NARUC President Says COVID-19 Points to Broadband's Importance
The COVID-19 outbreak points to broadband's importance (see 2003270015), said NARUC President Brandon Presley in a Thursday interview. “Once this crisis is behind us, we’ve got to view broadband service as a national security issue, in the sense of economic…
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security,” he said. “I won’t have much toleration for anybody that comes to tell me that internet is a luxury.” Presley will ask NARUC’s new broadband task force to consider “lessons learned.” NARUC teleconferenced Tuesday with the telecom industry including CTIA, NCTA, NTCA, Tracfone and USTelecom; about 150 people joined, a NARUC spokesperson said. Presley told us he wanted to give state commissioners a chance to question industry and learn what it has done so far on data caps and other issues. “There’s still things that can be done,” and “some are doing more than others,” he said. Presley wants more information on whether data cap waivers apply to devices used as Wi-Fi hot spots. “The response to this crisis is going to take substantial collaboration between federal, state, and local governments and the private sector,” said NTCA Senior Vice President-Industry Affairs Mike Romano in a statement. Cable “primarily wanted to share the need for our essential workers to have access to key facilities, and the ability for our workers be out and about as needed to make sure our networks are performing well,” an NCTA spokesperson emailed. Other industry participants didn’t comment. COVID-19 “heightens the importance” of the NARUC broadband task force’s work, Chair Chris Nelson told us. “One thing that we have learned intimately over the last two weeks is the fact that nearly everyone needs access to broadband,” said the South Dakota telecom and utility commissioner. “Folks that might not have expected that they needed broadband in their homes” now see it’s critical for work, education and accessing medical information, he said. The coronavirus experience likely will produce more data on who lacks broadband, said the Republican. Presley is a Democratic Mississippi commissioner.