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Obama and McCain's stances on improving America's internet infrastructure

Series: Blueprint America: The presidential candidates on infrastructure
From: Blueprint America
Length: 00:02:27

How Obama and McCain propose fixing America's poor internet service Read the full description.

Default-piece-image-0 Part three of four Blueprint America reports, produced by Channel Thirteen/ WNET, PBS New York, with support from Rockefeller Foundation, of a series about the presidential candidates' views on America's aging infrastructure. In part two, correspondent Rick Karr reports on how Sens. Obama and McCain stand on America's inadequate internet service system. Karr speaks with former Energy Secretary Federico Pena, a spokesperson for the Obama campaign, and Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain's senior economic advisor, about how the candidates would extend internet service to millions of Americans in rural and poor inner-city communities -- and whether they'd insist that internet service providers allow customers to do whatever they want with their broadband service.

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Piece Description

Part three of four Blueprint America reports, produced by Channel Thirteen/ WNET, PBS New York, with support from Rockefeller Foundation, of a series about the presidential candidates' views on America's aging infrastructure. In part two, correspondent Rick Karr reports on how Sens. Obama and McCain stand on America's inadequate internet service system. Karr speaks with former Energy Secretary Federico Pena, a spokesperson for the Obama campaign, and Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain's senior economic advisor, about how the candidates would extend internet service to millions of Americans in rural and poor inner-city communities -- and whether they'd insist that internet service providers allow customers to do whatever they want with their broadband service.

Transcript

The birthplace of the internet ... is doing pretty badly online by international standards. SEE-vuh vie-dee-uh-NATH-un is a professor of media studies and law at the University of Virginia. He says the United States ranks behind Korea, Japan, Germany, France, Iceland, and a score of other countries.

SIVA 4:41
What we have now, first of all, is in a very BIG country, a whole lot of slow connections. And we still have a lot of the country that's underserved or not served at all by broadband. And I think it basically comes down to the fact that we never had a clear national policy of conversation about how we'd roll out broadband in this country.

BOTH John McCain ... and Barack Obama ... agree. Federico Pena is a former secretary of Transportation and Energy ... and a spokesperson for the Obama campaign.

13:08 (5 seconds, Pena)
It's embarrassing how far America is behind the worl...
Read the full transcript

Timing and Cues

HOST INTRO MUST INCLUDE MENTION OF BLUEPRINT AMERICA.

SUGGESTED HOST INTRO: America's status as an internet innovator is under threat: International studies have argued that Americans pay MORE than Europeans and Asians ... for significantly WORSE internet service. The 'net is another aspect of the country's infrastructure that's getting at least some attention from the presidential candidates. In the third part of a series produced by the P-B-S Television project Blueprint America, Rick Karr compares where John McCain and Barack Obama stand on bringing the country's internet service up to speed.