Industrial revolutions can punish their pioneers – and that’s what’s happening to the United States in the world of digital communication.
A country can invent a technology, build an infrastructure around it – then see latecomers refine the technology and build a better infrastructure.
Such has been the fate of America’s broadband communication networks, which are looking distinctly antiquated compared to competitors abroad.
Roughly two-thirds of Americans have “high-speed” Internet connections that operate at estimated average speeds of 3 or 4 megabits per second. In contrast, South Korea has succeeded in offering 100-megabit-per-second broadband to all its citizens. Many other countries have likewise leap-frogged the United States – Japan, Australia, Sweden ... the list is long and discouraging.
Hence the need for something like the 10-year “national broadband plan” the Federal Communications Commission offered to Congress this week. Chief among the plan’s goals is to connect virtually all American households to affordable 100-megabit service by 2010.
As always with initiatives this large, the details are messy. The FCC for example, is proposing to free up wireless bandwidth by leaning on broadcasters to share large portions of the electromagnetic spectrum they are currently licensed to use. But in terms of future business opportunities, the value of that spectrum is almost beyond price – and some of the companies likely to share the spectrum could wind up competing head-on against the broadcasters.
Expect a political battle over that idea. Another battle’s sure to erupt over the FCC’s proposal to dip into $8 billion a year now being used to expand telephone service across rural communities. The FCC wants to use some of that money to expand broadband in those very same communities, but telephone companies have successfully defended that pot of money in years past.
The plan would create winners and losers in abundance. Some of the potential losers – such as Comcast and AT&T – could turn into formidable adversaries.
But the ultimate goal of expanded, affordable, genuinely high-speed Internet isn’t negotiable. In the 21st century, a nation’s economic prospects will be tied closely to the power and speed of its broadband network. Broadband access today is as important as the railroads, highways, power grids and other older infrastructures that served as platforms for industrial growth. This country can’t afford to stay leap-frogged for long.
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