Mr. Chairman, Senator Pryor, Commissioners Copps and Adelstein, I appear before you today on behalf of Cox Communications.  We welcome this dialogue on the The State of Broadband in Arkansas.

 

From Green Forest to Fort Smith, Cox Arkansas provides 99% of the communities we serve with state-of-the-art broadband fiber technology. In short, our customers experience a digital world that is second to none in 64 rural and urban towns. We invest more than 25 million dollars of private risk capital each year in Arkansas expanding our bandwidth capacity and communications infrastructure, rendering the fastest internet speeds available to residential and business customers.

 

The philosophy of our 400 Cox Communications Arkansas employees is to make a difference in the towns we serve and in which we live. We provide more than 360 free cable connections to K-12 schools, educational access channels valued at more than $3.6 million every year, and annually donate over $1 million in airtime to non-profit organizations through the broadcast and production of public service announcements.

 

One of the most significant things we do for our communities relates to the grass roots implementation of our national program Take Charge!, an initiative designed to increase customers’ awareness and use of the parental controls and content filtering tools now available for the cable television, Internet and telephone services found in a digital home.  This program puts the content management of television and Internet into the hands of the individual customer, allowing them to set the guidelines they deem appropriate for their own homes.

 

Our seriousness about helping families safely navigate the technology we provide extends beyond our information-packed Take Charge! Web site, public service announcements, Internet safety workshops and partnership with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Cox has also begun forging meaningful partnerships with regional law enforcement agencies in support of Internet Crimes Against Children investigative units.  Through two initial technology grants from Cox to support specialized equipment and training, the Fayetteville Police Department has identified, apprehended and seen multiple Internet child predators successfully sentenced.  Each time the news of an arrest of this kind becomes public, we know the financial investment to support the ICAC program means dozens or more young people will be safer from exploitation.  Our employees are proud to know that not only is Cox Communications bringing the world into our customers’ homes through our products—we’re also giving critical support to the people who make that world a little safer.

 

Thank you for the opportunity to present these brief comments and I would be pleased to answer questions you may have.