National Broadband Plans: From Vision to Strategy to Execution

Blair Levin delivered a speech in Qatar at a symposium marking the release of the country’s National Broadband Plan. Asked to provide some comments on it in the context of outlining lessons learned from National Broadband Plans around the world, Levin suggested, “The execution of the Plan is more important than the Plan itself. Good execution can correct for any errors in the Plan. A great plan with lousy execution will ultimately fail.”

He also noted that Plans erred in focusing too much on aspirations, saying ”Aspiration is easy, execution is hard.” The US National Broadband Plan architect also explained how the Federal Communications Commission tried to send that message to policy makers in the United States with use of Shakespeare “but we were probably too subtle.” Levin also noted that all Broadband Plans have the same four foundation stones: use spectrum more efficiently; drive fiber deeper into the network; get everyone on the network in one or more places; use the platform to deliver public goods more effectively. Consistent with the theme of execution, he noted that whether the country achieved the stated goals of competition and speed has very little to do with the goals themselves and everything to do with how the country “allocates spectrum and creates incentives to deploy fiber.” Levin said that while spectrum is not more important than the other three, “it is, however, the most important to get right because it is harder to course correct. If initial efforts fail to drive fiber deeper, get everyone on, and use the platform well, you can adjust rapidly. If you allocate spectrum in ways that do not work well, the embedded owners and users of the spectrum will make it difficult to shift.”