Bush: Broadband for All Americans by 2007

3 Comments

• It is one thing to have a nice goal, it is quite another thing to actually do something to implement. The problem lies with infrastructure. If one is talking Cable Modems, then it requires cable to be pulled and the cable that is pulled to be up to current specs to handle cable broadband. For DSL, telephone switch offices need to be upgraded in many places.
  
  
  
  Infrastructure is the first step, but to get to it you need to provide the businesses the incentive to put it in in the first place, which means tax incentives. With the burgeoning Bush budget deficit, how is George going to pay for it. Is he going to put our children even more in debt?
  
  
  
  A second factor is affordability. It is one thing for suburbia to be able to afford high speed, it is quite another for inner cities and rural America. If costs go the same way cable TV prices have gone, don't look for the service to be affordable. This may take government subsidization and/or further tax incentives. Again, we get down to the same bottom line. How is it going to be paid for?
  
  
  
  Bush would have better footing if he hadn't wasted the budget surplus he inherited. Maybe he should have thought of these ideas before his tax cut?
  
  
  
  Just my two cents.
  
  TC
  

• I agree there are some problems to address, but at least now someone will officially be thinking about them.
  

• I have to agree with TC. For rural America, it's just too expensive to do so at the current stage, if we consider both the benefit and the cost. I guess few people will beleive this will become true by 2007, or even by 2010.Time will tell.