WASHINGTON—The Bush administration likely will not pursue a comprehensive national broadband policy, a development that could hurt industry efforts to secure additional spectrum for third-generation (3G) wireless systems.
For months, the White House has been equivocal about whether it would embrace a broadband policy. President Bush plans to address industry executives at a high-tech forum.
The Bush administration instead plans to pursue, on an ad hoc basis, policies favorable to high tech and will look to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Michael Powell to write deregulatory rules for broadband.
Calls from the high-tech industry for a national broadband policy have included recommendations for allocating 120 megahertz of spectrum to the wireless industry during the next few years. The Bush administration later this month plans to issue a report on the viability of using military frequencies for 3G service. Indications are that the mobile-phone industry will get little spectrum from the Pentagon.
Members of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology Policy (PCAST), which met here, downplayed policy and instead stressed the importance of stimulating demand as well as removing obstacles to deployment of high-speed Internet access. PCAST will complete a broadband report in September and forward it to President Bush.
Floyd Kvamme, co-chairman of PCAST and partner at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, pointed to the extension of the Internet tax moratorium and accelerated depreciation of information technology equipment as steps the administration has taken to foster broadband development in the United States. Kvamme said there is no need to step up government efforts to promote broadband because administration officials already are doing it.
The United States is fourth in the world in broadband connections, a ranking that is predicted will slip to 10th by 2005.
In the meantime, the White House, according to an administration source, is counting on the FCC’s Powell to create a deregulatory framework for broadband. The FCC rules, combined with a smattering of administration initiatives—targeted and general—will comprise the Bush administration’s position on broadband.
