It looks like the Rural Mobile Broadband Alliance is getting their stuff together. They want to help guide the debate over development of broadband connectivity and have offered the following:
According to RuMBA’s Managing Director, Luisa Handem, the “American Broadband Bill of Rights” demands all Americans have access to a network that is:
(1) Ubiquitous – Services and devices should work seamlessly everywhere:
in rural, suburban and urban areas. America needs an additional two
million square miles of coverage.
(2) Safe – Americans need E911 with location service and an emergency
Cell Broadcast System with weather and disaster alerting. Katrina-
like outages are unacceptable.
(3) Mobile – Whether in the car, on the tractor, at home, in school, at
work and all areas in between, our nation relies on mobility; our
networks must reflect our lifestyle needs.
(4) Affordable – Rural Americans demand competitive pricing for services
and devices. We need the same or better services and devices as the
rest of the country, at a fair price.
(5) Sustainable – America must invest in next generation systems that
can be operated at a profit and maintained by our local small town
carriers. We must leap ahead, buy tomorrow’s technologies, not
yesterday’s.
The group, launched last month, seeks to ensure that rural communities are offered the same affordable mobile broadband services available to urban and suburban areas, and equal access to E911 Phase II (location-based) coverage.