Bush is behind (on) broadband
This CNN article, CNN.com - Bush wants cheap high-speed Internet access for all by 2007 - Mar 26, 2004, is all about how Bush wants us all to have access to broadband by 2007.
Ok, the first problem is that "broadband" is an almost meaningless term. Does he mean broadband like we have today, with downloads of a paltry 1 Mbps? I think it's safe to say that 1 Mbps in 2007 is going to be just like getting a brand new Pentium II today. In other words, so slooooooow that it's useless. And what does it mean to have "access" to broadband? Making sure the nearest library has a link? Or truly making it affordable for everybody? Who can say?
DSL and cable modems aren't fast enough for the latest apps (streaming movies, serving multi-player games, videoconferencing), and the result is that the best apps aren't being deployed (or even built!) because only a few college kids would have the bandwidth to use them.
What the U.S. needs is a real broadband policy, not just a promise to deliver late-90's technology to people by 2007. Whoever understands the technology best will be best able to make use of it. Take cell phones as an example. The leaders in the handset business are from places where cell phone use has taken off. Not the U.S., where cell phone penetration is comparatively low, prices are high, and the latest apps like mcommerce are still almost unheard of.
The U.S. needs a plan to get to (at least) 100 Mbps access as soon as possible. If we don't create the environment in which the next generation of network technologies can thrive, then we're going to see those technologies developed somewhere else. You think outsourcing is bad? (It's not, but that's another rant entirely.) Try watching another country innovate better than the U.S.
What surprises me about Bush is not just that his ideology is so foreign to me (I'm a Democrat, so I expected that). What surprises me is that he's doing a demonstrably bad job. Broadband? Please. Mars on a couple billion bucks? Yeah right. Adequate resources for rebuilding Afghanistan and Iraq? Don't even get me started.