The Problem With America's Do-Nothing Broadband Attitudes/Policies

While germinating for a while, it recently dawned on me what the central challenge to crafting effective broadband policies is: the do-nothing attitudes of most of America's broadband players.

This line of thinking was set off by reading Blair Levin's truly tremendous speech that he gave recently to the Free State Foundation calling for more robust and reasoned debates surrounding broadband policies. Essentially he was lamenting the prevalence of past dogma limiting new lines of thinking in broadband policy discussions.

That struck right at the heart of this core challenge I alluded to above.

On one side you have incumbents, private operators with existing network assets that for the most part are hugely profitable in today's broadband paradigm. Their do-nothing attitude stems logically from the perspective of not wanting to disrupt the good thing that they've got going. The only changes they seek are those that improve their bottom line, and they'll fight anything that they perceive as potentially harming their profitability.

On the other side you have public interest groups, organizations dedicated to making sure America's broadband infrastructure supports the needs of its citizens. These entities tend to not be satisfied with the state of today's broadband, instead wanting bold, aspirational goals to be set, the kind that can help America recapture its position among the world's broadband leaders. But while they want to see lots of action happen, their do-nothing attitude stems from the fact that the big goals they espouse rarely come with specific plans for how to achieve them. Also, they resist any changes that are perceived to increase the profitability of incumbent providers since they consider them at fault of America's current broadband plight.

Then of course you do have some people like myself in the middle, who see that there's truth to both sides, and that are focused on trying to make sure something tangible is getting accomplished.

The challenge is how can we make real progress when the two cornerstones of broadband policy discussions are taking do-nothing stances?

Making these do-nothing mindsets all the more frustrating is that they're preventing the two sides for recognizing that by taking actions that while on the surface may seem objectionable can in reality help everyone realize a better future.

For example, incumbents are totally against government subsidizing any network buildouts that might introduce competition to legacy, private networks. While there are legitimate questions to be answered about the appropriateness of government competing with private enterprise, what incumbents fail to realize is that the building of open fiber networks could be a boon for their businesses. Imagine not having to spend any more money having to upgrade your physical infrastructure in the field. Imagine being able to reach all new customers without having to pay to put another wire in the ground. That's what open fiber networks allow for. But the problem is incumbents perceive these networks as nothing more than government-sponsored competitors, and as a result they can't accept that tacking action to deploy these networks will produce benefits for them.

On the other side, it's hard to talk about any measures that would increase incumbent profitability without getting upbraided by the public interest community. Take net neutrality as an example. No one will argue with the fact that network operators shouldn't be allowed to intentionally slow down some traffic to favor others. But when incumbents talk about wanting to offer opportunities to speed up traffic, they're decried for wanting to squeeze more profit from their networks and for wanting to destroy the openness of the Internet. While I'm not trying to claim that net neutrality is as simple as this, what's troubling is that those who support the public interest's agenda can't seem to open their eyes to possibilities like rules that would give operators free rein to at least try out offering prioritized access lanes before setting in stone rules around how that would work, so long as they pledge to reinvest a certain portion of those profits into upgrading the open capacity of their networks.

Taking this discussion back to a high level, I think it's important for everyone to understand that the time for do-nothing broadband policies has passed. The FCC's in the process of writing a national broadband plan that Blair Levin clearly wants to be aimed at doing something, at producing tangible results. What's in flux is what needs to be done and how we should do it.

So I'd suggest to incumbents to stop assuming that the only good action is inaction, because otherwise they risk having no direct impact on this process of crafting a national broadband plan other than being seen as obstructionists.

And to the public interest community, it's time to get our act together and to turn our big ideas into concrete, actionable plans. We don't need more rhetoric, we need to have specific suggestions for the steps government should be taking to move our country's broadband future forward.

The opportunity's wide open for all players to directly influence the shaping of a national broadband plan that America can be proud of, but the only way to achieve true progress is to put aside the do-nothing mindset and start working towards building an action-oriented plan.