From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media.

I'm Bob Garfield.

And I'm Brooke Gladstone.

When Congress passed President Obama's economic recovery package, $7 billion were set aside to help bridge what is often called the digital divide.

As some put it at the time, a chicken in every pot, a car in every garage, and a broadband

connection in every home. This week, Vice President Joe Biden announced where some of that

money is going. Today, it's nearly $200 million in grants and loans we're going to announce.

And when it's all said and done, we'll be awarding $7.2 billion for access to broadband

in areas like Dawsonville and all around the country. But some say that money is just a drop

in an Olympic-sized bucket that America, like Finland, like South Korea, like Canada, Japan, France,

and many others should formulate an ambitious national broadband policy to tackle the issue.

Well, in just a couple of months, the Federal Communications Commission, after much fact-finding in town hall meetings,

will introduce that long-awaited plan. Ben Scott is policy director for free press,

an organization that has lobbied for better broadband access in Washington, D.C.

We've taken a path for broadband competition different than any other nation in the world.

How far behind these other countries are we really? Can you compare and contrast Canadian broadband policy with American policy and Canadian broadband

access with American access?

The main difference between the Canadian broadband market and ours is competition.

We have for many years been stuck in what economists call a duopoly, two choices, the cable

company and the phone company.

There are laws in Canada, as there are in virtually every other developed nation, that require

the local telephone companies to share their networks with competitors. So if you remember back in

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