DISQUS

We need to ensure that all Americans have access to affordable and open high speed internet. It is crucial for economic growth especially in the underserved rural and urban areas. We need a National policy that supports this while providing consumer and worker protections. "A reasonable national goal would be 10 megabits per second download speeds and 1 megabits per second upload speeds by 2010 - enough to insure a decent amount of capacity." Investment could be stimulated through tax incentives, universal service fund reform, and leveraging public monies.
The Communications Workers Of America are at work on this with our Speed Matters campaign.
Check out our website at www.speedmatters.org

This is a good example of the need for a National Policy that establishes strong service quality standards and consumer protections. Providers should be required to publicly report the actual speeds of the services they offer. Rural and underserved areas should be a priority. For some examples on policy reform as well a a speed test to compare your service to the rest of the Nation go to- www.speedmatters.org

There are many underserved areas of our country that need high speed broadband. With applications like telemedicine, disatance education and the like, broadband access is essetial. The USF could be reformed to ensure this to all Americans, just like it did for telephone service. To get some ideas check out CWA's website www.speedmatters.org

Without the USF many would never have access to a telephone. The same goes for broadband access which will soon be more important for things like distance education and telemedicine.