FCC Commissioner: "We need to make broadband the dial tone of the 21st Century."

Kudos to Federal Communications Commissioner Jonathan S. Adelstein for these remarks excerpted from his written testimony to the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. It's refreshing to hear a positive, let's get it done attitude in contrast to the pathetic, defeatist whining and foot dragging from the telco/cable duopoly:

We need to make broadband the dial-tone of the 21st Century.

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Some have argued that the reason we have fallen so far in the international broadband rankings is that we are a more rural country than many of those ahead of us. Even if that is the case, and since geography is destiny and we cannot change ours, rather than merely curse the difficulty of addressing rural communications challenges, we should redouble our efforts and get down to the business of addressing and overcoming them.

I am concerned that the lack of a comprehensive broadband communications deployment plan is one of the reasons that the U.S. is increasingly falling further behind our global competitors. Virtually every other developed country has implemented a national broadband strategy. This must become a greater national priority for America than it is now.