A Declaration of Independence for Broadband Connectivity

Communicating with others is as natural and as necessary to humans as is access to food, clothing, and shelter. Or life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In less modern times, communication would have meant freedom of speech and the right to assemble, speaking one's mind without fear of persecution. Today, those freedoms must be expressed on-line. We need open and robust communication infrastructure to support a healthy democracy and a capitalist market-based economy.

In today's world, access to communication - connectivity - includes broadband Internet access and ubiquitous connection options at the "first/last mile" - out on the ends of the networks. Humans and societies, diminshed in isolation, thrive in collaborative environments, stimulated and supported by high levels of open and affordable communication. We all benefit when we are all connected.

In the United States, telecommunications has historically been provided by large corporations in the private sector, regulated by different levels of government on the public sector side. They have continued in place systems and processes that reflect a sensibiity from a bygone era; our viewpoints as well as our infrastructure have not been updated to provide US citizens the best options, or to make the United States as competitive as it could be.

A dispassionate assessment of the current telecommunications system in the United States must conclude that it is broken, but not beyond repair: most data and voice access in this country is provided by incumbent duopolies (large telecom and cable providers) and access is not available at affordable rates to all citizens in this country, nor does the access we do have take advantage of the most current technological possibilities - we have set the bar very low on what constitutes "broadband," for instance. We are not only behind other nations, we are falling further behind in terms of digital inclusion: even as some segments of our society progress, others that do not become separated by a still wider gap.

To date, the state and federal regulatory and legislative officials that oversee telecommunication infrastructure and services companies as representatives of the public interest have acted, well, conservatively. In general, they have acted more to preserve the status quo and address incumbent player interests than they have to embrace a future enabled by radical technological change. As citizens, we must continue to work within the system that we have to affect positive change and reform, but it looks like it will take a long time for those in power to fix the system, if indeed they are ever successful at reforming themselves. We must pursue an alternate path for connectivity or suffer the consequences. We need independence - we need a "Plan B."

The solution that will benefit the most citizens of the United States may well lie outside of existing authority and power players, so we must begin a separate path around these problems; for better or worse, we need a new connectivity plan - and that's a revolutionary concept. Call it a Declaration of Independence for Connectivity, on this Fourth of July, where we begin an explicit, national dialogue on what it means to be independent with regard to connectivity.

Indeed, technology advances have already set us free and provide us with the tools, but what we're still missing is widespread political will to shake off the old paradigm - when institutions and government act in harmony to keep our options under their control, they exert a very strong hold on our psyches and define our universe of possibilities. When they say "Telecom is a complex scale business - leave it to us to take care of you - your role is to keep on buying and consuming - you're a subscriber for our services," individuals become disempowered and find it difficult to imagine a different way of doing things.

At the individual level, most lack the skills and experience to conceive, much less implement new connectivity concepts on their own and are at a power disadvantage relative to the big strong players in the private and public sectors. Many are unwilling to compete with these giants, having seen others fail in the past. Try getting financing for a new business plan in this area! But working collectively, we can be much more than subscribers and consumers. We can own our networks and produce and distribute our own content.

Some cities are already leading in this parade, but all cities have a role to play and should at least be allies to this new movement. Small, targeted residential and commercial wireless cooperatives and networks are acheivable; we are limited only by our imaginations and political will. Imagine a linked network of infrastructure-access cooperatives - what a vision! Is that so different than global Internet created by linking local area networks with common protocols?

In a future that is less and less predictable, there's safety in a portfolio approach. We may well be much better off as a society with tens of thousands of innovation-friendly cooperative broadband access networks, that each have a few thousand voluntary cooperative members. This is a revolutionary paradigm shift away from the predominate view: a handful of conservative, shareholder-focused telecom corporations that service millions of captive subscribers each, by way of a network infrastructure that was built within a regulatory framework of public subsidies and mandated rates and is even still supported by USF monies.

Decision-makers at large corporations tend to act primarily to preserve and enhance corporate revenues (as well as their jobs and their personal wealth) - it's not only the rules of capitalism that make it so, it's human nature as well to hold on to what one has in the face of threatening change. But why not harness the horsepower of capitalism and human nature to a different paradigm wagon? Community cooperatives, in contrast to the prevailing paradigm, will experiment and learn from each other, reinventing the nature of communications and connectivity.

Telecommunications and Connectivity in the 21st Century face a period of transition and change brought about by a disruptive Internet and advances in digital technology. Ubiquitous connectivity now has the potential to become more "edge-oriented," and we can apply new knowledge about how nature deals with risk and change. Connectivity can and should become more adaptive to change and innovation; it can become more biologically-oriented, developing and changing in a bottoms-up fashion, harnessing the power of natural selection and adopting an ecosystem approach. In a rapidly changing technology world, such a flexible approach makes more sense by better mitigating risk and providing more upside through more rapid adaptation and adoption of new innovations.

There is a middle path between big traditional incumbents and newer municipal wireless franchises on the one hand, and more radical non-profit community network approaches on the other hand. That middle way is customer-owned, professionally-managed community cooperatives. Moving expeditiously past this infrastructure debate, visionary communities can install networks and cross over to the more interesting and rewarding world of new broadband and wireless applications, showing the rest of us the way to go.

Our national community should pursue a more action-oriented discussion on this provocative idea of customer-owned networks. Every community across the US should begin with this conversation - everything interesting starts with a conversation, and there is much work to do.

Principles for Connectivity Independence

1. Complexity v. Simplicity. Wired or wireless networks are complex, to a degree. Complexity doesn't go away with independence, but it's no longer used as a smokescreen either. We should infer from rules like Occam's Razor that the best solution is likely to be the simplest solution. A simpler design can minimize complexity and we should be free to pursue more simple solutions to connectivity.
2. Professional Operators. But these networks will not be simple to deploy or maintain = they could be owned by the customers in cooperatives = YES - but they will need to be deployed, managed, and maintained by professionals. Telcos? Perhaps, but network operators could be a network of smaller firms using standard operating processes, or a new large company or an existing large company - keys will be network expertise and financial staying power.
3. Local involvement. One way would be to have Limited Partnerships with local investors funding the networks and recovering their investment from cooperative dues with interest. Nobody understands a local area better than natives, so they would be the best boosters - give them an incentive by making them the long-term financiers. The General Partner could be public or private, but could put up money as well as expertise.
4. Corporate Sponsorships. National, regional, and local sponsors can support network infrastructure deployments, not unlike the sponsors of neighborhood baseball parks whose signs line the outfields. This would be sponsorship like the US commercial TV network enjoyed at the beginning, and public broadcasting has enjoyed since - the public radio and TV model could work for public broadband as well. And if a giant like Microsoft wanted to start the next parade and get out in front, it could sponsor these networks through some kind of matching program, as a charity. Microsoft could generate a lot of momentum and begin to change its corporate image by getting out in front on this issue.
5. Popular Culture Buy-In. Not everyone is on the same page with the pundits and blogs, or has even given these ideas an iota of thought, for that matter. In fact, most are not, and many can't imagine a world without cable companies and telcos. That's why wireless neighborhood demonstration networks are a good transition to the fiber networks that are the ultimate connectivity. We have to start somewhere, and wireless is a low hurdle. We need time and lots of demonstrations to capture the imagination of the masses, and starting with a massive number of small wireless networks is the best way to get the Man on the Street intimate with a new broadband paradigm. Municipal wireless should move in this direction.

This is just a beginning - please add to this draft and look for changes over the near term.