take federal money to invest their own funds as well.

• Focus funding on ensuring high-speed access within our nation’s community anchor institutions – schools, universities, libraries, community centers job training centers and hospitals.

• Encourage demand for broadband.  We think that when more people understand how broadband access can improve their lives, they’ll want to have it.

The Department of Commerce, through our National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), is working in closely with the Department of Agriculture and the Federal Communications Commission to implement the broadband technology program.

 We’ve held several public meetings across the country to discuss the new initiative. We also will be working closely with state and local governments, nonprofit organizations, tribal bodies, community institutions and businesses.

We believe collaboration is critical to delivering viable, vibrant projects that can be implemented efficiently and effectively.

 High-speed Internet networks are fundamental to America’s economic growth. We need Americans and American businesses, regardless of where they live, to be able to connect to the information superhighway.

 The broadband stimulus program should be seen as the first strokes of a blueprint that will improve the way millions of Americans live.

 For instance, a student who’s unable to find a foreign language course at her community college will be able to enroll in accredited courses offered from anywhere across the country. A doctor in the ER of a rural hospital will be able to quickly connect with professionals at the top hospitals in the country to get medical advice or surgical assistance, and a farmer in the cab of his tractor in North Carolina will be able to see market reports as they happen, enabling him to sell his crops where the prices are highest.

 In these few examples you hear the echoes of President Obama. During the campaign, he said that this is “a moment when technology empowers us to come together as never before, while letting each of us reach for our own individual dreams.”

 Our sleeves are rolled up as we expand economic opportunity and work to make those dreams reality.

Locke is the secretary of commerce.