Obama Unveils Rural Internet Plan

President Barack Obama unveiled an $18 billion plan Thursday to bring wireless high-speed Internet access to all Americans.

The president unveiled his plans to bring mobile broadband connections to 98 percent of the American people in five years, a goal he announced last month during the State of the Union address. He spoke at Northern Michigan University in Marquette. It is part of his “winning the future” strategy.

According to dailyamerican.com, the president’s wireless plan calls for nearly doubling the space available on the airwaves for wireless high-speed Internet traffic to keep up with ever-growing demand. The next generation of high-speed wireless — 4G technology — is more than 10 times faster than current high-speed wireless services, according to the plan.

The president said that auctioning off space on the radio spectrum to commercial wireless carriers would raise $27.8 billion over 10 years. The money could be spent on initiatives that include $10 billion to develop a national broadband network for public safety agencies and $5 billion for infrastructure to help rural areas access high-speed wireless. An additional $3 billion would go to research and development for wireless technologies that can be used for education, health care and energy. Additional money could be used to reduce the deficit.

Read more here.