[1st-mile-nm] Broadband Policy Imperatives from the Bottom Up

[Richard Lowenberg]

Japan Eyes 10 Gigs by 2010 as United States Sweats 200 Kbps

http://w2i.com/resource_center/the_w2i_report__weekly_newsletter/news/p/newsletterId_/id_187

Peter Orne
Broadband Wireless Communities Blog
12/27/2007

In Japan today, the "point of competition" is a gigabit, and by 2010 it
will be at 10 gigabits, observed telecommunication lawyer and broadband
champion Jim Baller as he kicked off the panel "Broadband Policy
Imperatives from the Bottom Up" at the 15th Digital Cities Convention in
Washington, DC (December 11-12, 2007).

"The dialogue has begun there about how to get to 100 gigabits per second,
and this is all symmetrical. And here in the United States we're talking
about a definition of broadband that is 200 Kbps and some places in the
United States can't get that - or get it at affordable rates. What kind of
country are we when we are talking at that level and the world is moving
so quickly?"

The national digital divide widens when other countries move ahead and the
United States falls behind. But what happens when that disturbing
technology trend pairs with a preexisting shift in the world economy?
Baller quoted from Ted Fishman's China, Inc.: How the Rise of the Next
Superpower Challenges America and the World:

    The far bigger shift, just now picking up steam, is occurring among
the products that manufacturers and marketers trade with each other: the
infinite number and variety of components that make up everything else
that is made, whether it is the hundreds of parts in a washing machine or
computer or the hundreds of thousands of parts in an airplane. And then
there are the big products themselves: cars, trucks, planes, ships,
switching networks for national phone systems, factories, submarines,
satellites, and rockets. China is taking on those industries too.

And it's not just China, Baller noted. It's India, Indonesia, Bangladesh,
Brazil, Russia and every other country that is competing at the low end of
the manufacturing scale.

Evaporation of the U.S. manufacturing base means the creation of
high-technology jobs is essential to maintaining American competitiveness
and standards of living. But what if other advanced countries like Japan
are already far ahead in developing the broadband networks that support a
robust information-based economy?

The statistics are all too familiar now. The United States used to be
first in the broadband rankings. It was fourth by 2001 and had slipped to
10th by 2004. At that time, President Bush issued a strategy promising
that broadband would be available to everybody in the United States by
2007. But today, the U.S. is somewhere between 15th and 24th.

We pay more than four times and get a 10th of the capacity that the
Japanese get, Baller said.
He called for the development of a "national broadband strategy that
fosters prompt and affordable and ubiquitous access to both advanced
communications networks - fiber - as well as wireless."

Trade associations, think tanks, scholars, foundations, high-tech business
leaders are all beginning to talk about what America needs to do, he said.

    * At the federal level, there is growing support for a national
broadband strategy, with support from FCC Commissioners Copps and
Adelstein, and Senators Rockefeller, Durbin, Clinton, Obama, and others.
    * Before Congress are two bills that would prevent states from
interfering with the ability of local governments to step forward and
participate in the growth of broadband. "The key message is that we've got
a national challenge that can be solved only by the public and the private
sectors working together in a spirit of mutual respect and harmony,"
Baller said.
    * At the FCC, there are various rule makings, including defining
broadband more realistically than it has been doing in the past.

"My main message is: We can't stop at making small plans, we can't look at
issues in isolation, we've got to fit together digital inclusion with
economic development, we've got to fit together wireless and fiber, we've
got to fit together the role and the needs of the incumbents with the role
and the needs of communities we're supposed to be serving. Most important,
we've got to recognize that we're missing the big picture: We've got to
get the sewer people together with the entertainment people. We've got to
get the cities together with others."

(snip)

Bottom Up State, Regional and Local Initiative Examples (follow in the
article on the web)


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Richard Lowenberg
P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504
505-989-9110,  505-603-5200 cell

1st-Mile Institute
New Mexico Broadband Initiative
www.1st-mile.com
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