The U.S. Needs A Federal-Aid Highway Act For Affordable Broadband -- Now - Forbes

The U.S. Needs A Federal-Aid Highway Act For Affordable Broadband -- Now - Forbes

Digital media veteran Gary Myer urges a massive Internet stimulus program that goes far beyond the $4.5 billion allocated for Internet infrastructure in the American Investment and Recovery Act of 2009.  (Most of that money went toward middle mile infrastructure that typically left residences and small businesses off the net).

Myer as well as some of the commentators on his Forbes piece point out getting fiber to every U.S. doorstep not only would create a lot of jobs since a large majority of the cost is labor.  It would also make the U.S. network more valuable since more would be connected to it, replacing the current dysfunctional, hodge podge of disparate legacy cable television and telephone company networks whose high cost business models fail outside of densely populated areas.

Myer also puts to rest the fanciful, wishful thinking that cell phone networks obviate the need for premises Internet connections.  Those networks are designed for lower bandwidth mobile voice and data and lack the capacity and reliability to serve as primary premises connections. Those bandwidth caps on mobile service exist for a reason.

Obama cites America's "incomplete" telecom infrastructure in State of Union address

Since this blog was created in 2006, it has been dedicated to the exploration of strategies and methods for the build out of America's incomplete digital telecommunications network that leaves millions disconnected from the Internet because modern telecommunications infrastructure does not reach their homes and small businesses.

It was thus very encouraging to hear President Barack Obama call out the nation's "incomplete high-speed broadband network that prevents a small business owner in rural America from selling her products all over the world" in his State of the Union address to Congress this week. Millions of Americans are painfully aware of just how incomplete Internet infrastructure is as they look only a couple of miles away or even just down the road or street to neighbors who have access while they do not.

The president also used his speech to call upon Congress to fund telecom and other critical infrastructure. Congress should respond to Obama's urging by providing technical assistance and construction funding for community-based networks to finish the job where investor-owned providers such as legacy telcos and cable companies cannot make a business case for doing so. This is what was done in the 1930s when market failure led to a similar problem with telephone service and electrical power and cooperatives and local governments filled in the gaps.

Preliminary FCC broadband policy report ducks issue of incomplete telecom infrastructure

For the millions of Americans who live and work in broadband black holes, a preview released this week of a forthcoming Federal Communications Commission policy recommendation to Congress offers practically no hope their situations will improve over the foreseeable.

The FCC's National Broadband Plan: National Purposes Update released Feb. 18 contains 56 pages of bullet points, charts and graphs that cover just about every topic related to broadband except for the nation's most pressing broadband problem: incomplete and inadequate advanced telecommunications infrastructure that's necessary to deliver broadband to all Americans.

The final report is due to Congress by March 17. If the report doesn't address this critical issue in a substantive manner and instead dances all around it as this week's preview suggests, it will be seen as a whitewash of platitudes that will quickly be shelved and forgotten.

FCC draft broadband plan: Incorrect diagnosis, wrong prescription

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission today unveiled the underlying policy principles that will frame the plan it must present to Congress in February to expand advanced telecommunications infrastructure to ensure all Americans have broadband access. The FCC was charged with developing the plan under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 signed into law by President Barack Obama in February.

A basic principle is encouraging competition to "build on the attributes of the American broadband ecosystem." That's something of a head scratcher as Tim Nulty and other experts have accurately pointed out that telecommunications infrastructure is a natural and not market-created monopoly. It's a lack of adequate infrastructure -- and not vendors who want to offer services over it -- that has brought about the large gaps in broadband availability in the United States.

Given that, it's not apparent how encouraging competition will even begin to fulfill the Obama administration's goal of universal broadband access. The problem isn't lack of competitors. It's lack of any providers because their for profit business models simply don't allow them to profitably deploy infrastructure within broadband black holes. No amount of enhanced competition can alter that business reality.

If the FCC accepts that reality, then its final recommendation to Congress in February must by implication call for alternative ownership and business models for last mile -- and some middle mile -- telecom infrastructure.

FCC puts broadband in proper perspective

The term broadband -- generally used to refer to Internet connectivity beyond first generation dial up access -- is a component of the larger transformation of the telecommunications infrastructure. The legacy Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) system that relies on copper cables and central office switches owned by the phone companies is of the pre Internet period. In the post Internet age, the Internet itself is becoming the phone system. Routers take the place of telephone switches and fiber optics supersede copper cable.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) put broadband into its proper perspective in a public notice issued Dec. 1 calling for public comment on this conversion of telecommunications infrastructure from a "circuit switched network to an all-IP (Internet Protocol) network."

The notice describes broadband as "a leading indicator of the major transitions in communications technology and services" and "a growing platform over which the consumer accesses a multitude of services, including voice, data, and video in an integrated way across applications and providers."

