The Flawed Focus of Universal Broadband
[Commentary] This month, the Federal Communications Commission begins drafting a national broadband plan as part of the 2009 stimulus package. This is not the first government attempt at broadband ubiquity, so the FCC can learn from past failures. A new public fund to subsidize Internet access for poor and rural residents is not likely to be effective. Consider the case of E-Rate, a US$2.25 billion FCC fund created in 1997 to connect all children to the Information Age by underwriting up to 90 percent of the costs of hard-wiring classrooms and libraries. Since its conception, however, E-Rate has been a bust. A better way to solve the broadband question is through reducing the regulatory and taxation burden on the entire communications sector, and creating incentives to stimulate private broadband investment. The alternative of increasing government broadband management is a top-down strategy that makes for feel-good committee meetings but ignores important market realities. Consider the implosion of municipal wireless networks, or "muni WiFi," which never worked as a sustainable business model because it glossed over the importance of profits and capital reinvestments.
[Sonia Arrison is senior fellow in technology studies at the California-based Pacific Research Institute.]
The Flawed Focus of Universal Broadband