Obama Adviser Looks at Australian Broadband Plan

A senior adviser to President Obama is touting the idea of spending tens of billions of dollars in public funds to build a nationwide broadband network featuring speeds 100 times faster than today’s technology.

Susan Crawford, special assistant to the president for science, technology and innovation policy, has said she is “personally intrigued” by an ambitious plan by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

The plan proposes a public-private partnership that would invest up to USD 33 billion over eight years to build and operate a fiber-optic broadband network reaching 90 percent of homes and workplaces. Wireless and satellite technology would be used to reach the remaining 10 percent in the outback.

Obama and congressional Democrats have backed a USD 7.2 billion cash infusion to stimulate domestic broadband investment as part of this year’s economic stimulus package.

Related: Local telecoms see opportunity in rural broadband stimulus package

Related: The FCC Gets Bombarded With Broadband Opinions

Also noteworthy: Jury out on Obama telecom policy, but broadband stimulus gives hope.

Source: SearchTelecom.com

Related posts on intug.org:

  1. The Right Broadband Stimulus Package for the U.S.
  2. Australian Government Publishes RFP for National Broadband Network
  3. Better and Faster Broadband Vital to Boost Competitiveness, Australian Study

This entry was posted on 5 June, 2009 at 1:11 PM and is filed under News. Tagged: , , , , , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.



2 Responses to “Obama Adviser Looks at Australian Broadband Plan”

  1.   BeleCleably Says:
    June 6th, 2009 at 8:48 AM

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  2.   brunnen Says:
    June 12th, 2009 at 8:33 AM

    Nearly all commentaries on Broadband and ‘Next generation Access’ lead on the issue of speed – and usually that means only ‘headline’ download speed.

    In my editorial for CMA ‘Fibre more than Faster‘ I make the point that Open Access FTTH utilities can deliver a wide range of benefits – not least of which is locally relevant Service innovation.

    Local communities, albeit more in some counties than others, are discovering that, by separating the management of the common Access utility from the competitive Services that it can deliver, the local relevance (and take-up) of real broadband exceeds all former expectations.

    Local communities can be empowered to drive their local economy and respond to societal needs.

    Why wait for last-generation incumbent Telco’s to imagine what consumers and businesses might need when the best way to predict the future is to invent it.

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