About Community and Municipal Wireless

Since 2001, the U.S. has fallen from 3rd to 16th in worldwide broadband adoption, an alarming trend that seriously threatens American competitiveness in the digital age. No question, America lacks a national broadband policy. New America believes that wireless broadband is the most promising way to extend affordable, ubiquitous, high-speed Internet connections to all Americans, particularly in under-served rural and low-income areas.

Low-cost, high-speed community-based wireless broadband networks are already cropping up across the country, revolutionizing public communications, spurring economic development, and bridging the digital divide. What these networks have in common is the unlicensed spectrum they use -- tiny slivers of the public airwaves that are not licensed to corporate incumbents or the federal government. If this new technology can be blended with good public policies -- e.g., reallocating underutilized public airwaves for unlicensed use and local public interest requirements to ensure providers offer affordable, universal access -- we could witness a communications revolution and usher in a future of pervasive connectivity.