Adelstein: We Can't Build Digital Highways That Are Too Small

In Vegas at CES last week I caught a policy session featuring FCC Commissioners Adelstein and McDowell. While most of the discussion focused on the DTV transition, they touched on broadband at the end and I had the opportunity to ask the following question:

"Do you believe that a Full Fiber Nation is the endgame of the Internet and the ultimate goal we should have for our country? That we built the greatest economy in the 20th century on our copper telephone infrastructure, and to build the greatest economy in the 21st century we now need fiber?"

Unfortunately, I didn't get the clear, unequivocal "Yes!" that I was hoping for, but there were still two interesting tidbits in their responses I wanted to share.

First off, Commissioner Adelstein's response revolved around an analogy to highways, that we can't afford to build them too small lest they can't keep up with the growing amount of traffic, or bandwidth in network terms.

This is an extremely savvy observation as it suggests that while it's important to get any road to areas that aren't already connected to the world, that it's equally important we don't build broadband networks that only support the bandwidth demands of today but not those of tomorrow.

But there's an additional level to this that highlights the importance of setting full fiber networks as our goal: only fiber-based highways have the ability to add lanes indefinitely as traffic grows.

Every other broadband has clear capacity limitations. And to have any chance of overcoming them in the future will inevitably mean having to do more digging and laying more fiber. Whereas if we just put in full fiber networks to begin with we can quickly and easily add an essentially infinite number of lanes to handle any amount of growth in demand for bandwidth.

Part of Commissioner McDowell's response left me equally optimistic about the outlook for the Rural Fiber Fund. With regards to how to spur next-generation broadband deployment he specifically cited the need to make these risky investments more attractive to investors.

Well that's exactly what the Rural Fiber Fund's partial loan guarantees do! By government stepping in to share the risk, we're going to enable an environment where full fiber deployment even to rural areas will be dramatically less risky. So much so that it's going to loosen up billions in capital.

So while neither Commissioner would out right say that a Full Fiber Nation should be our country's ultimate goal, their answers could not have fit any better into the arguments we're making for the Rural Fiber Fund. And this week I'll be following up with both of them setting up my first meetings at the FCC to continue my efforts as a guerrilla lobbyist fighting for a pragmatic broadband policy that can secure the future of rural America.