When it comes to going online, Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Westmoreland, represents a very mixed-up district — up at the northern end, the Northern Virginia suburbs of central and southern Prince William County, constituents have some of the best broadband access around, with speeds upwards of a gigabit. Down on the Middle Peninsula and Northern Neck, where a fifth of his constiuents (and Wittman himself) live, not so much.
As he told the House Energy and Commerce Committee recently, “In rural areas, broadband is oftentimes the top issue I hear about—as mothers and fathers complain about late nights sitting in the McDonalds parking lot as their kids use the WiFi to finish their homework; children of elderly parents plead for quality broadband to access telemedicine services so their parents don’t have to drive an hour to the nearest health facility; or business owners that know better quality broadband would allow them to grow their businesses.”
Wittman thinks there’s a role for public-private partnerships here — that mixed government and corporation approach that built the new service and operations center for the Newport News school system and that added tubes and tolls to the tunnels between Norfolk and Portsmouth.
Such partnerships can bring funds to areas where a pure business case wouldn’t justify the investment, he said.
Wittman said better mapping and oversight of the nation’s broadband networks would also help.
“It is no secret our broadband maps can be wildly inaccurate and often lead to overbuilding on already existing networks,” he said.
Wittman is a co-sponsor of a bill, H.R. 3162, which would require providers to report data to create a better National Broadband Map, as a way to discourage overbuilding and target areas that don’t have adequate service.