The FCC notice shows the agency -- charged under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 with developing recommendations for Congress by next February on how to best achieve universal broadband access -- is thinking beyond broadband and of the larger regulatory scheme in "the spirit of understanding the scope and breadth of the policy issues associated with this transition" and the "appropriate policy framework to facilitate and respond to" this shift.

White paper highlights role of muni fiber as U.S. develops national broadband plan

Here's an excellent white paper on the status of U.S. municipal fiber to the premises systems issued this month by the Fiber to the Home Council.

The report lists 57 muni fiber networks that serve both homes and businesses operating as of October 2009 (it adds at least 15 more serve businesses only), noting that "a growing number of municipal governments are taking it upon themselves to build FTTH networks – much in the way that they have previously built roads, sewers and/or electrical systems – as a means of ensuring that local residents have access to necessary services, in this case, Internet connectivity for the 21st Century."

These muni fiber systems typically spring up after private service providers have declined to upgrade their networks or build such systems, the report notes. As such, the white paper concludes, these networks are an important component of the U.S. telecommunications infrastructure and should be encouraged.

That conclusion should be given due consideration by the Federal Communications Communications Commission as it develops a recommendation due to Congress in February 2010 on a national broadband deployment plan.

FCC's Levin: Private sector must foot bill for broadband build out

A Multichannel News item today quotes Blair Levin, the Federal Communications Commission's broadband czar, as telling an FCC meeting last week on the broadband deployment plan mandated by Congress that it will largely fall to the private sector to fund the build out America's broadband infrastructure.

Whatever the cost, FCC broadband consultant Blair Levin conceded that private industry will foot most of the bill.

“We have to recognize that most of this [broadband] ecosystem is funded by the private sector, and we expect that to continue,” said Levin. "But government has a role to move whichever levers are necessary to improve the health of that ecosystem, he said.

I respectfully submit Levin's analysis is too limited in scope. The ecosystem will also require substantial public sector involvement and that of non governmental organizations (NGOs) like nonprofit telecom consumer cooperatives that bridged the gap at the beginning of the 20th century when investor owned telephone companies shunned their communities because they couldn't afford to both serve them and earn a return for their investors.

Reconstructing America's outdated single purpose, copper-based analog telecom infrastucture and replacing it with the open access, next generation fiber to the premises Internet Protocol-based system it needs now and in the future is an enormously costly endeavor that cannot be borne solely by investor-owned telcos and cable companies.

In developing its forthcoming national broadband plan, the FCC has estimated it would cost $350 billion to build this kind of infrastructure. So costly in fact that just days after the FCC issued that estimate, the James L. Knight Foundation issued a report equating the task of building adequate infrastructure ensuring all Americans have access to the modern digital telecommunications necessary for a 21st century democracy to the Eisenhower administration's 1950s project to build the interstate highway system.

Had the private sector been relied upon to foot the cost of the massive highway project, Route 66 might have been in use as the nation's main cross county highway until only recently instead of serving as a reminiscent film setting of post WWII America.

Levin's suggestion the private sector primarily bear the cost of updating the nation's telecom infrastructure is also at odds with remarks by another Obama administration official at the Broadband Stimulus National Town Hall held in Washington in early June. Market failure has constrained the ability of America's privately owned telecom infrastructure to deliver universally accessible broadband-based services, requiring government to fill the gap, Jim Kohlenberger, chief of staff for the White House’s Office of Science and Technology told gathering, according to a BroadbandCensus.com report.

FCC seeks comment on U.S. broadband deployment plan

The Federal Communications Commission is seeking comment on how to best achieve universal broadband access. The FCC's mandate to develop a broadband strategy and deliver it to Congress by February 2010 is required under the federal economic stimulus legislation, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, enacted in February.

Here's a link to the FCC news release.

Coalition calls on next U.S. administration to adopt broadband expansion strategy

Two weeks after the National Association of Telecommunications Officers & Advisors (NATOA) declared the U.S. is at a crisis point on the future of its telecommunications infrastructure, another organization is calling for the next administration to make broadband access an "early and high-level priority."

As with the NATOA, the nternet Innovation Alliance (IIA) advcocates a national broadband strategy it says should be comprised of a "coherent set of policies and goals to accelerate universal adoption of high speed Internet." The IIA calls on the next administration to provide investment incentives and encourage public-private partnerships to expand broadband infrastructure and availability.

“We are at a critical moment in our nation’s history,” said Bruce Mehlman, co-chair of the IIA, which describes itself as a broad-based coalition of business and non-profit organizations. “To compete and win in the 21^st century, we must ensure the United States capitalizes on the extraordinary economic, technological and societal opportunities presented by broadband. The benefits are undeniable and compelling.”

Ironically, one of IIA's members is AT&T, whose failure to invest in upgrading its infrastructure, particularly over the last mile to homes and businesses, is a major cause of the pathetic state of U.S. broadband access.