Universal Broadband Access Will Depend On Private Capital

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski emphasized at an agency hearing Thursday that extension of internet service to all Americans will depend on investment of up to $350 billion in private capital when telemedicine and "smart grid" electrical power monitoring are factored into the expansion of internet useage. With internet non-profits like Free Press, which helped candidate Obama formulate tech policies, lobbying intently for new net neutrality rules at FCC, and with those proposed regulations adamantly opposed by the broadband purveyors who have the capital required to fund a $350 billion internet expansion program, a clash of titanic proportions is looming as the February, 2010, deadline for presentation to Congress of FCC plans for universal broadband access approaches. The major internet providers have already opted out of the government loan and grant programs in the stimulus package which were aimed at promoting network expansion into rural regions of the country.