Sen. Mark Warner & the hope for an Internet compromise

When it comes to expanding broadband availability, the Senate needs more people like Mark Warner (D-VA).

 As he showed during a recent trip to rural Virginia, Senator Warner understands more than just the urgent need to improve rural broadband. He also sees that a federal take-over of small town broadband isn’t a good solution.

With Congress moving slowly on Net neutrality and online privacy, it’s more important than ever to have smart officials like Senator Warner and his colleagues from both political parties working on bipartisan solutions.

 A successful technology investor before coming to Congress, Senator Warner was in rural Fauquier County (Va.) this month for a meeting with residents about the economy. Though only an hour from DC, this area has a shortage of high-speed internet access, especially compared to urban areas.

 Since rural areas, especially across the South, are seeing extremely fast Latino population growth, rural broadband is an important Latino issue. According to an article in the Fauquier Times, rural broadband access was “a main topic of discussion” with Senator Warner, whose remarks were “especially animated and technical.”

 The Chairwoman of Fauquier’s Board of County Supervisors told Senator Warner that lack of broadband access “has become unsustainable for us.”

According to the Times report, Warner dismissed the idea of having the Federal government get in the business of deploying rural broadband. “If we’re waiting for the feds, … by the time we could get rural broadband in all of – or most of – Fauquier County, the urban areas are going to move to 5G or 6G, and the rural areas will be further behind.”

Instead, he pushed a more cooperative solution, calling for a “grand bargain” with Internet companies who have the experience and capital to deploy broadband.

Senator Warner’s willingness to embrace a cooperative solution on rural broadband is a breath of fresh air. He should go further and use his firsthand knowledge of the Internet to fashion reasonable, bipartisan legislation protecting the open internet and our online privacy rights. 

Federal regulation in privacy and Net neutrality has been changing repeatedly in recent years – a consequence of our outdated laws governing the Internet. The most recent Federal internet law was passed in 1996, before consumers had wifi and when home internet service meant a dial-up connection that topped out at 56kbs/sec.

Congress needs to show more leadership on Internet policy because the future prospects of Latino communities across rural communities depend on this progress.