Broadband Access Is A Highway To The Future
As chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, I have the privilege and responsibility to oversee much of the critical economic infrastructure in this country.
But perhaps nothing is more important to the future of West Virginia’s long-term economic growth and development than high-speed broadband networks. Broadband has the power to transform education, improve health care, create jobs and foster a new and more democratic dialogue. I see such success and potential with broadband communications every day right here in West Virginia.
High-speed broadband is about making sure that our students can access the best educational resources; it is about connecting our libraries; it is about making sure that grandparents can see their grandkids and families can catch up with each other in different parts of the country or state; and, it is about making sure every one of our businesses has the power it needs to connect with customers in West Virginia and across the globe.
We have been here before. Seventy years ago, electricity was commonplace in our cities, but rare in our rural communities. Government and industry worked together and, guided by the Rural Electrification Act, we met the challenge of wiring the countryside. Fifty years ago, our road system was incomplete. So we ushered in the Interstate Highway System with the Federal Aid Highway Act. We connected the country to facilitate commerce, transportation and our national defense.
Today, we need to think about broadband the same way – with the same unwavering commitment as the electricity and transportation projects that fundamentally defined commerce in the last century. For over a decade, I’ve been working to develop a nationwide strategy for universal access to high-speed broadband. And I believe that today, we are finally at the turning point. I fought to require the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to develop a national broadband plan – so we can have a clear way forward to make sure every American has access to broadband.
A plan without resources would not take us far. That is why I fought for and successfully secured $7.2 billion specifically for broadband in the Recovery Act. These funds will be critical to jump starting broadband deployment in many unserved and underserved areas communities across our state and nation.
Funding has started flowing to state and local governments, non-profit organizations and for-profit businesses across America and that is a great thing. And we will see a real impact – in more powerful high-speed networks reaching more people than ever before and giving them the tools to transform their world.
This February, I was so proud to stand with U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke to announce more than $130 million in funding specifically for West Virginia. The major new investment has the power to transform our state – spurring affordable broadband service for more than 700,000 households and 110,000 businesses, providing every K-12 school in our state with a high-speed Internet connection and significantly upgrading access at 176 public libraries, 184 telemedicine sites, 55 county courthouses and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank.
To be sure, making good on the promise this investment offers won’t be easy. Each generation has experienced an infrastructure leap that required a lot of hard work, collaboration and innovative thinking. As broadband expands, so do our possibilities. High-speed Internet is now essential for our health care system, our educational opportunities and our economy – especially in rural areas.
We made an enormous stride more than 10 years ago, when we first began the E-Rate program – which, I’m proud to say, has wired each school and library in West Virginia to the Internet. But it cannot end there, we have to continue innovating and investing or we will fall far behind as a nation and as a region. Already, too many of our international counterparts have surged far ahead of us when it comes to broadband speed. In South Korea, the average download speed is five times faster than what is available here. In Japan, it is more than three times as fast. Adding insult to injury, consumers in these countries pay less for their speed than we do.
Roughly one fifth of West Virginia households do not have access to broadband service. An independent analysis of FCC data found that West Virginia is among the five states with the lowest broadband penetration rates. This must and will change.
It is time to bring high-speed broadband to West Virginia. And it is time for our businesses and communities to rise up, work together and lead our state into the future. The government will be there with vital resources and support that will enable West Virginia to make its own broadband future.
When we do, we will be able to create online broadband learning programs that bring the full wonders of the world right into the smallest classrooms in West Virginia. We will be able to use broadband facilities to promote telemedicine and deliver first-class health care to the doorstep of our rural residents who would otherwise find it too costly or impractical to seek expert medical guidance from far away.
If we do this right, we will share in new skills, new ideas and new opportunities. And we can bring in businesses from anywhere in the world and open West Virginia to the global economy. West Virginians understand a challenge. We work hard. We have the kind of business climate that welcomes new ideas and new prospects.
I firmly believe working together, public and private, local and national, we can harness the power of the digital age to build the infrastructure that for generations to come will serve as our economic engine, strengthen our bonds and offer a powerful new range of opportunity to our people.
U. S. Senator Jay Rockefeller was first elected to the Senate in 1984 and was re-elected in 1990, 1996, 2002 and 2008. Before joining the Senate, he served in the West Virginia House of Delegates, as Secretary of State and as Governor from 1976 to 1984.
