Thanks to Grant Gross at Network World, I stumbled upon a new DC think tank that focuses on communications policy. And it appears to be a rare species…a public interest group that doesn’t seem to be beholden to any special interest, although the group does seem to favor telco industry policies.
It’s the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), which seems to focus on nothing but promoting technology innovation and adoption. The ITIF describes itself this way:
ITIF is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy think tank committed to articulating and advancing a pro-productivity, pro-innovation and pro-technology public policy agenda internationally, in Washington and the states. Recognizing the vital role of technology in ensuring American prosperity, ITIF focuses on innovation, productivity, and digital economy issues.
The ITIF is co-chaired by two former members of Congress, Jennifer Dunn (R-WA) and Calvin Dooley (D-CA). The head of ITIF is Robert Atkinson, who most recently was a Vice President at the Progressive Policy Institute.
ITIF made a little news this week by releasing a policy brief (press release here, report here) that advocates exempting broadband service from all taxes for five years, relaxing video franchising requirements, refraining from imposing “build-out” requirements on competitive broadband providers and adopting tax incentives for greater broadband deployment.
The basic thrust of ITIF’s arguments is that the U.S. has slipped from fourth to twelth in the OECD rankings, a decline that bodes poorly for our economic strength. They argue, morever, that Iceland’s ascendancy to the top global broadband penetration slot contradicts those who say international comparisons aren’t valid because other countries have greater density, and therefore are expected to have higher broadband penetration. Iceland, they say, isn’t very dense population-wise.
Cynthia Brumfield at 11:43 AM|Comments(0)
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