Op-ed/letters – page A11

By Karen Kerrigan

Small businesses in New Hampshire should pay close attention to Washington politicians and special interests looking to wire them to the Internet.

New Hampshire has been labeled a “disconnected dozen” state whose future economic health is supposedly endangered because of lack of access to high-speed Internet connections.

The federal government and special interests, of course, have a solution, even though New Hampshire residents are probably confused by this less-than-polite portrayal.

Former White House spokesman Mike McCurry and ex-Congresswoman Susan Molinari recently did a swing through New Hampshire and claimed that only Congress could save the Granite State from its supposed backwater status.

Yet, a December 1999 report from the Progress and Freedom Foundation paints a much more connected and tech-savvy population than that of the “at risk” status given to it by the local phone monopolies.

New Hampshire far outpaces the rest of the nation in Internet access. According to PFF, 58 percent of households in the state are connected to the Net compared with 39 percent nationwide.

New Hampshire also leads the nation in per-capita employment in high-tech jobs with 8.2 percent of the overall work force employed in this sector – double the national average of 4.5 percent.

This begs the question: who’s really “disconnected” here and why are they maligning the great state of New Hampshire in the process? It’s clear that the special interests and politicians making these unwelcome charges about New Hampshire are the ones offline in their characterization of the state’s digital health.

But due to its political status, New Hampshire remains fertile ground for testing policy ideas and issue campaigns – even bad ones. Put H.R. 2420 on the bad side of the ledger.

It is merely a corporate protectionist measure being pushed by local phone monopolies threatened by competition. In the name of wiring New Hampshire to the Net, the legislation would only serve to thwart the industry’s promising advancements by picking winners and losers in the dynamic telecom and high tech industry.

H.R. 2420, which promises to get New Hampshirites out of the Stone Age, has exploited the myth of the digital divide to make the case for its passage. In fact, 99 percent of American households can reach an Internet Service Provider with a local phone call.

While New Hampshire residents have wide choices in ISPs and long-distance phone companies, the same cannot be said for local phone service.

The 1996 Telecommunications Act was designed to open local phone markets to competition and to provide a framework for the quick deployment of cutting-edge services like high-speed Internet access.

Local phone companies have stonewalled on the former, and have successfully petitioned some members of Congress on the latter through sponsorship of H.R. 2420 – a piece of legislation that will circumvent the ’96 Act by allowing certain loopholes for the monopolies.

The legislation is solely another attempt by local phone companies to get into the long-distance market without first opening their local phone markets to competition as required by the act.

This, in effect, will stop local phone competition in its tracks – a result that will truly harm small businesses and consumers in New Hampshire.

Investors who have relied on the stability of the act in making their investment choices in broadband companies may suspend such investments to the detriment of many smaller firms.

The result will be a delay in the development and deployment of new high-speed Internet connections, meaning more of the status quo – meandering Bell monopolies offering yesterday’s technologies.

High-speed Internet access is being developed at an extraordinary pace with many new and exiting companies spending more than $1 billion per month to make these technologies available to everyone. Experts are now measuring near universal broadband deployment in terms of a few years rather than decades as was first predicted.

Digitally challenged New Hampshire even leads the nation in households with broadband connections – 7.5 percent of residents have such a connection compared with a national average of 2.2 percent.

New legislation from Washington is the last thing New Hampshire needs in order to prosper. Tinkering with the Telecom Act now – as politicians do with the tax code – will cause serious disruption for consumers and telecom entrepreneurs alike by undermining the movement to true local phone competition.

If the local phone companies would simply comply with the laws already in place and open their markets to competition, deployment of high-speed broadband service would be on an even faster track to New Hampshire residents and all Americans.

Kerrigan is chairman of the Small Business Survival Committee in Washington, D.C.

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The Competitive Broadband Coalition members include the Association of Communications Enterprises (ASCENT), the Association for Local Telecommunications Services (ALTS), AT&T, the Commercial Internet eXchange Association (CIX), CompTel (Competitive Telecommunications Association), Cable & Wireless, Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), Montana Telecommunications Association, Personal Communications Industry Association (PCIA), Sprint, Touch America and WorldCom. More information can be found at http://www.competitivebroadband.org/1041/home.jsp