Obama Budget Will Include $10.7 Billion for Emergency Networks

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By Kate Andersen Brower and Todd Shields - Feb 10, 2011 6:00 AM ET


President Barack Obama’s budget will include $10.7 billion to build a nationwide wireless network for emergency workers and $5 billion to help Americans get mobile access to high-speed Internet service.

Obama would pay for the networks with $27.8 billion from auctioning airwaves relinquished by television broadcasters, and still have $9.6 billion available for reducing the federal deficit, Jason Furman, deputy director of the White House National Economic Council, said during a conference call yesterday.

The president will outline the proposal during a trip today to Marquette, Michigan, where access to high-speed Internet has helped local businesses reach global markets, according to an administration statement. The initiative fleshes out a pledge he made in the State of the Union address to make wireless high- speed Internet, or broadband, available to 98 percent of Americans within five years as a way to accelerate economic growth and job creation.

“High-speed Internet allows small businesses to reach markets beyond the one that they’re in, in the next town, in the next state or even in a different country,” Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a Feb. 8 interview. “We need to take that as seriously as we took electricity and telephone service in the 20th century.”

The FCC has proposed the government conduct auctions in which broadcasters voluntarily surrender airwaves in return for part of the proceeds. Buyers may include Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc., Sprint Nextel Corp. and Deutsche Telekom AG’s T-Mobile unit.

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-10/obama-budget-will-include-10-7-billion-for-emergency-networks.html