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Former FCC Chief Touts "Big Broadband"
Anonymous Coward writes "Reed Hundt has a vision about building a 10 to 100 Mbps network for every household in the U.S. He makes a great case for why it should be done and how we can pay for it.
What's interesting about this piece is that Hundt advocates a new approach to universal service. Instead of giving away broadcast spectrum (for HDTV) and maintaining (ancient, inflexible) phone lines, we should spend money on building out a next generation fiber network to every household, and run both HDTV and phone over that network. Then we can stop funding the phone network (which is pretty much maxed out anyway) and sell off the HDTV spectrum for 10s of billions of dollars."
The telco lobbies will be swift and vengeful.
The FCC gives an excuse to the morality police to control content. I don't want the government or politicians going anywhere near my network. I'll just say no, thank you.
As someone who no longer watches TV, and only grudgingly pays for a cable modem, it'll take a lot of convincing that I should spend any of my money to increase the GIGO throughput to my house.
The Iowa Communications Network provides an interesting case study in ways that networks, concieved by politicians, can indeed be built without excessive pork attached. Governor Branstead pretty much put himself in charge of it. It has revolutionized educational communications throughout the state and brought theretofore unheard of opportunities to small colleges and high schools.
So, in a word, it *can* be done without the pork and failure. *Will* it is a different issue.
See:
Don't mind me, I'm just naturally cynical.
That being said, I do believe that FTTP (Fiber to the Premises) is where we will eventually end up. THe question is, do we make that our goal now and move directly to achieve it, or do we wander around aimlessly in the broadband desert for forty years, waiting and suffering through every concievable combination of DSL, vDSL, Fixed wireless, satellite, cable, and carrier pigeon, before we get where we're going.
I prefer the direct route.
CHeers!
"The only good windmill is a tilted windmill."
On the other hand, if we rolled that out we'd have alot more decentralized fast networks and the internet could be about connected peers again instead of the consumer/producer model we've got now.
You are confusing the notion of access service providers with utility providers. Stop thinking about Internet access as something you get from a specific telephone or cable company. Think of it like electricity. You can have competing billing providers all offering their own distinct plans. But just one 'utility' that builds and sells the physical access wholesale to the access service providers, who then resell it to the end-users.
A DSL or cable line would give them the same (downstream) bandwidth.. and they don't need the upstream..
Why do they do this?
Given that many, many families in the US are below the breadline, surely ensuring that all families have enough fresh fruit and other handy items rather than an effecient porn and warez deployment mechanism would be a better idea?
r .htm
Check out:
http://www.usccb.org/cchd/povertyusa/povame
I thought the article was interesting, but I have a couple of questions that the writer completely ignored.
First, as someone above mentioned, if the FCC were to regulate this in any way, would that mean that they could impose decency standards to the content delivered? I would hope not, but I can see the FCC trying to do it.
Second, would the services coming over the physical medium be purchased from the group that maintains the physical structure? Or would you be free to shop around? Would we have cable providers or would you order your channels directly (e.g. directly order HBO, comedy central, etc. seperately - a la carte)?
Third, what about tying in cellular phones? Basically like using VOIP and wireless access points. If you have the fiber everywhere, just add the access points to act as cell towers.
-dave
/., where "Apple and Google provide Iran with nukes" will be refuted with "But Microsoft is a convicted monopolist"
Why do you need more video streams than there are people in the house?
"...we should spend the money..."
Who is "we" here?
"...we...sell of the HDTV spectrum..."
Who is "we" here?
I'll wager the first one is the Joe Taxpayer, and the second is not, no matter how they spin it.
(Stolen sig) Remember: it's a "Microsoft virus", not an "email virus", a "Microsoft worm", not a "computer worm
Cable, phone and internet over the same line?
Does it come with a free carrier pigeon to contact tech support when there are problems?
Now imagine every household being connected to the Internet with a permanent broadband connection. Most people use unpatched Windoze boxes and don't get the idea that their infrastructure could do any damage to the Internet. With broadband access and powerful PCs, they don't even notice any abusive performance loss or bandwidth consumption. Not to speak of Windoze Media Center, which barely requires any IT knowledge to operate a PC.
