What We Can Be Thankful For About Broadband In America

Beyond eating criminal amounts of turkey, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie, Thanksgiving is the time of year we're supposed to give thanks for what we have.

To that end, I wanted to take a moment to point out the facets of America's broadband ecosystem that we can be thankful for.

First off, we should be thankful for the abundance of long-haul and intercontinental fiber that runs through and from the US. Not every country has that. Take Africa, for example. As a result of not having access to big fiber pipes, their broadband is constrained and expensive, keeping it out of reach for the majority of its people.

The fact that most Americans do have access to multi-megabit broadband is another reason to give thanks. It may not be what we want in terms of speed or price, but it's there.

The same is true of wireless coverage. While we may be lagging behind some other countries, what we do have is better than nothing, and ever since I got my iPhone I've become increasingly thankful for this.

We should be thankful for all the ways that we're starting to realize the societal benefits of using broadband, though we also need to realize that we have a long ways to go before we're maximizing those benefits.

While the digital divide is still there, the fact that most everyone has the ability to go to a library or other public computing center to get online is another reason to give thanks, though we need to be doing everything we can to get them more bandwidth and more computers so they can keep up with demand.

I'm grateful that America is still home to the world's biggest and best Internet companies, though I'll admit some trepidation as to how long it's going to stay that way if we continue to lag behind the world's leading broadband nations.

I'm especially thankful that fiber continues to be deploying all the way to homes across the US, with a number of innovative models either being proven or poised to do so that will open up new avenues for large-scale fiber deployment. I'm hopeful that we'll have even more to be thankful for next year, but there are no guarantees that this will be the case as it's still uncertain whether our government is ready to step up and fully support this paradigm shift in the technology and business model of broadband.

What we should be most thankful for, though, is that we're finally in the midst of turning good intentions into action through the creation of a national broadband plan. The fact that we're at least doing something is terrific. Whether or not that means we're going to end up with a transformative plan of attack or merely some suggestions for small incremental improvements remains to be seen.

In no way am I satisfied with the state of America's broadband ecosystem. But it's important to take a moment and recognize what we have to be thankful for. Because while things could always be better, we shouldn't gloss over the good that we already have.

So on this Thanksgiving, ask yourself this question: what are you thankful for about the state of broadband in America?