Upgrading America: Achieving a Strategic Bandwidth Advantage And a Psychology of Bandwidth Abundance To Drive High -- Performance Knowledge Exchange

The National Broadband Plan addressed the traditional four questions of telecom policy: how do we get networks everywhere, how do we get everyone on, how do we have a competition framework that drives consumer welfare and how do we use existing networks better? The Congressional mandate to write the plan, however, required us to examine a 5th question: what policies would drive innovation over broadband? This inquiry led to another: a question that both excites and troubles me: What happens if we remove bandwidth as a constraint to innovation?

The question excites me because, as I learned from a brilliant doctor, genetic sequencing—which uses so much bandwidth it is cheaper and faster to send the results by Fed Ex—can revolutionize medicine. Eliminating bandwidth constraints can make this new tool more effective for treating, among other maladies, cancer. The question excites me because, as I learned from numerous educators, immersive gaming technology—which requires massive bandwidth-- can improve the effectiveness of education and job training, particularly for those for whom traditional methods fail. The question excites me because, as I learned from a broad spectrum of people, from those doing scientific research to those providing business services, from those focused on security to those who wish to invigorate civic engagement, the coming age of Big Data has the potential to accelerate advancements in addressing our most vexing problems. But to achieve its full potential Big Data will need Big Bandwidth. The question troubles me for the same reasons.