U.S. Broadband Chief: Philosophy Can Wait
BY Nancy Scola | Wednesday, September 16 2009
Things just got interesting over on the BlogBand. That's the unfortunately named blog written by the folks ensconced within the FCC who are leading the effort, mandated by the stimulus package, to finally cobble together some sort of comprehensive national plan to bring more, faster, and cheaper broadband Internet to the United States.
Blair Levin, the sort of agent without title over on the commission, is pushing back against a criticism that the organization's broadband corps has focused its early efforts on shining a spotlight on the current state of Internet in the U.S., rather than actually coming up with a new, and needed, philosophy of connectivity. Yes, the commission's series of nearly two dozen workshops has been webcast. And yes, the FCC is joining the rest of us in the 21st century by getting jiggy with Twitter, Facebook, and more. Yes, chairperson Julius Genachowski is sitting in the spotlight at the Gov 2.0 Summit next to tech luminary Tim O'Reilly, talking up the sparkling appeal of broadband.
But, the argument you hear bubbling up goes, while the participation of the public is important -- critical, even -- what the commission has thus far failed to do is to really advocate with the full weight of the Obama Administration for a shift in the way that the government regulates, mandates, cajoles, and teases the U.S. towards actually putting more wire in the ground, more connections in the home, and more broadband in the pockets of more Americans. The FCC hasn't challenged what the telecom giants have done, and have failed to do, that has put us in our current state of connectivity. Most importantly, the Obama Administration hasn't even begun to articulate what a muscularly progressive approach to broadband looks like.
But that, blogs Levin, can wait:
Congress...told us to devise a plan that will connect every unconnected home. So if you were trying to solve that problem, where would you start? With philosophy or facts?
Obviously, you need the facts. We need to know how many homes are unconnected, where they are, what the technological options are for connecting them, the cost. Staff got a lot of helpful facts from our workshops, and is busy gathering additional data on this and many, many other questions right now.
Before too long, we will deliver facts and options to the Comissioners, and it will be time to begin discussing philosophical issues, such as the appropriate role of the public sector. But to do so now would cut off critical fact-gathering. Moreover, fact-gathering based on a particular regulatory philosophy could effectively blind us to the importance of information that is right before our eyes.
So step back, Socrates. There’s method in our madness.
In a perfect world, there would be time and money enough to marinate in what went wrong with how the U.S. has thought about the Internet, and to experiment with every approach to correcting those past failings. In a perfect world, maybe, a philosophy of connectivity could blossom all on its own. But the national broadband plan is due on the President's desk by February, and the monies appropriated by the stimulus package, once spent, can't be recalled and reissued when the U.S. finally comes up with a new way of thinking about broadband.