What's In Store for Community Broadband?

From my perspective, community broadband is bound to happen because major environmental forces are pushing cities in that direction and they will prove to be irresistable forces. First, technology pressures favor solutions that are based on IP architecture, that leverage the Internet as a communication medium, that are wireless (mobile), and that empower the edge (individuals) over the core (large distribution companies). Second, economic (market) pressues force cities to compete with all cities worldwide, cities are committed to serving their citizens, and they must lower their costs even while raising service levels - broadband networks and the applications they carry will finally offer too much value to ignore. Finally, the disastrous performance of government at all levels in response to Hurricane Katrina puts an unprecedented focus on the role of government in a disaster, and improvements to communciation infrastructure are inevitable.

Pressure from the Technology Environment
1. Broadband has become a new utility.
2. The maturing Internet is realigning our economy.
3. Technology and innovation have become relentless forces for change.
4. Mobile technology is a better match.
5. Government must go digital to keep up.

Pressure from the Competitive Environment
6. One global marketplace makes every region compete with every other.
7. Cities are committed, for the long haul.
8. Cities are under cost reduction pressures, networks offer business
process improvement opportunities.
9. VOIP drives voice costs down, opens opportunity for dramatic cost
savings for cities.

Disaster Preparation Requires an Alternative Communication Solution
10. Cities must have better, more open and flexible disaster recovery
communication networks.

As for how community broadband will happen, these forces will meet the traditional resistance to change inherent in any institution, and the impacts of the changes will require political compromise. This will take time, and so the implementation of community broadband is likely to follow the penetration curve experienced by most new technologies. How long the pioneer stage lasts will depend on the clash of the forces of change (progress) and the forces of inertia (incumbents). I believe that sooner rather than later, the tipping point will be reached, large and powerful entities will pile on, and community broadband will take off like a rocket. When the community networks interconnect, in the final consolidation phase, we will begin to see the dramatic effects of interconnectivity, not unlike the impacts we see today from the Internet.

Pioneer Stage – Cities Experiment with Municipal Networks
1. Small cities pioneer and large cities follow.
2. All networks are custom, pioneer models become differentiated.
3. Increasing awareness drives adoption.
4. Cities will adopt Public Private Partnership model as most effective.
5. A Killer App will drive adoption of networks – VOIP is most likely
candidate.

Rapid Expansion Stage - Larger Organizations Adapt, Trend Explodes
6. Homeland Security will adopt guidelines for municipal networks.
7. Electric utilities will adopt municipal networks for improved outage
recovery.
8. Homeland Security will require cities to have redundant municipal
networks to be able to communicate in a disaster.
9. Incumbent Broadband Providers will adopt municipal networks to
reach territory that is too expensive for them to serve.

Consolidation Stage - Nodes Transform into a National Network
10. Municipal Networks will be knit together into a national CitiGrid™ for
National Defense.

Please download the PowerPoint slidesand the accompanying white paper by clicking on these links.