So broadband access for every household might be a good idea, but only if infrastructure is safe enough (e. g. require routers/firewalls) and ISPs' abuse staff would be able to prevent trojaned customer boxes ASAP from polluting the Internet.
... Such fees go into a pool to provide the needed incentives to network operators to expand their broadband networks out to those who otherwise might be cut off. .
. .
Isn't one of the benefits of the internet it's access to everyone? Shouldn't we help bring such access to all of those in our country who otherwise might be cut off from it and who are willing to pay for it?
Uhhh... no. I actually pay quite a bit to have my internet and cable pumped into my house, and you're saying I should have to pay more so someone in podunk South Dakota can have broadband internet access? I mean, it's great that the schools can have a T1, but you choose to live in these places, why should I have to fund your internet?? I know people in suburban Boston who base their house-buying decisions on whether the area is broadband-connected or not. If it's not, it's a serious detraction. If you want to live in that area, you deal with the fact that there is no broadband.
Besides, it's not like the internet is not avaialble to these regions. There is still dialup, or even Satellite internet service. I'm sorry you live in the middle of nowhere and there's no infrastructure for broadband, but it's still a luxury in my eyes, not something that taxes and fees should be paying for. You say these fees benefit consumers, but from your example they're benefiting the small minority of consumers while the majority that are paying are left with no benefit at all.
Taking care of public networks -- whether they are roads, water, power, telecomm, etc -- is exactly what local/regional governments should do (preferably with federal support). They have the necessary scope for the job, and unlike commercial interests they don't have disincentive to spend money on routine maintenance and expansion.
Let private enterprises compete fairly at the back end to provide whatever goods and services are sent down the pipes. Let government provide said pipes for all to use, unlike our current highly cutthroat but also highly inefficient networks.Yup, you might consider it narrow minded, but thats my viewpoint.
The cost of living in those areas are substantially less than in the cities and major metropolitan areas. The problem isn't the idea of people in those rural areas having Internet access or digital cable, its the assumption they make that they should pay the same as I do. Thats's BS, because the cost to provide the service to them might be 10x what mine is. So charge them $400 for their broadband connection. They're paying $2000 a month less in mortgage cost than I am, so I have no sympathy for them. If they don't like that, then they ought to take a good hard look at cheaper delivery methods. Satellite TV, longer range wireless Internet access, wireless phone service are all technologies that are far cheaper to deliver than the equivalent wired technologies. Remove the subsidies for the build out of these rediculous physical infrastructures, and all of that stuff would rapidly come in to fill the void, and remove a enormous source of corporate welfare in this country.
Example: China has 3G wireless phone service and internet access throughout most of the countryside. Why? Because it costs too damn much to run wires everywhere. They were intelligent about it. I've seen it with my own eyes -- people most Americans would consider peasants with satellite TV, and high speed internet access via their cell phones living in cinder block houses with no windows.
People in the country shouldn't suffer from lack of access, the rest of us just shouldn't pay for it, thats all I'm saying. The world was a different place than it was in the early 20th century, these 100 year old concepts of how to bring technology to the rural areas are antiquated and holding us back.
Standard chicken and egg problem... No one's going to invest in developing a product that requires 100Mbps to the home because it will take years or decades for that to become widespread. And since there are no applications that require that much bandwidth, there's no demand for 100mbps to the home, so no one will invest in it.
However, you're right that the ideas in this article would have much more merit if there were even *plans* for such services on the drawing board. Our current voice and cable networks are apparently "good enough" for the vast majority of users, and VOIP and TVOIP would not be that much better than current services to justify the cost of switching. Hunt is also neglecting the fairly large time during which *both* networks would have to be maintained; the old voice and cable networks couldn't be shut down until the new 100Mbps network approached their penetration levels, which would take years or decades.
Your wireless network is not switched. Your cable couldn't deliver a good HDTV stream (well no cable modem I've heard of, the cable itself is capable), if you are the luckiest person going it just might handle a full quality DVD stream/DVB broadcast in PAL (8mbs). You also cannot compare the speed of your wireless lan with the speed of a potential wan connection, it's like someone saying, now I have a 10mbs hub, there's no need to upgrade my 19200baud modem, there just isn't a connection or if there is one it has the opposite effect of what you want, where the desire is to have a wan connection as broad as your lan could take! Finally the difference between a symetric network and a asymetric (like dsl) cannot be underestimated, it makes the difference between having a network of peers or a network of leeches. Do you want to be able to use your hdtv videocamera for a video call?
