Building Careers and Shaping Public Policy

26 April 2005

The Honorable Ted Stevens
Chair
Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator Stevens:

As Congress considers updating the nation's telecommunications laws, we wish to make available to you the enclosed whitepaper, "Providing Ubiquitous Gigabit Networks in the United States" developed by IEEE-USA's Committee on Communications Policy.

The paper identifies two urgent problems. First, U.S. prosperity is at risk as a consequence of the slow speed and low penetration of broadband networking in the United States. These factors have placed us at a significant disadvantage to our global competitors, who have rapidly deployed widespread broadband networks and are moving to a new system. That system is one beyond mere convergence of digital content to one of full integration, and one of such capability, flexibility, and adaptability that it can be future-proof for decades. Second, our existing infrastructure was originally created and optimized through separate "stove pipes" for voice, video, and data, respectively. That infrastructure and its regulatory framework are tied to the past and verge on the dysfunctional. They will require comprehensive overhaul.

So far our country has no blueprint for leapfrogging to an information infrastructure that could reestablish and ensure U.S. world leadership in knowledge-based goods and services on which our competitive and comparative advantage have depended. The situation is often characterized by the (ungrammatical) slogan "bits is bits." Given our continental scope, vast rural expanses, and dependence on innovation through a knowledge economy, in order to make that leap we will have to deploy networks of gigabit speeds and near-ubiquity. This will require mobilizing the resources of all sectors of the industry and cooperating in the national interest. To facilitate the transition to ubiquitous gigabit networks, we recommend your consideration of the following actions:

• First, legislation adequate to facilitate the transition from our current telecommunications infrastructure to one of near-ubiquitous, gigabit networks, to reestablish the foundation for U.S. leadership in knowledge-based goods and services

• Then, a rewrite of the fundamental legislation dealing with the telecommunications industry, looking forward to a new future.

Widely available networks capable of gigabit-per-second data rates will provide major productivity, economic, social, and national security benefits to the Nation. The requisite optical fiber and wireless technologies exist and are ready for widespread deployment. Some gigabit networks are already being deployed here by the public and private sectors at capital and operational cost savings to themselves and to the nation. The right stimuli will be necessary to speed and expand initiatives for the leap that our national interest requires. Any prospective legislation to facilitate the transition should accomplish the following purposes:

• Establish as a national priority the deployment of a broadband, gigabit infrastructure

• Facilitate the deployment of a U.S. broadband infrastructure that equals or exceeds that of the best of our global competitors as to speed, penetration, usability, and reliability

• Make such two-way gigabit networking widespread and universally available, to foreclose a
  digital divide

• Provide reassurance to the markets and their participants of a successful transition.

IEEE-USA will shortly expand on these principles and their implementation in a formal position statement. Meanwhile, if we can be of further assistance, please contact Deborah Rudolph in our Washington office at (202) 785-0017 x 8332 or email at d.rudolph@ieee.org.

Sincerely,

Gerard A. Alphonse
President, IEEE-USA

(Sample – Similar letters sent to members of the Senate Commerce, House Science
and Energy Committees, and officials at OSTP, Commerce, NTIA and FCC)