DC: We’ll see your 1 Gig, raise you 100 Gig

[Commentary] Dec 7 as a pretty good day for Washington, D.C. residents and business and, yeah, even the Federal government. The city-owned 100-gigabit, middle-mile DC Community Access Network (DC-CAN) opened for business.

One of the benefits of this project is that it should open eyes to the fact that a few billion dollars in broadband stimulus money was committed to middle mile infrastructure, but it’s not clear how many last mile projects will spring up to connect to them. How DC-CAN resolves this issue could influence some Federal policy decisions, since the network is essentially a test bed in their own front yard. DC-CAN’s middle-mile 100 gigabit network is an awesome step for better broadband access by all of the city, including the Federal government (it’s somewhat ironic watching FCC live Webcasts slow to a crawl due to overloaded broadband connections). But it’s only the first step. Now the city must effectively entice service providers to tackle the last mile, or gather the political will to build its own last-mile network to the homes and businesses needing cheaper, better broadband.