"Good Enough" Isn't Good Enough For America's Broadband Future

The vast majority of today's Internet traffic is delivered on what's referred to as a "good enough" basis. As there are often many hops between where content or an application is hosted and the end user no one can guarantee service delivery, but since things generally work well enough to not be a nuisance, "good enough" delivery is good enough for most users and use cases.

But this "good enough" mindset seems to have infected and shaped too many people's perceptions regarding the kind of broadband America needs, leading some to think thoughts like:

- If we have adequate capacity to handle today's applications then what's the point of more bandwidth? What we have is good enough.

- If speeds are getting higher and prices lower, regardless of how incrementally slow that progress is, then that's good enough.

- If broadband providers advertise enough speed it doesn't matter if they can actually deliver it or if they're providing service of high reliability and low latency, promising adequate broadband is good enough.

- If rural areas can get online at any speed than that's better than nothing and therefore good enough.

But you know what? I reject all of these notions as not good enough, as inadequate to support the goals of a country that throughout its history has always strove for greatness.

Touting that we have sufficient capacity for today's apps means nothing as apps always fill whatever pipes are available. And bigger bandwidth apps can't come into existence without bigger pipes to run over. So pointing to the lack of bigger bandwidth apps as the reason why we don't need bigger bandwidth pipes is not good enough.

Realizing incremental growth is a good thing and we have made some progress towards a better broadband future, but we can't win the race to be a leading nation in the digital economy by taking uncoordinated, unguided baby steps while other countries are leaping forward with purpose. That's not good enough.

Basing our entire broadband future on the speeds providers claim they can deliver means we'll never have networks that can live up to their promises nor will we ever realize the many possibilities of living in a world where networks are robust and reliable. That limited way of defining broadband success just isn't good enough.

Getting the unserved online at any speed is important, but we're doing rural America a disservice by not setting the more aspirational goal that all Americans deserve equal access to the best broadband. Rural Americans need next-generation connectivity as much if not more than urban dwellers, so goals that create second-class broadband citizens aren't good enough

As we go about formulating our first national broadband strategy, it's my sincere hope that we don't allow ourselves to limit our expectations to that of achieving a networked future that's only "good enough." What we need now is an aspirational plan that doesn't define success based on what's happened yesterday or is happening today but on what our country needs to compete in the decades ahead.

The simple truth is that to be leaders we have to lead, to be competitive we have to compete, to realize all that's possible in the 21st century we need a 21st century plan.

Setting our sights on a broadband future that's only "good enough" isn't good enough for the America I know and love. So let's put aside these low expectations and commit ourselves to a plan that aims for greatness, that defines success not solely based on incremental progress but on taking giant leaps forward. Because that's the only mindset that I consider to be good enough for determining our country's broadband future.