As Congress debates an economic stimulus package that includes funding to boost the number of people in the United States with broadband internet access, at least one organization says access alone isn't enough--and it's urging the Obama administration to adopt strategies to stimulate broadband demand.

The Benton Foundation, a private foundation that works to ensure media and telecommunications serve the public interest and enhance democracy, issued its urgent call to action--titled "Action Plan for America: Using Technology and Innovation to Address Our Nation's Critical Challenges"--before Congress drafted its stimulus legislation.

The report has taken on new importance, however, as broadband funding has become mired in a tense political debate on Capitol Hill.

The report calls for robust, affordable, and universal broadband access to the internet, because, according to what the foundation calls "persuasive research," universal and affordable broadband is "the key to our nation's citizens reaching for--and achieving--the American Dream."

Universal, affordable broadband access is critical to ensuring that students of all ages can take classes from home, for example--and it's necessary for students to take advantage of online video instruction while at home.

But the report also explains how America has failed to deploy universal broadband--which has caused the U.S. to decline in international rankings of broadband quality, availability, and price as compared with many other industrialized nations in the global economy.

"With people losing their jobs, their retirement, with the costs of health care and higher education continuing to rise above the ability of many Americans to pay, with global climate change threatening our world, why should high-speed internet access be a priority?" asks Charles Benton, the foundation's chairman and CEO. "Because universal, affordable broadband is more than an end in itself; it is also a means to spur economic growth, boost the competitiveness of the U.S. in the global economy, and enable all our citizens to reach for the American Dream in the Digital Age."

The report attributes the failure to implement universal, affordable broadband to an absence of federal leadership under the Bush administration.

According to Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia Law School, chair of the media reform group Free Press, and a writer for Slate magazine, "Broadband is no one's responsibility--and the buck keeps getting passed between industry, Congress, the White House, and the Federal Communications Commission."

Citing a report by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), the Benton Foundation notes that the U.S. is quickly falling behind other industrialized nations in broadband deployment, speed, and price. From a ranking of fourth among the 30 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries in broadband penetration in 2001, the U.S. had fallen to 15th in 2007.