Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine has tapped his predecessor to direct a panel charged with bringing high-speed Internet access to every business and community in the commonwealth.
One-time presidential candidate Mark Warner, who served as governor from 2002 to 2006, will be joined by government officials, education experts and business leaders on the Broadband Roundtable.
“It’s remarkable, but America has fallen to 18th in the world in terms of broadband deployment,” Warner, who founded the Nextel cellular phone company, told a state technology commission last week.
Kaine created the roundtable to survey which regions of the state already have high-speed Internet access, develop ways to serve those regions without the capability and determine which regions of Virginia would be best served by various emerging wireless technologies.
“Our challenge is to find innovative ways to connect even more businesses to that network at the most affordable cost possible,” Kaine said.
Virginia already has earned a reputation as a national leader in technology because many Internet companies, such as America Online, have headquarters in Tysons Corner and the Dulles corridor.
As governor, Warner spearheaded efforts to bring broadband technology to rural areas of southern Virginia, including four cities, 20 counties and 56 industrial parks.
“We’ve got a good start on the infrastructure of broadband in our rural communities, but there’s still a lot more to be done,” said Warner, whose investments in startup cellular phone companies made him a multimillionaire.
Kaine has charged the panel with issuing a report by July 2008.
