Broadband Myths: Is It a National Imperative to Achieve Ultra-Fast Download Speeds?

For years, policymakers have asked a series of questions related to broadband speed: How fast is fast enough? What is an appropriate target for rural networks built with government subsidies? Is current competition sufficient to see the speeds we need? Questions around broadband speeds are often legitimate inquiries for public policy, but unfortunately, many of these discussions are mired in myth around the imperative to transition to all-fiber networks in order to achieve universal speeds of a gigabit per second. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is particularly fanatical on the need to transition to fiber networks. EFF asserted that “fiber is so vastly superior to all of its alternatives… that only universal fiber to the home will ensure a network viable for decades of growth.” This is mythmaking of the highest order. Wanting gigabit fiber networks everywhere is like saying we should invest hundreds of billions of dollars to design our freeways so that cars can drive 600 miles per hour. The only problem is cars can’t go that fast. The same is true with broadband. Past a certain speed, the perceived performance for virtually all applications is the same.