| I sat in on Eric Massa's weekly blogger conference call this morning and he greeted me with words of strong support for our effort to urge the Governor to support the Telecom Reform Act. The topic of this week's call was economic renewal in western New York and what he plans to do to help foster such a renewal. I think it goes without saying that any plan to spur the long depressed economy out there must surely include bringing broadband services to those populations. That said, let's not forget that all that fiber optic cable has to be laid and installed by real people, with real skills. The first wave of job creation to come from implementing Brodsky's bill will come from the very work of building out that much needed infrastructure and there is much, much work to be done.
U.S. Net access not all that speedy
The USA trails other industrialized nations in high-speed Internet access and may never catch up unless quick action is taken by public-policymakers, a report commissioned by the Communications Workers of America warns.
The median U.S. download speed now is 1.97 megabits per second - a fraction of the 61 megabits per second enjoyed by consumers in Japan, says the report released Monday. Other speedy countries include South Korea (median 45 megabits), France (17 megabits) and Canada (7 megabits).
"We have pathetic speeds compared to the rest of the world," CWA President Larry Cohen says. "People don't pay attention to the fact that the country that started the commercial Internet is falling woefully behind."
It's time for New York to take the lead. If you want broadband built out to a minimum of 85% of the state, if you want strong net neutrality protections, if you want cheaper rates for cable through real competition and if you want to do something real and concrete to breathe new life into the upstate economy, Please Call the Governor and ask him to support Assemblyman Brodsky's Telecommunications Reform Act.
You can reach his office at 518-474-8390. |
