Comcast: Top gadgets encourage broadband adoption

Joe Waz, Comcast's senior external affairs vice president, said that increasing sophistication of consumer electronics devices could help lower the barriers to broadband adoption.

That's because these devices can decrease the level of computer aptitude a person needs before they can reap the benefits of the Internet. "Digital literacy becomes arguably somewhat less of an issue as devices themselves take out some of the middle man," he said in a panel discussion. "An iPad is simpler to use than to boot up a PC." Waz stressed that when people have not learned to use the Internet, it's a key problem for getting them online. "You can't just say, 'Here's a computer.' You can't just say, 'Here's cheap Internet,'" he said. "You've got to teach a man to fish."