The questions not asked and answered during Clinton administration, leading to today's telecom infrastructure crisis

"All of the large ISPs have received considerable federal support to provide universal access over the past few decades, yet all have failed to do so."

So notes Christopher Ali, Pioneers Chair in Telecommunications and Professor of Telecommunications in the Bellisario College of Communications at Penn State University in an interview with Sarah Stonbely, director of the State of Local News Project of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism on the latest federal subsidy program, Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD).

Reflecting back on Ali's synopsis and BEAD -- and with hindsight being 20/20 -- it's clear the following questions should have been posed by public policymakers circa 1992-93 when the Clinton administration and Vice President Al Gore in particular was talking about the “information superhighway” to pave over the analog voice telephone copper roads with digital fiber freeways for the 21st century: 

• Are the telephone companies capable of modernizing the analog copper POTS infrastructure to FTTP for emerging digital, IP telecommunications in the next 15-20 years?
• If so, what regulatory policies will be needed to ensure that happens?
  
• If not, what are the best alternatives to fully relying on the telephone companies? 

As to the first point, the answer would have likely been no -- which became apparent by the end of the first decade of the next century. In a December 21, 2009 filing, AT&T asked the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to sunset the copper-based publicly switched telephone network (PSTN), noting it was in a death spiral. It urged the FCC to modernize its regulations to ensure an orderly transition from the PSTN to an Internet Protocol (IP) based system. The filing also cited the "enormous" amount of capital necessary to modernize the network with the needed infrastructure to ensure all Americans have access to IP-based services.