The Way We Were
     Republicans and Democrats from rural states worked closely together on the 1996 act. That "farm team" focused on preserving the universal service fund that subsidizes telecommunications services in high-cost rural areas and discounts for telecommunications services for schools and libraries through the e-rate program.
     While broad invitations were sent to Republicans before each rural forum, the gesture was "too little, too late" for some, sources said, since Republicans weren't involved in planning the events. But one Republican source said the GOP is taking notice.
     "There is a concern that politically, Republicans can't get on the wrong side of the digital divide," said a staffer for the Republican high-tech taskforce that is co-chaired by Sens. Robert Bennett, R-UT, Spencer Abraham, R-MI, and Bill Frist, R-TN. "The Democrats are doing a better job realizing the political potential of the issue."
     The Republican source said there are discussions at the staff level for how to tackle the broadband issue early next year.
     "Our concern is that the Democrats have been quick to recognize the issue and associate themselves with it," the staffer said. "We could get caught on the sidelines."

What's At Stake
     At issue is how far the Federal Communications Commission should go to determine what telecom services are covered by the universal service fund. The 1996 act codified the fund and said that the definition should evolve to reflect changing technologies, including broadband services.
     FCC Chairman William Kennard, who moderated the first Democratic broadband forum and spoke at the second, announced last week that the Federal-State Joint Board would meet this spring to review the scope of telecom services covered by the universal service program. The board has until 2001 to complete its review, but Kennard said the pace of tech growth demands an earlier meeting.
     Sen. Richard Durbin, D-IL, succinctly outlined the philosophical differences between those who want the government to subsidize advanced services and those who believe competition should drive broadband deployment.
     "We can follow the model of the railroads where commercial interests decided the winners and losers, or the model of the New Deal when FDR said everyone would get electricity," Durbin said at the forum last week. "I want to follow the model of the New Deal."

Hope For The Future
     Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain, R-AZ, and Sen. Sam Brownback, R-KS, have introduced two separate broadband bills — S. 1043 and S. 887, respectively — that they say would promote competition through deregulation, and in turn, more broadband deployment.
     Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-NE, said that the farm team in 1996 realized that competition could not fill all the technology gaps for rural Americans.
     "We understood competitive forces could take care of a lot of things, but not all things," he said at the forum.
     Shirley Bloomfield, vice president for government relations for the National Telephone Cooperative Association (NTCA), said both parties are positioning themselves for a tough election year highlighted by the presidential election.
     "I think presidential election years screw things up," she said. "Particularly with [Vice President] Gore tagging himself as the high tech candidate, universal service could get dragged into it."
     NTCA represents rural telephone cooperatives that receive a sizable portion of universal service funds to provide telecom services to outlying areas. Bloomfield said a number of rural providers are already offering digital subscriber lines to small businesses, regardless of cost, because they are the only providers in some areas.
     Despite the growing partisanship over universal service, Bloomfield said there are "wonderful advocates" on both sides of the aisle, and her group works with everyone regardless of party.
     "That's the beauty of rural-it usually doesn't break down Democrat and Republican," she said. "We've said we'll play ball with everyone who wants to talk about it."

Come Together, Right Now
     Ed Black, president of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, said that while everything breaks down along political lines at some point in Washington, he suspects that rural Democrats and Republicans will eventually come together to find solutions for deploying broadband services to their constituents.
     "Have the Democrats and Daschle taken the lead? Definitely," Black said. "I don't think that means Republicans are anti-broadband. Fundamentally this issue is of constituent interest."
     Black said the recent Democratic events are similar to those held by the congressional Joint Economic Committee earlier this year. He said the JEC event, which drew Microsoft CEO Bill Gates and others, started out a largely Republican affair, but Democrats eventually showed up and stayed. Black said Republicans will ultimately have to work with Democrats on the rural broadband issue because their constituents will demand it, therefore the recent events shouldn't cause any long term harm.
     "I don't see that they've done any damage if people are sincerely willing to work with each other," he said.

- by Rebecca S. Weiner