SPEAKOUT: Broadband for all

State's economic health depends on faster rollout

By Phil Weiser

Friday, April 11, 2008

Over the course of the 2008 presidential campaign, candidates will discuss a variety of issues critical to our economy and national competitiveness. One issue, however, remains conspicuously off the radar screen: how the federal government, states and localities should address the development of broadband Internet access.

By all accounts, broadband is the fastest growing consumer electronics technology in U.S. history. Nonetheless, other countries have enjoyed faster growth in their adoption of broadband, spurring concerns that the U.S. is losing its status as a leader in the Internet age. There are a number of reasons why the international comparisons are questionable, but those reasons do not justify the lack of federal policy leadership in this area.

Access to broadband is already, just a decade after its introduction, the most critical gateway technology to the information age. The ways in which people work, create companies, learn and access entertainment are forever changed by this technology. And the broadband revolution is just getting started. Consider, for example, that the ability of broadband technology to facilitate dramatic improvements in available educational offerings and health-care delivery is only beginning to be developed. In part because some of these opportunities have yet to emerge, the pace and nature of broadband deployment are often ignored or underappreciated by policy-makers at all levels of government.

As many have observed, the Bush administration has largely failed to develop any framework for broadband policy. This policy of benign neglect is most unfortunate because broadband is not just like any consumer electronics technology. Rather, it provides a crucial platform for delivering education (bringing advanced courses into every home and school), providing health care (allowing doctors to offer diagnoses at a distance), and driving economic development (enabling Internet-based businesses to be located anywhere).

Thankfully, Gov. Bill Ritter recognized the importance of broadband deployment in his Colorado Promise, calling for the development of a Broadband Infrastructure Task Force to develop a strategy for addressing the issue. This task force is now up and running as a part of the Governor's Innovation Council.

The first step to spurring the deployment and adoption of broadband connections throughout a state is to map the presence of broadband, following the old maxim of "you can't manage what you can't measure." To that end, Sen. Gail Schwartz, D-Snowmass Village, has introduced Senate Bill 215, which, if enacted, will call on the state's chief information officer, working with the council, to engage in such a mapping effort in Colorado.

This important step would inform established and upstart broadband providers of where there are opportunities to extend service and would form the basis for developing any appropriate government programs to encourage the rollout of broadband to unserved areas. In short, this initiative would enable the state to focus its efforts to champion the deployment and adoption of broadband technology in those areas that have yet to do so.

In theory, broadband technology will enable more remote areas to overcome many of the challenges they have historically faced - getting access to top-flight teachers for their students; gaining access to enhanced health-care services; enabling companies to locate there and be a seamless part of modern commerce; and affording access to top-flight cultural and entertainment opportunities.

In a cruel irony, however, the areas that can often benefit most from broadband are often those without access to such connections. To be sure, Colorado and the U.S. government could take the view that the technology will roll out to those areas eventually and thus a policy of benign neglect is the right one. In my view, however, allowing another three or five or seven years to lapse before deciding to take action is not a risk we should take. If we do, we will ensure that young, talented individuals will not locate in areas not served by broadband and that those who are already there will leave them, thereby undermining Colorado's standing vis-a-vis other states and in the world economy more generally.

Phil Weiser, a telecommunications law professor and executive director of the Silicon Flatirons Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder, is a co-chairman of the Broadband Infrastructure Task Force, part of the Governor's Innovation Council.

• April 11, 2008

  6:58 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  jjez writes:

  Who is supposed to pay for the deployment to expand the network? Do you think there are no construction costs? How do you think the equipment to provide HSI gets there? By some magic wand? The technology to provide HSI isn't a simple "flip of a switch". It's rather complicated to provide broadband. You're a law professor with, evidently, no background in telecom engineering or economics. I have no college education, but I do know that investment with little return on the dollar isn't something that a publicly traded company can justify to it's shareholders. However, maybe now that the last rural community in Kentucky or Tennessee or where ever finally has dialtone, maybe the money we consumers pay into the universal service fund can be used to build up the HSI network. If the federal government ever realizes that KY & TN aren't the only rural areas in the country, that is.

• April 12, 2008

  6:54 a.m.

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  Mike_In_Hartsel writes:

  A chicken in every pot, a car in every garage, and a TV set in every living room. Let's pay for it from the money tree that grows out back. Just shake some bills off today because more will grow back overnight.

  Another Colorado professor promoting socialism on the public payroll. When will we learn?

• April 12, 2008

  12:37 p.m.

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  Gene writes:

  Well Algore was all for wiring our schools, and we got hosed instead. Socialism for all !

• April 12, 2008

  5:30 p.m.

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  Hank writes:

  Mike_In_Hartsel - Hartsel gets its electricity from IREA, an REA
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_Ut...
  formed by the government so rural areas could have electricity.

  So are you going to stop being a hypocrite and disconnect from your socialized electricity?

• April 12, 2008

  6:21 p.m.

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  infidel91 writes:

  I guess there's just no area of human endeavor that a little government intervention can't make better.

  Sincerely,
  State Revenue Generation Unit #3083995

• April 13, 2008

  7:15 a.m.

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  Mike_In_Hartsel writes:

  Hank, the next sound YOU hear will be YOUR foot going into YOUR mouth. Our house is 100% solar and wind power. We are ten miles from the nearest powerline. Our telephone is satellite and radiophone. You knowest not of what you speak. (FYI, Wikipedia is not an absolute source) All municiple electrical power is socialistic in nature and must be for it to work.

