WASHINGTON-The Senate Democratic Leader last Wednesday called for a public-private partnership to ensure that rural America has access to advanced telecommunications.
“A public-private partnership is clearly our best hope for closing the digital divide. Where the private sector through competition fails to close the divide, government must provide additional incentives through universal service,” said Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.).
Daschle sponsored the second in a series of Senate seminars on the status of advanced telecommunications in rural America. Eighteen panelists told a group of mostly Democratic senators about “Going the extra mile: bringing high-speed Internet to rural America.”
The keynote speaker of the seminar, William Kennard, said he was “pledging a renewed emphasis” on bringing advanced telecommunications to rural America. Kennard, who chairs the Federal Communications Commission, said the agency will hold a series of field hearings during the next four months to gather data about the deployment of advanced telecom services to rural America.
