U.S. suffers from "Neanderthal" broadband policy, critic charges

Stanford University law prof Larry Lessig suggested at today's announcement of the InternetforEveryone.org universal broadband access initiative at the Personal Democracy Forum in New York that the current U.S. policy treating broadband Internet access like a competitive consumer commodity isn't working and is keeping the nation stuck in the dial up digital dark ages.

"That Neanderthal philosophy has governed for about eight years, and it has allowed us to slide from a leader in this field to an abysmal position," Lessig said in a clear attack on the Bush administration's stance.

Internetnews.com reports the coalition, which includes Google and eBay, wants Congress and the next administration to take up the issue of broadband availability.

Vint Cerf, Google's chief technology evangelist and one of the architects of the Internet, implied that one of the key reasons for the lack of universal broadband access in the U.S. is that that the Internet, which carries multiple and unlimited forms of digital communications, is delivered by telcos and cable companies interested less in providing Internet access and more in selling particular services such as video and voice telephone connections.