TIA urges U.S. Senate to support broadband adoption framework

The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) has sent a letter urging the Senate Communications Subcommittee to take further actions to support broadband adoption. In advance of a subcommittee hearing scheduled for October 29, TIA cited the United States’ declining standing among developed nations in broadband deployment and the marketplace transformation caused by the ongoing IP transition.

“The lack of broadband connectivity inhibits job creation and other economic development, particularly in rural areas," wrote TIA president Grant Seiffert in the letter to the leadership of the Senate's Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet. "It is essential to the nation’s future that the United States not be outpaced by major trading partners in the deployment of cutting-edge technologies and networks.”

In the letter, TIA outlines a framework for broadband adoption based on universally available service, consumers’ ability to connect to the Internet, technology-neutral competition, increased availability of spectrum, uniformity in regulation, and elimination of regulatory barriers. To help advance those tenets, the TIA is urging Congress to adopt tax incentives to promote broadband investment, and to support the FCC’s work towards universal service reform and modernization of the E-Rate program.

In the letter, TIA's Seiffert further urges the subcommittee's leadership to support a framework of broadband adoption based on goals including:

-- Universally available broadband connectivity.
-- Consumers’ ability to connect
-- Network operators’ ability to engage in network management.
-- Technology-neutral competition among existing and emerging platforms and providers.
-- Increased availability of spectrum.
-- Market-based mechanisms to drive spectrum.
-- Uniform regulation.
-- Elimination of regulatory barriers to investment and innovation.

To help achieve these goals, Seiffert cites tax incentives to promote investment, universal service reform, and E-Rate reform. To access TIA’s letter to Senate and House leadership, click here.