Analyzing Broadband Penetration Rates, The Impacts of Connectivity, and Network Neutrality.

Several extremely interesting reports were released in the Fall of 2005 that deserve fresh attention, including The Residential and Commercial Benefits of Rural Broadband: Evidence from Central Appalachia, and Measuring Broadband’s Economic Impact (let me know if you'd like a copy of the full report). Together they lay out an empirical basis for both which variables correlate with broadband deployment (e.g., education levels), and some of the economic impacts associated with these broadband deployments (including higher housing prices, and lower unemployment rates).

Overall, they make a strong case for intelligent communities building networks (either in partnership with private interests or on their own). Folks like Dr. Robert Gleeson, researcher with the Northern Illinois University's Regional Development Institute, are already making the case that, ""High-speed connectivity is essential to global trade... those regions that are not connected will be left out of that growth"; yet comprehensive initiatives to rapidly expand broadband penetration continue to lag.

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Alan Kraus, executive director of the Broadband Development Group at the NIU's Regional Development Institute, brings the point home, "Companies like SBC and Comcast combine content and carriage, looking just to lock customers up. The question should be, what are we doing in the public interest?"

The Wall Street Journal is now reporting that post "Brand X", many service providers are claiming that they have a right to discriminate among content based on how much content providers pay them, and that Network Neutrality is being severely threatened. This is a concern that something I was writing about in June 2005, the day of the Brand X decision came out. The point being, we're rapidly moving toward an online information/content environment more similar to China's than the one most members of the general public would like to see. Jonathan Rintels, Executive Director of the Center for Creative Voices in Media, drafted up a great overview of the implications of Brand X titled, "The Future Internet: Open or Closed?" last August.

Meanwhile, hot off the presses, my advisor, Robert McChesney, and and John Podestra, just authored an article in the most recent issue of Washington Monthly, Let There Be Wi-Fi, which convincingly argues (as the subtitle so aptly states), "Broadband is the electricity of the 21st century—and much of America is being left in the dark." Their succinct synopsis of the problem is both hard-hitting and devastatingly accurate:

President Bush has called for “universal, affordable access for broadband technology by the year 2007,” and FCC Chairman Kevin Martin claims broadband deployment is his “highest priority.” But they have made no progress toward these goals; in fact, they have rewarded their corporate cronies for maintaining high prices, low speeds and lackluster innovation. Federal policies have not merely failed to correct our broadband problems, they have made them worse. Instead of encouraging competition, the FCC has allowed DSL providers and cable companies to shut out competitors by denying access to their lines.

One final analysis worth mentioning is George Ford's "Economic Development Through Broadband" study. It provides a highly intuitive picture of exactly why many pro-competition advocates are also pro-muni. While private interests deploy services to customers based upon a revenue/profit-maximizing algorithm (H* in the graph below), municipalities and public-private partnerships are capable of taking into account the maximization of the social benefits of these systems, and thus are willing to offer services to more residents (H' in the graph below).

This shift (from H* to H') greatly increases the number of users of a network, and is, in essence, what everyone from Community Wireless Networks and FreeNetworks to the City of San Francisco are attempting to do.