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"If we are going to ensure that no community, no citizen, is left behind by lack of access to basic or advanced telecommunications in this new digital age, we need to think anew, adjust our policies and craft the proper incentives. We must include these new opportunity-creating technologies as part of our Universal Service Program. In plainer English, it is time to bring broadband into the Universal Service System. We must also update and broaden the USF contribution base. We must make sure funds are distributed with maximum equity among consumers, areas and technologies. And we must recognize that the economics of non-rural, rural and truly remote service areas are fundamentally different.

"Permit me to begin by emphasizing the importance of a USF commitment to broadband because this is, far and away, the most meaningful step we can take to create opportunity for our citizens, to ensure community development in every area of our country and to keep our nation competitive in the global economy. Broadband is the great network and infrastructure challenge of our time. If you double back through the years of this nation’s history, you will find that just about every formative era has had its own major infrastructure challenge. Go back to the very beginning as settlers pushed into the frontier and populated new lands. Their infrastructure challenge was to develop ways to deliver their produce and products to increasingly far-away markets. So they found ways to build roads and turnpikes and canals and ports to meet that challenge. Later, as we industrialized, the need was to lay a railway grid, first across regions and then across the country, climaxed by the great saga of the Transcontinental railroads as we became a continental power following the Civil War. Closer to our own era, in the Eisenhower years as suburbs grew and our demography changed, came the Interstate Highway System binding the country more closely together. We saw it in communications, too, in extending telephone service to rural America with the Rural Electrification amendments under Harry Truman and with the Universal Service Fund that we are gathered here to discuss this morning. In all of these infrastructure build-outs, there was a critical role for government, business and local community organizations to work together toward a great national objective. This is really the American Story. It’s how we built our nation and how we grew. It is, I believe, the only way we will continue to grow it.

"From where I sit, broadband networks are the canals and railroads and highways of the digital age. Our future will be in significant measure decided by how we master, or fail to master, advanced communications networks and how quickly and how well we build out broadband connectivity.

So first we need to look at what part Universal Service should play in meeting this great infrastructure challenge."

-- FCC Commissioner Michael Copps in testimony before Senate Commerce Committee March 1, 2007
(http://commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Testimon...)

"This is akin to the building of the railroads ... or the Interstate highway system. The building of broadband will allow people in this state to be in touch with other countries. ... It opens up the entire world."

-- "Summit Focuses on Broadband Growth in W.Va." WTRF-TV, Wheeling (WF). Paul Darst. September 21, 2006 (see http://www.wtrf.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=14328)

"The President set an ambitious goal for universal broadband access by 2007, yet, like many Administration initiatives, offered no specific benchmarks or policy directives. The lack of an up-to-date, comprehensive strategy forces the communications sector to muddle through a landscape marked by disparate government programs. 2007 has arrived and it remains unclear who, if anyone, in the Administration is taking up the mantle of assuring affordable broadband access to those who most need it. We should have a comprehensive national strategy to ensure affordable and robust broadband for all Americans. For the United States to maintain its global leadership in the information economy, it's time for a better broadband policy that serves all Americans."

-- Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) "Affordable broadband for everyone" The Hill, Feb 6, 2007 (see http://thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/020607/sf_dinge...)

"Just as President Roosevelt recognized a responsibility to make electricity available to rural families in his New Deal, and just as President Eisenhower recognized the necessity of a National Highway System that would enable substantial economic growth in the country, it is time for us to make this technology available to the hard-to-reach communities that need it -- rural and urban. In contrast to Roosevelt's sweeping changes, this administration has pledged ubiquitous Broadband access by 2007, but has taken few concrete actions to achieve that goal. On the contrary, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) seems intent to inexplicably drag its feet on this measure -- despite broad bipartisan support in the Congress, as indicated by the Senate Commerce Committee's unanimous acceptance of a similar measure last year."

-- Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) "Kerry Introduces Wireless Innovation Act to Spur New Broadband Connections" Jan 10, 2007 (see http://kerry.senate.gov/v3/cfm/record.cfm?id=267392)