chairman jankowski talks about that all the time. we have huge penetration of availability of broadband. people who have it available do not get it. the reason is not just price. we have signed up for cable to low income families across the country. hopefully we will bring together low-cost computer with digital literacy training and a low-cost broadband network. bringing those things together the best we can will help overcome this and get the country better position for the information age. >> how do you determine who is low income and to qualify as? >> we are using the free lunch program as the metric. these are data sets we can evaluate and use as a criteria. if you are in a family that is eligible for free lunch, you will be available for this program. if you are at a school -- if your child goes to school, 75% for school lunch, we will serve anyone at that school. we are not going to make that distinction. you will be an advantage of that program as well. >> if we could return to policy. the verizon spectrum company deal is loo

delegation to wict soon here in june and also note that my friend and colleague sec chairman jankowski has been working also tom raise awareness of this important issue as other key members of the obama administration. just saw danny white here in the lobby for a different event. invited him to this but he had to go. further buoyed by the leading role played by the private sector not only domestically but abroad as well. many entities of all stripes including public interest groups, telecommune kankmucommu companies, think tank, internet access service providers, nonprofit internet governance groups and network manufacturers, equipment manufacturer, network operator es standing together to help sprepd the message and education policymakers across the globe. i'm also delighted that jacqui and gee yee are here today. a solid coalition in place help to name the soon to be named leader to begin or a strong and positive note. finally, even if this current effort is unsuccessful in december, we must continue to be vigilant. given the high profile, not to mention the dedicated efforts by some

senator jankowski. we recently sent you a letter, businesses large and small need to be able to plan for the future. there are many concerns, especially for the rural providers that they lack the necessary data to move forward. i welcome your comments regarding that. we also invited you to send a staffer to ago arc, and i i think that the many in rural america feel like they're being left out of the process. arkansas is much like west virginia. so again i would also ask you to do that. can you comment a little bit about that. as we move forward? >> sure. first of all it would be my second trip to arkansas, i learned a lot on my first trip and i recognize the challenges in rural arkansas when it comes to broadband. those challenges are all over the country and we have 18 million americans who have no broadband infrastructure. the program we inherited was sending more money than it should to certain areas, funding four or five providers in a single area, or funding one company when there was an unsubsidiz

democratic and republican members of congress, and my friend and colleague at the s.e.c., chairman julius jankowski. we are unified on the substantive arguments and always have been. second, it is important to define the challenge before us. the threats are real and not imagined, although they admittedly sound like works of fiction at some times. for many years now scores of countries led by china, russia, iran, saudi arabia, but many, many others have pushed for, as vladimir putin said almost a year ago, international control of the internet through the itu. now, i've tried to find a more concise way to express this issue, but i can't seem to improve on mr. putin's crystallization of the effort that has been afoot for quite some time. more importantly, i think we should take mr. putin's designs very seriously. six months separate us from the renegotiation of the 1988 treaty that led to insulating the internet from economic and technical regulation. what proponents of internet freedom do or don't do between now and then will determine the fate of the net and effect global economic growth as well as

chairman jankowski talks about it all the time. we have huge penetration on availability of broadband. we have a somewhat surprisingly smaller adoption rate, many people have it available don't get it. it turns out the reason is a just price. is that even the most significant reason. as to do with comfort with the medium. and so we have signed up to compete and to lead an initiative to provide low-cost broadband access to low-income families across the country. the entire cable industry is working on this collectively with the sec, enterprise. hopefully we will bring together three critical pieces. low-cost computers with drizzle literacy, training command a low-cost broadband network. and bring those things together will help overcome the adoption and get the country better positioned. >> how would you determine who is low income, who qualifies? >> we are using the program as the metric in these communities. so, you know, these are data sets that we can assess and evaluate. we use as a criteria for eligibility. so you're in a fami