Broadband creates jobs

By Navigant Economics Managing Director Hal J. Singer and Brookings Institution Non-Resident Senior Fellow in Economic Studies Robert W. Crandall

The Hill, 2/23/10

As the U.S. economy struggles to recover from the worst recession since the 1930s with the unemployment rate hovering around 10 percent, the federal government is understandably focused on policies that could create jobs. At the same time, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is putting the final touches on a National Broadband Plan. Unfortunately, few policymakers understand how much the deployment of new telecommunications technologies that underlie the broadband revolution have contributed to employment in the private economy. The National Broadband Plan should be carefully designed so as not to reduce the investment in broadband technologies, which have averaged $30 billion per year since 2005.

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The impacts of the recent investments in broadband networks have been startling. Because of the intense, facilities-based competition among broadband providers, most U.S. households now have a choice of at least three broadband technologies and even more suppliers in most service areas. That has had the effect of driving down the price and dramatically increasing the speed of broadband access for the average household.

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To ensure the steady increase in broadband’s reach, capabilities, and services that we have seen over the past seven years, the FCC should proceed with a minimum of government interference as it moves through the process of creating a National Broadband Policy. To do otherwise would risk a reduction in the incentives for investment in the nation’s broadband infrastructure and the hundreds of thousands of jobs that such investment supports.

Click here to read to read the Op-ed.

Click here to read the study.

Broadband for America (BfA) is a growing coalition of over 180 members ranging from independent consumer advocacy groups, to content and application providers, to the companies which build and maintain the Internet. The complete BfA membership list is available at: http://www.broadbandforamerica.com/about/members

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