Former FCC Official Says Cities Need Help Understanding Future of Technology
The administration needs a “sustained effort” to help cities better understand “the impact of where science and technology is heading,” Blair Levin, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and chief of staff for then-FCC Chairman Reed Hundt, said Tuesday at…
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the Kansas City Gigabit Summit. “We should also build on the Smart [Cities] initiative done in collaboration with the Departments of Commerce, Transportation, Homeland Security and Energy and the EPA and National Science Foundation,” Levin said. “That effort is great but should not be a one-time event.” Levin called in his written remarks for the creation of a Mayors’ Council of Advisors on Science and Technology “to identify trends, risks, and opportunities for cities.” While providing affordable bandwidth has many public benefits, “from an investment perspective the only ones that matter are those which improve the return for the investor,” Levin said. “The current math does not justify that investment; otherwise we would already have it. The deployment of faster, better, cheaper networks requires a new capital allocation decision, generally by a private sector party. This can be stimulated by a government decision that lowers capital expenditures, operating expenditures, and or risk, and increases potential revenue and competition.” Levin also seeks an update of the tax code, saying there's some bipartisan support. “The chances for such a bill are not high; neither are they non-material. In that light, cities should advocate that any such effort ought to be used to accelerate investment in next generation, long-term infrastructure,” he said. “There are many ways to do so. One traditional way for private investment is accelerated depreciation of certain kinds of investment, such as investment in capital facilities that achieve certain next generation capabilities. This should be broadly defined so that it includes both the underlying fiber but also other elements, such as sensors.”