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
Right.
And once we've all got bandwidth coming out of our frickin' ears thanks to a 100Mb connection to our home, who exactly is going to be prepared to spend 10s of billions on that part of the spectrum?
Because its not the TV companies (who will use the network). Nor 4G phones, as there are bound to be plenty of spare wi-fi sites around once no-one cares about how much bandwidth is being stolen by them.
The bubble seems to have burst on the 'selling your spectrum' bonanza, as it was only mobile phone companies doing this, and half of them are broke after getting carried away with 3G licenses and overvalued mergers.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Don't worry, the government will decide that for you.
MichiganDan writes:
The Iowa Communications Network provides an interesting case study in ways that networks, concieved by politicians, can indeed be built without excessive pork attached.
This is absolutely incorrect. ICN has been a terrible failure, and is actually being prepared to be sold off to rid the state of Iowa of the nightmare. Here in Des Moines, it has become a third rail in the legislature for many years because of the increasing budget impact. It already takes much of the state's cigerette settlement as well as a large demand on the general budget. Worst of all, it's so poorly run and the fiber technology increasingly outdated that there is no end in sight, other than dumping it.
Some facts on the ICN disaster:
1. It's just about to be put on the block. See the ICN website for details on legislation being drafted to sell off the pieces of the ICN to whoever will bid on them.
2. It has been an administrative mess. ICN has had issues in the past several years with telecom fraud (they apparently weren't equipped to prevent toll fraud). Their IP service to schools has been so poor (due to budget issues, inefficiencies, competence challenges) that many schools have simply left, only to find faster service at lower costs from the private sector. My children's school has a T1 connection through ICN, but sees typically 50-80 kbps speeds on the ICN piece (as tested from their router - we had to look at why the classrooms were getting faster speeds on dialup). Upstream, the word is that ICN just hasn't purchased the necessary capacity to service what they have sold. This is further indication that they are not truly representing costs, even though they're terribly in the red.
3. The original design was a pork barrel benefit, which doomed the project out of the gates. I worked for a carrier that was asked to bid on the original RFP in the early 1990s. The RFP was puzzling - it appeared that it was intended to fail. Upon further inquiry, we learned that a coalition of incumbent telephone providers had manipulated the RFP design in a manner to ensure the project would fail. They expected they would end up with the network (built at taxpayer expense) in a few years. Given the present asset sale proposal, this may indeed be finally happening.
it *can* be done without the pork and failure.
ICN is nothing but pork and failure, unfortunately. Please, don't make our state's mistake in yours!
It's ill-conceived. He makes a lot of statements that are merely conjecture, and that completely sidestep reality. For example:
This network would be optimally efficient. It would be a platform for new innovative services, such as rich interactive gaming.
We already have rich, interactive gaming. And ironically, the more "rich" and "interactive," the more it will cost- not just a "buy once play as many times as you want," but "but once, and keep paying" a la Planetside, Everquest, the upcoming World of Warcraft, etc. Further, it's not going to be cheap to install and maintain the infrastructure necessary to support "rich" and "interactive" gaming- for either side. Even if you had a network that could handle whatever you throw at it, say, a stream of 10K vs the typical 5K for an online multiplayer game, it won't do any good if the indivdual's computer can't handle it.
It would greatly increase e-commerce, producing higher gdp.
Nice thought, but he says nothing about how this would actually happen.
It would create new jobs in the United States.
See above.
It would ensure broadcast penetration
at nearly 100%, local voice penetration at nearly 100%, and push Internet access at least to 90% if not 100%.
See above.
The other thing he neglects to mention is that a significant part of the cost of certain broadband services are derived from fees and taxes. That will not change merely because the method of delivery has changed. Another real downside is that as providers gain and weild more and more control over what travels across those wires, I see the potential that everything will be commoditized - down to the individual protocol.