Levin: ubiquitous, affordable broadband will be a priority for an Obama administration

Blair Levin, an analyst with Stifel Nicolaus and former Federal Communications Commission staffer, is rumored to be a potential candidate for an FCC appointment should Barack Obama win the presidency. He said ubiquitous, affordable broadband will be a priority for an Obama administration and Obama's FCC would likely be charged to move very quickly on that agenda. Asked what exactly might constitute "broadband" in that context, Levin said defining the term will be an "interesting challenge" for policymakers because broadband is "constantly evolving." "I think there's a growing consensus that universal service, as it is today, ought to [allow one to] be capable of doing Web-surfing, VoIP, information gathering -- those kinds of things. And we want that to be available in roughly 100% of the country. And we'd like to achieve penetration rates similar to what we've achieved in voice. How do you do that? There are lots of uncertainties and lots of reasonable debate." "Here's the way I think service providers will think about it," he continued. "What is the level of support -- what is the speed which qualifies you that I can achieve but disqualifies some of my potential competitors? In other words, if you can achieve 3m, but your wireless guys are never going to get there, you want that to be, in order to qualify, you want that to be the level."