WHAT Should the Rural Fiber Fund be?

Now let's sketch out what some of the characteristics of the Rural Fiber Fund must be in order to give it the best chance to accomplish its goals effectively and efficiently.

The Rural Fiber Fund has to...

Be big.
It's a big challenge, lots of labor required and a lot of land to cover, so it demands a big solution. How big? $30 billion should get the whole job done (according to a Bechtel study I've been told about but still need to find). But $10 billion is enough to be a game-changer and set the wheels in motion.

Focus on fiber.
Fiber has the capacity to be future proof, good for the rest of the century. If we just subsidize the further deployment of 20th century broadband then rural areas will be stuck in the past until government has to step in again some day to subsidize the deployment of fiber. Let's do it right the first time and commit to full fiber networks everywhere.

Extend everywhere as is feasible.
We may not be able to get a fiber strand to every building, but if we have broadband to 90% of America then why not set the goal of reaching 90% of that last 10% with fiber, with robust wireless connecting the rest. Set a maximum threshold for city population to be considered rural (say 20,000), and encourage projects that deploy across multiple communities simultaneously.

Stay patient.
Even if the government wrote a check for $30 billion tomorrow there's no immediate way to wire all of rural America. Even if the model and machinery were in place it'd probably take 3-5 years, and since the model isn't set yet it'll likely take closer to a decade to accomplish the goal of wiring all of rural America with fiber.

Offer flexibility.
In order to empower entrepreneurs to innovate and establish self-sustaining business models they need as much leeway as possible in helping them make it all work. One way to be patient and flexible would be to give applicants time to build the networks and start generating revenue off of services before requiring payments on debt service, assuming the government assistances comes from some sort of loan.

Be held accountable.
There have to be qualifications and consequences for anyone receiving government support. Those with proven track records deploying fiber networks move to the front of the line, but also we shouldn't eliminate the possibility of new entrants bringing new ideas. We have to track progress and insure government money is going primarily if not entirely into the deployment of and investment in infrastructure. And there must be mechanisms in place to dissuade inaction and remove bad performers.

Move quickly.
Along with this legislation I believe we'll have at least 10-20 ready-to-go projects that as soon as the funding is made available are ready to start hiring workers and breaking ground. There will also be a second wave of entrepreneurs inspired by the creation of the Rural Fiber Fund ready to move within the next 6 months. All told these projects alone will likely total in the billions, and the sooner we get the moving the better.

Foster innovation.
Both innovation in the building and using of these networks. For building that means giving a lot of different models the opportunity to succeed and rewarding those that do with the resources to extend into other rural areas. For using that means putting in place assurances that the networks that are built are as open to competition between telecommunications services as possible.

Be open to anyone ready, willing, and able.
Now is not the time to allow ideological debates get in the way of moving forward and making progress, so the Rural Fiber Fund should be open to any viable model for deployment, be it private or publicly owned/operated by entities large or small, so long as they're ready to move (we want these dollars turned into investment ASAP), willing to commit to whatever requirements are attached to federal support (like universal buildout and openness), and able to do the job (with a proven track record and some amount of their own capital) then the Rural Fiber Fund will be there to facilitate the wiring of rural America with the most essential infrastructure of the 21st century.

Require local government involvement and encourage support at all levels.
Ultimately it should come down to each community which provider or model they decide to move forward with, and local governments should be prepared to play an active role in lowering regulatory barriers and helping ease the deployment of these networks. Also, those states that take more active roles in facilitating and funding these projects should be rewarded with more resources and greater say in how they're allocated.

Not forget about backhaul.
Special accommodations may have to be made to extend the large backhaul pipes needed to connect full fiber access networks onto the Internet further into rural areas. As much as possible existing networks should be used in a more coordinated fashion than they have to date to interconnect these rural communities.

Only be a piece of a much larger puzzle.
The Rural Fiber Fund shouldn't usurp other plans to spur the deployment of broadband but instead serve as a piece of the larger puzzle that makes up a national broadband strategy. It's an attempt to take a bold step forward in solving one of our biggest challenges while also providing the opportunity to prove that differing interest groups can come together around issues of universal agreement and importance to craft pragmatic policies that work for the American people.

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What else am I missing here in terms of big picture characteristics for what this Rural Fiber Fund should be? What does the legislation we're crafting need to accomplish? Start thinking and either add them as a comment below or wait until this all goes up on the wiki.

I've been purposefully a little vague in these first two posts in attempt to provide the big picture vision for what we're shooting so as to frame the discussion we're leading into of how can we accomplish this task. Hopefully by doing so we can be laser focused on crafting a comprehensive policy.

The one other thing I forgot to mention in yesterday's post that you call can be doing to support the Rural Fiber Fund is sending these posts around to everyone you know with any interest in this topic, be they broadband advocates, economists, rural interest groups, and especially anyone on the Hill

Tomorrow the beginnings of how we can transform these good ideas and intentions into action and real policy.