Playing Roulette with Your Broadband Future

For good background on these issues, check out the website Teletruth, which will give you lots more detailed information than you can swallow at one sitting. Take my advice, swallow this medicine in small doses. These guys are passionate and persistent, and understandably impatient. They've built up a body of evidence that tells a story. They thoroughly unwrap the complex wrapper that obscures the truth about the companies and government relationships that are currently driving our broadband future. While I'm not altogether convinced at how effective they will be outside the circles of power, I respect their attempt to bring facts and truth to the broadband debate.

BROADBAND ROLLOUT FAILURES

The FCC is also seriously to blame for the current situation with the lack of fiber-based broadband in the US. They have consistently created laws to block competition. Most recently, the FCC has created the "Triennial Review" which closes out competitors from using the customer-financed networks and gives private companies, the Bell companies, the exclusive us of fiber-based networks, as well as shutting down 'line-sharing' which allows Internet providers and competitive local phone companies to use even the older copper networks. Teletruth: Broadband and DSL Issues

By all means, read this history and listen to these and other arguments with a healthy dose of skepticism. They may appear to be kooks, or they may even be kooks. But the value of listening to an unconventional viewpoint is that it puts one's assumed reality in perspective. Indeed, WE ALL may be even bigger kooks for taking at face value the information offered us by multi-billion dollar corporations and government regulators: corporate individuals with competing priorities, with strong incentives to shade the truth and government regulators who have consistently given those they regulate everything they wanted, despite a history of broken promises. Trusting the untrustworthy, now how much sense does that make? Just who is getting played here? Indeed, who is more kooky, after all?

The bottom line for me is as follows.

In the Networked Information Age, our broadband information infrastructure has become too vital to be left in the hands of a select few, operating behind closed doors. Broadband has become too vital to place all of our chances for success on a narrow strategy defined and executed by insiders.

This sentiment is especially poignant when one considers that there now exists an alternative when it comes to broadband. We need to challenge our old way of thinking about this subject and factor in some of these new perspectives. I argue that we should be giving strong consideration to implementing a Plan B that doesn't involve trusting either the government or big business. We need a contingency plan that will shield us from the consequences of making the wrong bet because we followed conventional wisdom.

The challenge we face is that the telecom and broadband story is so complex that most people lack the patience to wade through it. The facts are so mind-numbing as to stagger the imagination. It's hard to believe that this situation continues year on year, yet it does.

But the good news is that we have an alternative to the Trusted Adviser scenario above.

Cities and neighborhoods, investors, property developers, business leaders - each can now take matters into their our own hands and craft their own broadband future. The concept of the Wisdom of the Crowds poses the curious finding that many well-informed individuals are consistently better at making decisions than are a small group of really smart people. That concept holds when it comes to building a better broadband tomorrow - why don't we look to more local solutions for more creativity and less risk?

We know that's true when it comes to investing. Experience has taught us that a well-balanced portfolio of smaller investments produces better results at lower risk than does one big investment. We look for a balance of expected return and acceptable risk. We take control and tailor our risk to meet our needs. As much as we would like to be totally safe regarding the future, nobody has a crystal ball. When it comes to investing, there is no such thing as a Trusted Adviser, although many will claim that title. Look closely at the fine print and you'll see that advice comes at a high price, and even after all those high fees, it's not your adviser that takes the risk, you do. You own it, no matter what.

Don't like the idea of putting all your chips on Red and then watching the wheel spin? Want a second opinion? Don't fret, the good news is that now, we can each choose to manage our own chips for ourselves. The beauty of technology is that we've been liberated from a decision-making paradigm that controlled our future. We don't need any large global telecommunications company to build our broadband future for us. That's what the metropolitan broadband movement is all about.

But for non-telecom people to take the steps needed to gain control of their broadband destiny, they will need to get educated. They will need to raise their Network IQs. And they need to build up their self confidence, to show themselves that they can do at least as well or even better than the phone company has done when it comes to broadband. We still need time to let this movement grow and show us their results.

So keep reading this and other resources. And Happy Risk Taking! The good news about learning about risk is that you tend to make smarter bets the more you lose. You make smarter bets, that is, IF you learn from every loss. So start making some small bets in broadband, just to learn. Track how you do, and compare notes with others. Gain some experience, and as you do, you'll also gain confidence.

In the end, becoming aware and taking control of your own destiny is the only way to really live. Playing it "safe" is for wussies, and increasingly, playing it safe has its own risks. Please, avoid being a wussie - take some chances, live life! Remember - Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

And when "safety" turns out to be a chimera, when the opportunity cost of the safe route turns out to bear little to no reward, and when your "Trusted Adviser" is deemed not worthy of your trust, then the "safe route" is even worse, it's for saps. So please, don't be a sap either. Get smart, get experienced, get real, get busy on alternatives to Status Quo Broadband.