Case closed: why most of USA lacks 100Mbps 'Net connections

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: dewayne () warpspeed com (Dewayne Hendricks)
Date: February 24, 2010 1:45:49 PM EST
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <xyzzy () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Case closed: why most of USA lacks 100Mbps 'Net connections

Case closed: why most of USA lacks 100Mbps 'Net connections
By Matthew Lasar | Last updated February 23, 2010 9:42 AM
<http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/02/case-closed-why-most-of-usa-lacks-100mbps-net-connections.ars>

Excitement about the approach of the Federal Communications Commission's National Broadband Plan, due March 17, is 
inspiring ever more dramatic calls for greater high-speed Internet connectivity in the United States. This month, FCC 
Chair Julius Genachowski declared that the agency wants 260 million Americans hooked up to 100 Mbps broadband by 2020. 
Not to be outdone, the Media and Democracy Coalition says that by that same year consumer access to "world-class 
networks" should equal the present rate of telephone adoption (90%+).

As these calls for ever higher benchmarks reach a fever pitch, it's worth remembering some of the grand proclamations 
of yesteryear. Take, for example, the TechNet group's 2002 recommendation that the government should commit to a goal 
of 100 Mbps to 100 million homes and small businesses by the end of the decade—in other words, now. The consortium 
included CEOs and executives from Cisco, Microsoft, and Hewlett Packard.

Principle number one, they declared, was that the US "should foster innovation and reduce regulations—especially with 
respect to broadband applications and services."

But in case you didn't notice, 100Mbps x 100 million didn't happen. About 75 to 77 million Americans currently access 
some kind of broadband, according to the latest data. That's only assuming, however, that you accept 200Kbps as a 
flavor of "high speed Internet." And a huge chunk of the population (over 30 percent) never go online at all—less 
because they're retired and not interested; more often because they can't afford the prices.

So why this shortfall of progress, especially compared to other countries? Some argue that everything is going fine. 
The US is just too spread out, that's all—and we'll catch up in due time. Others contend that we just haven't spent 
enough government or private sector money on the problem. But the big thesis these days is that we missed the boat by 
curtailing wholesale network access to the big telcos and cable ISPs. By making it more expensive for smaller providers 
to link to AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, or Time Warner Cable in order to build out their own middle-mile systems, the 
government condemned most consumers to two ISP choices, at best.

The FCC's own recently commissioned study by Harvard's Berkman Center declared that "there is extensive evidence to 
support the position, adopted almost universally by other advanced economies, that open access policies, where 
undertaken with serious regulatory engagement, contributed to broadband penetration, capacity, and affordability in the 
first generation of broadband."

We're not going to categorically proclaim that this is indeed the solution to the nation's broadband woes. But there's 
no question that the policy of the FCC for the last dozen years has been to make it more expensive and even harder for 
businesses and competitive service providers to get Internet or telephone access (which are increasingly the same 
thing) at regulated rates.

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