Nortel chief: U.S. needs new broadband vision

Bill Owens questions whether government leaders understand technology issues adequately

By Grant Gross, IDG News Service
August 23, 2005

The U.S. government lacks a broad vision for broadband and wireless technologies and is losing ground as countries like South Korea and India push new technologies from the highest level of government, the chief executive of Nortel Networks said Tuesday.

Bill Owens, a former U.S. Navy admiral, stopped short of advocating an expansive new U.S. government policy while speaking at the Aspen Summit, sponsored by the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a think tank that advocates free-market approaches over government regulations. But he did question whether U.S. government leaders understand technology issues as well as their counterparts in other countries with fast-growing broadband services.

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Concerns about broadband adoption in the U.S. aren't new, with the U.S. falling from the 13th place in 2004 to 16th this year in broadband penetration rates, according to the International Telecommunication Union. But Owens told his audience changes in U.S. policy are needed urgently.

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While Owens and some panelists in a radio spectrum policy discussion criticized the U.S. government for not doing enough to promote new Internet technologies, Michael Gallagher director of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NIST) in the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC), defended the work done since President George Bush took office in 2001. The Bush administration is working to free up radio spectrum for commercial and unlicensed uses, with an auction of spectrum, scheduled for mid-2006, that would increase mobile wireless spectrum by 45 percent.

DOC has also worked with the U.S. Congress to move television stations off spectrum as they transition to digital broadcasts, and the U.S. government has led the world in approving the use of ultra wideband wireless technologies, Gallagher said.

Gallagher also disputed a suggestion that the U.S. government doesn't have a broadband policy, noting that Bush in March 2004 called for universally available broadband across the U.S. by 2007.

Owens didn't address the Bush administration's goal, but he said other countries are already far ahead of the U.S. South Koreans can get 10 channels of television delivered to mobile devices for about $10 a month, he said. Nortel is working with the city government of Taipei to have 90 percent of the city covered by wireless hotspots by the end of the year.

Despite Bush's call for universal broadband access, telecom providers such as Verizon Communications Inc. have raised questions about U.S. cities setting up their own Wi-Fi networks. During the spectrum policy discussion, Link Hoewing, Verizon's assistant Vice president for Internet and technology policy, said his company doesn't want to see municipal broadband projects banned, but cities should be careful before tax dollars are spent on Wi-Fi projects when private alternatives exist.

But nearly 300 U.S. cities are either considering or moving ahead with municipal broadband projects, said NIST's Gallagher.

"It's clear that there's a message to the private sector," Gallagher said. "The message is, they want their broadband and will find a cheap way to deploy it. They will do it for themselves if the private sector doesn't do it fast enough."

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