FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact:
Laura Pflum
574-292-2929
C4CC to FCC: Look to Kentucky for Broadband Success
WASHINGTON, DC (July 17, 2007) Consumers for Competitive Choice (C4CC) asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to consider the phenomenally successful Connect Kentucky model of broadband deployment as it searches for ways to ensure that this essential service reaches all Americans.
“Connect Kentucky hit the proverbial nail on the head when it came to information gathering and deployment practices,” said Robert K. Johnson, C4CC president. “In four short years, this nonprofit group took a state that was languishing in the bottom ten states for broadband deployment and boosted it to one of America’s top five.”
Johnson submitted comments Monday, on behalf of more than one million C4CC members, in response to an FCC request for ideas on how best to ensure that it receives sufficient information about the availability and deployment of broadband services nationwide, particularly in rural and other hardtoserve areas.
“While Kentucky’s model is not currently a perfect fit for the every state, we believe it can be modified to be effective throughout the country,” Johnson said. “What each state needs, and what the Connect Kentucky model delivers, is a reality-based approach to gathering and assessing data on broadband needs. Instead of relying on the typical mantra of ‘if you build it, they will come,’ Kentucky made decisions based on a comprehensive investigation of the needs in each community.”
Connect Kentucky investigated broadband need by developing teams with representatives from each of nine crucial sectors, including schools, businesses, libraries, agriculture and local government. For more information about this model:
www.connectkentucky.org.
About Consumers for Competitive Choice-www. Consumers4Choice.org
C4CC is a national alliance of consumer advocacy groups and private citizens who are committed to promoting maximum choice for consumers in communications, energy, health care and financial services. C4CC uses a combination of education and grassroots advocacy to impact change, which will result in a deregulated and proconsumer market that stimulates fair price, more choices and better service options in these industries. President Johnson has been advocating for policies that benefit residential and small business consumers for more than 25 years.
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