President-elect Barack Obama has promised to push Congress for increased affordable broadband access including for education when he takes office next month, which if achieved, could open the doors to more people working from home. 

 

"As we renew our schools and highways, we’ll also renew our information superhighway. It is unacceptable that the United States ranks 15th in the world in broadband adoption,” the President-elect said in a radio address last Saturday. Here, in the country that invented the internet, every child should have the chance to get online, and they’ll get that chance when I’m President – because that’s how we’ll strengthen America’s competitiveness in the world.”

 

The Telework Coalition (TelCoa), a Washington, DC-based telework information organization, welcomed President-elect Obama’s broadband plan. Broadband access for data and IP permits people to perform data-and-communications-intensive tasks such as accounting, customer service, engineering, IT, management, and media to work from home. It also makes distance learning richer and more effective.

 

To take advantage of this expanded broadband network, TelCoa also wants to see the new President’s program followed up with federal incentives to encourage more businesses to adopt telework. While there are tax deductions for parking and for employee transit programs there are none for telework.

 

Telework tax incentives will pay for themselves, says TelCoa, by driving down costs, reducing costly emissions and traffic congestion, creating competitive advantages, and providing local economic opportunities for people to live and work in one place. They will help create what it calls a ‘climate of security’ from adverse events, whether a pandemic, weather or other natural disasters, or international or domestic terrorism. Telework, by reducing the need to drive, especially in suburb-to-suburb and rural-to-suburb commutes where transit is not feasible or cost-effective, will also curb foreign energy dependence.

 

“Broadband telecommunications and on-line educational programs are most effective when there is a telework job available at the home end of the line,” said TelCoa President and CEO Chuck Wilsker (News - Alert). “With broadband and telework, we no longer need to apply physical transportation ‘solutions’ to address economic/employment, energy, or environmental issues.  Mainstreaming comprehensive telework opportunities is the quickest, most effective means to provide employment opportunities to a great number of people without forcing them to daily leave their communities.”