KCBS: FCC Chairman Visits SF to Study Free Wi-Fi Programs

FCC Chairman Visits SF to Study Free Wi-Fi Programs

Monday, 03 August 2009 8:01AM
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SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) -- The new head of the Federal Communications Commission is trying to figure out how to make sure everyone in America has access to high-speed Internet service, and as part of that mission he visited a public housing project in the Mission District Sunday to hear some of San Francisco's success stories.

There is free Wi-Fi all through the Valencia Gardens complex. There's also a computer learning center where 17-year-old Selina Rodriguez works as a "Digital Connector," sharing her computer skills with neighbors who, until now, were computer illiterate.

"We teach people that don't know anything, who have no type of experience, and never touched a computer before," said Rodriguez.

She says some of her older students resist at first, but walk away smiling, with a whole new online world opened to them.

Sunday, the new chairman of the FCC was smiling too. Julius Genachowski is on a fact-finding mission to develop a National Broadband Strategy by next year.

"Well what Congress and the president expect us to do is to make recommendations that meet the moment, and that put the country on a path to universal broadband access," said Genachowski. "I think everyone understands that you can't have something for nothing, but we're going to look for creative ways to reach the objectives that we all now have here, which are ubiquitous connections to the internet and the benefits of broadband."