  Your response was not valid. There are some socialized functions from which conservatives cannot opt out even if they wanted, such as social security, and that doesn't make them hypocrites. If Uncle wants all of my contributions from 1963 to present, Uncle can have them. I did not plan to ever collect because I did not base my survival on the government supporting me in my old age. I saved and invested.

  Government by its nature is socialistic. The extent to which it becomes socialism depends upon the people. Drinking municiple water doesn't make one a hypocrite since it is the only water source around even though it was government-funded. You really must come up with a better retort.

• April 13, 2008

  9:12 a.m.

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  Gene writes:

  That is funny. When I read Hank yesterday, thought to myself, 'wonder if Mike_in_Hartsel is on the grid?'

• April 13, 2008

  3:48 p.m.

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  SASQUATCH writes:

  "As many have observed, the Bush administration has largely failed to develop any framework for broadband policy."

  But, on the other hand, the brilliant and enlightened Ritter called for commission #8,678 to study, analyze and gather information. Why? Because Ritter would like to figure out a way the government could enter the broadband business and then tax everyone to make their solution and participation work.

  In the meantime, the less enlightened Bush didn't need a commission to tell him that he (America) isn't in that business and that broadband is rightfully in the arena of private industry. And as we all know, private inductry can do anything better and less expensively than big government. Sorry professor, but even the Post Office would be a more efficient operation if your big government policies and big government solutions were not part of the equation. And just imagine how much more efficently CU could be run if it didn't recieve tax dollars and all the expensive, redundant, social engineering bells and whistles that go along with it?

• April 13, 2008

  4:35 p.m.

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  Brix57 writes:

  Interesting article that brings many points to ponder.

  Who should pay for it? Why, the same companies that build it. We had much the same argument way back when the cable companies were starting out back in the '80's and much of the same when cell phone service was spotty, to say the least. The costs are passed onto those that use the services.

  Cable is almost dominant everywhere, along with cell phone service. There may be places that you cannot get cable or cell phone services, but that gap is narrowing each day. Even those that live off the grid of electrical services can get cell phone services. Different technologies.

  Speed is the big challenge of broadband services here in Colorado. Unless you live in one of the few places that have fiber (i.e., rich), you have to settle for the mundane cable and phone that top out at 8 and 1.5 megabytes per second, respectively.

  There was talk only a few years ago of a new way of delivery called WiMax that has really never caught on to provide that "last mile" of services. Intel and others made the chips to provide this capability and never went anywhere with it due to the problems with copyrighted data perhaps being sent.

  Don't blame the companies for not deploying this, but most of the blame lies upon the companies that sue about the transfer of data. RIAA is perhaps the largest that has stifled any development is this area.

• April 13, 2008

  8:09 p.m.

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  prk166 writes:

  If this service is as essential as claimed, why is it these towns are asking others to pay for it?

• April 13, 2008

  8:16 p.m.

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  arby writes:

  The Federal, State and Local governments need to stay out of this. Look a the mess they made of the phone system and the television and radio. The FCC should just go to sleep and let commerce do its job. If HSI is a product that marketing research decides people want then it will be built and the companies that provide it will take the gamble. That is Capitalism!

• April 13, 2008

  11:35 p.m.

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  roofingbird writes:

  Perhaps you are unaware. Senator Clinton has proposed in her “Rural Agenda web site download” the following:

  “Broadband for All - Hillary has proposed a national initiative to bring broadband
  access to America's rural and underserved regions. She will ensure that we get
  broadband to rural Americans who don't have access now. She will strengthen tax
  incentives for extending broadband to underserved areas; support state and local
  broadband initiatives, from new wireless technologies to high-speed fiber optics. She
  will also get the rural utilities service to distribute the broadband funds more equitably and efficiently. Hillary will also create a new public private partnership, modeled on the successful Connect Kentucky program which has dramatically improved roadband access. The initiative has stimulated significant private investment and has increased the state's broadband coverage rate to over 90%.”

• April 13, 2008

  11:53 p.m.

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  roofingbird writes:

  Here’s my feeling. Many cannot afford cable or broadband, even if it is available. I read somewhere 2-3 years ago that perhaps 30% did not have access to cable or digital TV. I believe that with current economic situation that figure may still be true or even be higher. It is certainly true in my neighborhood. Of my sixteen block neighbors, only one other is on dial up like me. It appears that three have cable. Four houses are in foreclosure. I had broadband six years ago until companies changed; now I could get it again, but have chosen not to. It has become an interesting experiment. No useful video, TV or Radio stations, very few newspapers issuing texts of important events like political debates. So my contention is, many people are effectively being disenfranchised due to cost or actual unavailability. We need something like the Rural Electrification program of the 30’s to get all of us up to speed and educated.

• April 14, 2008

  1:50 p.m.

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  infidel91 writes:

  "We need something like the Rural Electrification program of the 30’s to get all of us up to speed and educated."

  Translation: We need your money, fellow Americans, and we want the government to take it from you and give it to us.

• April 14, 2008

  6:10 p.m.

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  roofingbird writes:

  I know I know, Maybe you are a Libertarian. However, I point out that while we all pontificate about capitalism, self made attributes and the joys of the individual, the wealth of the nation is being carried on an ever sharper needlepoint. The middle class is being lost. Hungry, tired, displaced people do not perform work. Uninformed, misled undereducated people cannot compete. You don’t see it if you have broadband, because you are all talking to each other. It currently takes me a determined 20 minutes to watch a 30 second uTube snippet. Of 20 debates so far I’ve seen one, because they were all on cable. It you truly want this country to compete, it’s time to consider broadband a necessary education tool and pay for it like roads.