Access
Means Future Opportunities and Prosperity for All

America’s Latino
community is optimistic about the future, but we still face challenges. During
the recession, the unemployment rate spiked above 13 percent and still remains
above the national average.

What’s interesting is that if we
solve another challenge – access to cutting-edge Internet broadband technology – we would
also be creating the atmosphere to address the need to strengthen the economy and create jobs.

Universal access to
high-speed broadband—the key infrastructure of the 21^s` century—is
the critical to our
nation’s future. Once ultra-fast Internet service is made available over
wireless networks, the
resulting possibilities, resources, and opportunities are limitless for the
Hispanic community.

Broadband access
does so much more than allowing users to communicate with friends and loved ones. We can participate more fully in community
affairs, realize more economic possibilities, explore education anywhere in the world, reach
professional goals through online job training,
reduce our impact on the environment by telecommuting and participate in online
professional and social networking.

However, in order
for all Americans to enjoy these many possibilities and benefits, broadband
must be made more widely available.

Currently, there are
far too many areas that are underserved,
including many Hispanic communities. According to data from the National
Telecommunications and Information Administration, only about 45 percent of
Hispanics currently subscribe to broadband, in part because it isn’t
available in every location, but also because our
community tends to be stronger wireless users. Cell phone ownership is higher among Hispanics than whites, and cell phones tend to be the primary
vehicle Latinos use to access
the Internet.

The recently announced AT&T and T-Mobile merger will
help. This merger would combine two similar networks and bring the next generation of high-speed wireless
broadband-4G LTE—to an additional 55 million people, covering nearly every American,
including minority communities. This merger will drive faster expansion of enhanced,
lightning-fast mobile broadband
networks to underserved communities like ours.

As a result, connectivity for Hispanics and other
communities of color will improve. It means more than access to broadband; it also means access to
the most advanced wireless broadband. And
while broadband isn’t going to immediately bridge the digital divide that
separates many communities, it might do more
to close that divide than any other solution on the horizon. Without
this improvement, millions of Americans will have limited access to the
economic opportunities, social benefits, and
improved quality of life that are closely aligned with access to this
technology.

By merging with
T-Mobile, AT&T will expand and enhance the existing infrastructure to create faster, more reliable data
speeds and voice quality. This $8 billion investment will require the creation
of quality jobs with AT&T, here in Florida and across the country to build
the network infrastructure needed to reach more than 97 percent of the country.
As the only union wireless company,
AT&T also has a proud, strong record of diversity in hiring and procurement, and 20,000 of T-mobile’s employees
will have the opportunity to organize if they choose to do so.

The digital divide is an opportunity divide. We should be
doing everything we can to erase it and improve the economic potential for countless Americans.
The merger does that and deserves not only the support of the Federal Communications Commission, but also
of every American interested in
ensuring opportunity – like the Internet – reaches everyone.

In
Solidarity,

Victor
Sanchez and the Members of the Central Florida LCLAA