[1st-mile-nm] Jim Baller Posting
Richard Lowenberg
rl at radlab.com
Tue Jan 15 11:47:42 PST 2008
Last week, I posted a critique from Public Knowledge, of the Connect
Kentucky and Connected Nation broadband initiatives. There's been some
back and forth exchange on this, online. Jim Baller, a leading telecom.
lawyer, posted the following, yesterday. He takes a most intelligent
position in his conclusion. (There is a link to the Baller/Herbst Law
Firm web site on the 1st-Mile web site's Resources page.)
rl
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AMERICAs GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS
Many of you have asked me to comment on
the controversy surrounding ConnectKentucky/
Connected Nation. Here are my first impress-
sions.
On this list and elsewhere, I have repeatedly
praised CK/CN for their broadband mapping,
consumer education, and demand aggregation
activities. While some of their claims seemed
exaggerated to me, I gave them the benefit of
the doubt. At the same time, I often expressed
concerns about their limited, incumbent-centric
vision of Americas broadband needs and about
their strong bias against public broadband
initiatives.
In his lengthy article, Art Brodsky has now
called many of CK/CNs claims into question.
Brian Meffert has responded on behalf of
CK/CN. Links to both pieces appear below.
I hope that Mr. Meffert will provide a more
detailed response, that Mr. Brodsky will
reply, and that the unnamed sources to
which both refer will step forward and
enlighten us about what really happened
in Kentucky. In a matter of this import-
ance, we need to know the facts, and we
should not pre-judge them in either
direction.
Wherever the truth may lie, however, my
main concerns about the CK/CN will remain.
In 2002, the US Department of Commerce
issued a report entitled Understanding
Broadband Demand in which it observed
that It is important to note here that the
current generation of broadband technol-
ogies (cable and DSL) may prove woefully
insufficient to carry many of the advanced
applications driving future demand. Today's
broadband will be tomorrow's traffic jam,
and the need for speed will persist as new
applications and services gobble up existing
bandwidth. http://tinyurl.com/34e49y
Now, six years later, we can clearly see how
prescient the Department of Commerce
was. While CK/CN are stuck on single-
digit DSL and cable modem speeds, the
worlds leading nations are pushing rapidly
toward speeds of 100 Mbps and 10 Gbps.
Such speeds will completely tip the balance
of innovation and competetiveness in their
favor. Ironically, the bandwidth-rich appli-
cations that these nations will foster would
clog the arteries of the puny systems that
CK/CNs initiatives would produce.
To remain a leader in the emerging global
economy, the United States needs a much
bigger vision than CK/CNs. We need to give
all Americans, including those in the rural
areas that CK/CN would serve, candid and
unbiased information about the stakes
involved and about the full range of options
available to their communities. Moreover,
we cannot afford to exclude any potentially
viable initiative public or private -- that
can help the United States fulfill its vision.
To be sure, we need reliable map of broad-
band availability as well as speed, quality,
and price. No one disputes this, and many
tools are emerging to achieve this. We also
need better consumer education, including
accurate data about offerings of incumbent
and competitive providers. At the very least,
CK/CN deserve credit for highlighting these
needs.
But even more, America needs a national
broadband strategy that is worthy of this
great Nation. This can happen only if all
major stakeholders, including the incum-
bents, candidly acknowledge that America
faces a tremendous challenge, that time is
short, and that the public and private
sectors must work together, in a spirit of
mutual respect, to meet this great chal-
lenge. We cannot allow the CK/CN
controversy to bog us down or divert us
from developing such a strategy.
Jim Baller
------------------------------------------------
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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