Obama calls for more investment in broadband to catch up with Korea
WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- U.S. President Barack Obama Tuesday called for more investment in broadband lines and other infrastructure in the United States to catch up with South Korea and other countries.
"Our roads, our bridges, our sewer systems are all deteriorating," Obama told a town hall meeting at Northern Virginia Community College, in Annandale, Virginia. "We don't even have a serious high-speed rail infrastructure in this country. Our broadband lines are slower than places like South Korea."
Obama's speech was aimed at promoting his fiscal policy, focused on budget cuts while maintaining heavy investment in infrastructure and education. He announced plans last week to reduce the federal budget deficit by US$4 trillion in 12 years with military and domestic spending cuts, tax increases for the wealthy and health care overhaul.
Congressional Republicans have proposed a deeper cut of $6 trillion over a decade and have refused to raise the government's borrowing limit without commitments to deep cuts in long-term deficits.
The federal deficit is expected to surpass the $14.3 billion borrowing ceiling next month, with the deficit likely to reach $1.4 trillion for this year alone.
The deficit prompted Standard and Poor's Monday to revise the outlook for the U.S. from stable to negative, apparently warning that it may lower the U.S. rating of Triple AAA, the highest rating, unless the budget problem is resolved.
"Are we going to go to other countries and suddenly realize that China and South Korea and all of Europe all have better infrastructure than we do?" Obama said. "And we think that businesses are going to come here and invest? Or do we think that at some point companies say that America's got a second-rate infrastructure, and it costs us too much money because our trucks going over those potholes are getting messed up? And so that's the choice that we're going to have to make."
The government of South Korea, one of the most densely wired countries in the world, recently revealed ambitious plans to invest heavily in an effort to lead the global mobile communications industry by 2015.
The plan calls for the development of a fourth-generation Long Term Evolution-Advanced system coupled with wireless broadband systems to offer the best mobile communication service.
It is the fourth time this year that Obama publicly discussed South Korea's access to high-speed broadband Internet.
Obama told a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee fundraiser in Boston, Massachusetts, last month, "We're way behind countries like South Korea in broadband and wireless."
In a message to Congress attached to his budget for the 2012 fiscal year, Obama said in February the U.S. "lags behind other nations when it comes to the infrastructure of the future," noting that "only 63 percent of American households subscribe to high-speed, broadband Internet compared to 95 percent in South Korea and 77 percent in the Netherlands."
Obama made similar remarks in his nationally televised State of the Union address in January.
"Our infrastructure used to be the best, but our lead has slipped," he said at the time. "South Korean homes now have greater Internet access than we do." (Yonhap)
오바마 또 한국 찬사 "브로드밴드 美보다 우월"
버락 오바마 미국 대통령이 한국에 대한 찬사를 이어가고 있다.
오바마 대통령은 13일 워싱턴DC 인근 버지니아주 페어팩스 주민과 타운홀 미팅에서 지속적인 투자와 이를 통한 최고 인프라스트럭처를 구축해야 한다며 한국 '브로드밴드' 사업을 모범적 사례 중 하나로 거론했다.
그는 중국은 국내총생산(GDP) 중 9%를 인프라스트럭처 투자에 지출하고 있고 유럽은 5%를 쓰지만 미국은 2%에 불과하다며 미국이 최고 공항과 철도를 갖지 못한 이유도 바로 이 같은 투자 부족에 따른 것이라고 강조했다.
그는 특히 정보통신(IT) 분야인 브로드밴드를 언급하며 "한국은 우리보다 더 나은 브로드밴드 서비스와 무선 인터넷 서비스를 갖고 있다"고 말했다. 그는 이어 "시간이 지나면서 인프라스트럭처에 대한 부족한 투자가 쌓이고 쌓여 결국은 우리 경쟁력을 약화시킬 것"이라고 염려했다.
행사가 열린 노던버지니아 커뮤니티칼리지는 한인 학생들도 상당수 재학중인 곳이다.
오바마는 재정적자 감축 방침에도 불구하고 교육과 인프라시설 등에 대한 투자 지속 방침도 확인했다.
그는 "우리의 브로드밴드 라인들은 한국과 같은 곳보다 느리다"고 지적했고, "중국이나 한국, 다른 모든 유럽국가들이 우리보다 나은 인프라를 갖고 있음을 갑자기 깨달을 것이냐"고 반문하는 등 한국을 예로들면서 인프라 투자의 중요성을 거듭 강조했다.
앞서 오바마 대통령은 지난달 "한국은 미래 창출을 위해 전력을 다해 싸우고 있는 나라"라며 사흘 연속 한국을 거론하는 '코리아(KOREA) 찬사' 행진을 벌였다.