Broadband at the Edge: Now a Public Utility?

These Internet and access issues came about only quite recently, in historical terms. According to the Internet Society, in A Brief History of the Internet, the Internet arose from the ARPANET, a US Defense Department-funded project to connect individual research networks. After that catalysis by the feds, organic growth took over.

By 1990 the ARPANET was decommissioned, and by 1995 the term "Internet" was adopted. But the key point I take away from reading this history is this:

The Internet is as much a collection of communities as it is a collection of technologies, and its success is largely attributable both to satisfying basic community needs and to utilizing the community in an effective way to push the infrastructure forward.

From such community origins, the Internet enjoyed dramatic, unprecedented growth as an emergent network, with its dramatic expansion driven from the bottom up. So by the mid 1990s, the Internet starts to look more like what we know today. But last mile access remained somewhat crude.

Remembering dial-up makes me shiver. A data modem let one use telephone lines to connect, but it was slooooooow. Remember this adage? "WWW = World Wide Wait."

Maintaining the status quo, telecommunication companies focused on selling extra phone lines to residential consumers and relatively expensive T-1 lines to businesses. In so doing, they missed the initial mass uptake of broadband (hindsight really is 20/20). Competing cable systems brought consumers an improved, faster data service over cable TV infrastructure, where it gained the names "high-speed Internet access" and "broadband," based on its ability to carry lots of data at high speeds.

Looking at the introduction of first cable, then DSL broadband, the rapid adoption of broadband where it has been made available is further evidence of its essential nature. This move from slow to high speeds has made broadband as qualitatively different from dial-up as the move to the automobile was from a horse drawn economy.

But at this very early stage - remember, we are only ten years into the Broadband Era, a mere blink of an eye when it comes to history - it's too soon to rest on our laurels. We are an impatient society, with tremendous pressure to adopt technology and innovation to remain competitive. We must acknowledge that the extension of broadband last mile infrastructure has failed to keep up with the demand for the services the infrastructure enables. Why is that?

First, FCC policies set the bar low and make the situation appear better than it is (calling 200 Kbs broadband, while Japan enjoys 20 Mbs as a broadband standard). Second, private sector companies go where the money is, so the result in coverage is more than likely urban and far from universal. At a higher level, the result is that availability of very high speed services compared to other countries is relatively minimal. While the telco/cable duopoly argues that progress is being made, society grows impatient.

So, back to the utility question. Why take a utility approach? Being argumentative, I might ask, why not? After all, continuing to do the same thing is unlikely to give us different results, is it? How long do we wait for the duopoly approach to bear fruit?

Treating broadband as a utility must be seen as a viable alternative to the status quo, especially in the non-prime markets. While private companies did indeed provide the energy and initiative behind this first wave of broadband extension, and we should give them their due, much more is possible. Driving broadband service over their existing networks made for a good start, but choosing between cable and DSL broadband need not remain our only option.

In fact, doing so is bound to limit the expansion and adoption of broadband as the task of extending the network grows tougher. As a society, we need a fresh approach, another alternative, and thinking in terms of a public utility is a practical way forward.

Broadband service is essential to residential, business, and government consumers. For those who enjoy broadband at work and home, a return to dial-up is truly unthinkable. For those who have yet to experience broadband, we know what awaits them - it’s a one-way service, you don't go back. New customers will take the service when it becomes available at the right price, because they need to communicate with their loved ones and their customers, and because Internet-delivered services and IP applications have become the norm of modern society.

A utility approach is highly efficient because it spreads costs out over a broad population and allows a long-term cost recovery period. By letting go of the duopoly paradigm, which has served us well so far, but has its limits, we free ourselves and society of its limits. By recalling models from the past, we see how we brought about our other essential services, from water and wastewater to natural gas and electricity. We have models to draw on to extend broadband to the last mile.

Under a utility paradigm, we accept that it is the role of all society, not just its telecom and cable providers, to finance and build the infrastructure necessary to provide broadband service to all consumers at an affordable rate. That approach drove the penetration of electricity and later, telephone service, and such a universal service model brought about dramatic economic development benefits.

And by accepting diverse methods and technologies to provide such ubiquitous service, as a society we can harness the power of a portfolio and iterative feedback loops to manage risk and exploit innovations.

Broadband at the last mile around the globe has been most successful so far in tightly knit societies with dense populations and where there is strong national government guidance and leadership. An American approach could be, must be different. We're too big a country, and we don't like heavy central control at the federal government level anyway. We do have an independent streak, though, which we should tap into.

Extending broadband on such a scale to cover the nation would mirror the extension of early electric and telephone networks, which were seen as utilities to be provided to all citizens and businesses at affordable rates, because they were essential to society. So is broadband.

I would urge this debate to be joined far and wide. Where broadband infrastructure is slow to build out, why not try a utility approach? It's worked before.