|
Homeowners to FCC: Needs Assessment is
Critical to Broadband Funding Decisions
|
For Immediate Release, March
25, 2009
For more information contact: Bruce Hahn @ 571-214-1013
The Federal Communications Commission has been
charged by Congress with creating a rural broadband strategy to provide
guidance for deploying federal stimulus funding for the purpose of
expanding the availability and usage of broadband in rural areas. A
large share of the nation’s 60 million rural residents are homeowners.
The American Homeowners Grassroots Alliance, a nonpartisan national
consumer advocacy organization, believes this program is critical to
delivering broadband services to millions of them for the first time.
The process must be implemented thoughtfully, and
AHGA has urged the FCC to make accurate advance needs assessment an
essential criteria in the deployment of those funds. “Rural populations
are not monolithic”, AHGA told the FCC in its
March 25 comments.
“The makeup and needs of a rural population in one area can be very
different than those in another area for a variety of reasons. Those
needs are also changing, much more rapidly in some cases than in
others.” AHGA believes it is critical to measure both the immediate and
projected long term demand for broadband services in each rural area
where funding is contemplated. Only then will the government be able to
gauge the greatest potential immediate and long term return on its
investment in that rural community and objectively compare it to other
alternatives.
There is also substantial circumstantial evidence
that many people in many rural areas that could greatly benefit from
this program are as yet aware of its existence. There is need to make
them aware of it in order to grow support for the program in rural areas
that could benefit most from broadband services, and enable local
governments and organizations to provide information that is critical
for accurate advance needs assesment.
|