Free the Broadband

TechNet, a consortium of industry CEO’s, has issued a call for a national (US) initiative to get broadband to every household. The main thing the government has to do is get out of the way:

Government policies should foster innovation and reduce regulations — especially with respect to broadband applications and services;

Public policy should encourage new investment in broadband infrastructure and networks through competition and the removal of regulatory uncertainty and disincentives;

State and localities should promote streamlined laws and regulations that encourage broadband investment, and interstate consistency should be achieved whenever possible;

National spectrum policy should utilize market-based approaches that reduce the artificial scarcity of spectrum for valuable broadband applications;

Investment incentives, potentially including targeted tax incentives, should encourage broadband deployment to underserved communities and businesses;

Broadband policy should encourage innovation and government should not pick technology winners and losers.

The members of TechNet are:

John Chambers, CEO of Cisco Systems; John Doerr, Partner with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers; Eric Benhamou, Chairman of 3Com Corporation and Palm Inc.; Paul Gudonis, CEO of Genuity; Tony Ley, Chairman and CEO of Harmonic, Inc; Rick Burnes, Partner with Charles River Ventures; John Young, retired President and CEO of Hewlett Packard; Les Vadasz, Senior Vice President of Intel; Bob Herbold, COO and Executive Vice President of Microsoft; Milo Medin, Chief Technology Officer of Excite@Home.

Sure they’re self-interested. But they’re still right.

An AP article by Brian Bergstein quotes Forrester Research analyst Carl Howe:

“There is no proof, in any way, shape or manner, that says if we give more broadband to everybody it’s going to make us more productive,” he said. ”It will make us more connected. It might make us happier. But I’m not sure it’s a better use of our money than putting 50,000 more teachers in schools.”

First, this isn’t an either/or. Second, the broadband project is likely to cost less than a single year of paying 50,000 teachers a salary (figuring an optimistic average salary of $50K). Third, the aim is to enable the market to find ways to provide broadband profitably, with the government supplying incentives only where the market doesn’t.

More important, no, there’s no proof it’ll make us more productive. But there’s every reason to believe that high speed connectivity will bring forth innovations we haven’t begun to imagine. If we give everyone instantaneous access to all of the digitized workds of humans and instantaneous, high quality access to the global conversation, we will change everything from broadcast TV to how we play music together to how gossip works. So, it may not make us more productive (although it probably will), but it certainly will make us more inventive, more creative, more inquisitive, more connective.

The obstacles are artificial. We need to clear them out of the way. This is a legitimate role for government. Let’s do it because we don’t know what will result. Hell, that’s why we fought them Redcoats 225 years ago.

(David Isenberg and I wrote a rough draft of a similar call, based on an incisive analysis by Roxane Googin. You can read the draft of “The Paradox of the Best Network” at NetParadox.com.)

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