How Fast?

So the de facto standard for broadband seems to be 3 megabytes per second. The broadband stimulus will favor proposals (at least for now) coming from areas in which more than 50% of residents have under 3Mb/s.

Many folks argue that in order to be competitive with better-wired nations, we need to set a higher national standard. Say, 20 Mb/s everywhere. Or 50. Or more. By this logic, the broadband stimulus needs to support improvements in bandwidth universally, not just showing a preference for un- and underserved areas.

I won't quibble with that argument. I think it's largely true that for too many years our federal policy failed to push speed. Just think, the FCC definition of broadband for most of Martin's tenure was 200 KILObytes/second! Pretty easy benchmark to meet.

I agree that much should be done to promote higher speeds ubiquitously. But for now, we have literally, borrowing from Matelart, a broadband archipelago: islands of pervasive, high-speed access and large oceans of nuthin'. This differentiation threatens to create (or entrench) a technological underclass that is not healthy for the nation as a whole. So stimulating broadband improvements in underserved areas is essential.

The question for those presently in the ocean, then, is what a tolerable level of service is. For some, the stimulus may mean that the capital exists to build a fiber network. For many (if not most) underserved areas, though, the stimulus will be sufficient for fixed wireless, which tends not to allow bandwidths as high as fiber.

So do we hold all communities, rural and urban, to the same standard? I think a national goal of 100 Mb/s is laudable (hell, I support it myself). But I'm enough of a pragmatist to realize that this standard is out of reach without a much larger federal investment than $7.2 billion.

As such, I contend that the excellent should not get in the way of the good. A national goal (say, 100 Mb/s) should not interfere with local build-out at some lower level. When local actors deliberate over their present needs, their perception of future requirements, and the extant logjams to creating service, the outcome is generally a realistic depiction of what standard should obtain for that locale. This is the strength of statewide planning efforts in places like Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, California and elsewhere: coalitions of local residents and leaders have considered (and continue to consider) what solutions are possible for them. Right now. This pragmatic approach should supercede any national standard (which is essentially arbitrary anyway) because it based on a finer-grained depiction of local conditions.

In short, speed standards should be pushed by federal policy. But in the near term definitions of broadband should be an emergent property of a nationally-promoted, locally-conducted grassroots planning process.