19 Presidential Candidates In Search Of A Broadband Policy

Telecom Policy Report, July 23, 2007

Just about every one of the multiplicity of candidates vying for the Democratic and Republican nominations for president has begun to stake out a position on broadband. In some cases, those positions are best described as knee-jerk adoptions of what the candidates (or, we think, their staffers) believe are the "popular" positions of one portion of the electorate or another. A few candidates - a disappointing few - actually have positions with a thought of their own behind them.

We'll start with the remembrance that, in the last presidential election, both the Republican candidate and the Democratic candidate mouthed lots of nice words about broadband. So did lots of congressional candidates.

At that point, the United States already had dropped from Number One worldwide in broadband penetration, some time back around the end of the Twentieth century, to somewhere worse than tenth-ranked. Since then, the United States has dropped to 15 or, perhaps, 19, depending on whose numbers you want to believe.

So much for the last crop of campaign promises.

For this election, so far, among the main broadband issues most constantly mentioned by candidates are those of network neutrality and rural broadband.

Net Neutrality

Net neutrality has become more of a Democratic darling, with Republicans coming out strongly criticizing net neutrality as a form of onerous regulation of the Internet that's best avoided. At the same time, the liberal establishment, as we see it, is the driving force behind so-called "freedom on the Internet," while such folks as the Republican-dominated "moral majority" abhor the type of content the Internet has made easily available to all, starting with graphic pornography most teens can find even faster than their parents.

So the Democrats want highly regulated "absolute freedom" - how's that for an oxymoron? And the Republicans want, um, highly regulated "absolute freedom," which in the end makes just about every net-neutrality position we're seeing from the candidates as being a knee-jerk reaction, although there are a couple who have some new thoughts, as we'll point out later.

Rural Broadband

As for rural broadband - nobody opposes the concept of seeing that residents of rural communities get broadband. The only issue is how much money can be thrown at the problem. We'd call that buying rural votes.

The truth is that most of the rural-broadband worries and schemes all ignore the availability of reasonably priced satellite broadband. That, of course, is something new. But the thinking we're seeing out of the current crop of candidates remains focused on spending what can be $10,000 per connection for land-based rural broadband rather than perhaps a $10 per month subsidy to bring the price of satellite broadband on a par with terrestrial pricing.

But a vote is a vote, so support of rural broadband efforts has become another knee-jerk reaction, an easy check-off on the issue list with which candidates have to deal.

With that in mind, Telecom Policy Report's sister e-letter Broadband Business Forecast analyzed each candidate's position or lack thereof. Its editors thank the Wireless Communications Association International (WCA) for putting together a comprehensive listing of the broadband policy positions of each of the candidates in the primary contests. The WCA tried hard to be non- judgmental and to simply present the candidates and their positions.

The Democrats

The WCA diplomatically ran down the candidates in alphabetical order, but we're going to start with the two clearly getting the most press: Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Hillary Clinton

Sen. Clinton, said by some to be the current frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, has one of the most regressive positions on broadband imaginable. In one speech, backing net neutrality, she speaks of "the basic principles of neutrality and non-discrimination from its inception that the Internet was able to flourish." And she's going to keep it that way as a co- sponsor of the Internet Freedom Preservation Act, which will help ensure that broadband service providers don't have the freedom to demand higher payments from those value-added service providers that demand the free use of every last megabit of broadband on Earth.

In other words, she's the co-sponsor of the knee-jerk net-neutrality act.

As for rural broadband, Sen. Clinton's all for that, and she even introduced legislation to establish an Office of Rural Broadband Initiatives at the Department of Agriculture. Um, pardon us...the Department of Agriculture? Obviously, the former first lady thinks that the only industry out there in the rural hinterland consists of cows and corn.

But broadband is a growth engine, a prerequisite these days to industry - indeed, industry of the type that would provide non-agricultural jobs in rural areas. As for satellite broadband, it doesn't look like she knows it even exists - and obviates the need for such an office.

Barak Obama