Here are my notes. As is. Photos and thoughts to follow. Who’s who can be found on this post.
Former Senator John Sununu
- Focused on sound policy choices for broadband access
- broadband is important economically and for national security
- high dependency on broadband in the future
- Last 20 years, US is a broadband success story
- 2nd only to China in fixed broadband subscribers (and wireless subscribers)
- 70% of 4G subscribers are in the US
- limited but thoughtful policy of a light regulatory touch
- private investment is key
- government involvement should be minimalist and predictable
- > $1T invested since 1996
- future hold a lot of promise for investment as long as we continue the current policies
Rob Atkinson
- “The Whole Picture:…..”
- Debates based on the premise that ours compare poorly to other countries
- Deployment
- 96.3% can get some wired broadband
- Fiber, we’re is 6th place
- Adoption
- US ranks 15 of 33 OECD nations
- 88.6% of US homes have a computer
- No computer, no broadband
- Mostly non-subscribers don’t due to relevance
- We lead the world in 4G/LTE adoption
- Speed
- Average speed rate in US is 29.6MBPS
- Average in world is 38
- We’re in the top 10
- Price
- 2nd lowest price in the OECD
- but higher for higher speeds
- 4th for entry level
- our broadband prices are progressive
- our profit rates for broadband are lower than in the EU
- Other nations subsidize broadband, we don’t
- high costs due to the size of the country and the wide spread of the population (megabit/mile)
- US facilities-based deployment leader
- Other countries are adoption leaders
- Issues to tackle
- Adoption
- digital literacy
- computer ownership
- subsidies for poor and rural communities
- scarce spectrum due to government over-allocation
Larry Irving
- life-line phones, he worked on it 30 years ago
- been working on access issues for a long time
- universal service
- only 2 million people were on the Internet in 1993
- was involved in early “coining” of the term digital divide
- rural and tribal lands most likely to not have broadband
- 2% still on dial-up
- minorities trailing whites
- minorities more likely to rely on mobile devices than traditional laptops or desktops
- mobile device in every backpack, not a laptop
- we haven’t been thinking progressively
- people want to have choice in what fits their lifestyle
- “more private, less public” troubles him
- without private we wouldn’t have had that $1T investment
- How do we make it more relevant to more Americans?
- Move more spectrum out of the government
Hance Haney
- the loudest tend to be most interested in the status quo
- new (phone/cable) businesses tended to focus on other businesses instead of home users, most of them are now gone
- high fixed costs do not reduce the costs of running the network with more subscribers
- 1996: FCC shall not put undue regulations on the telecom industry
- those companies want to extend legacy pricing to new advanced services
- some view broadband as mature, it’s not
- new technologies could completely change the needs and uses of the network
- “identical service at the lowest possible price” for everyone was never totally achieved with the telephone
- industry run by moore’s law & guilder’s law
- new technologies only get easier at lower prices
- legacy regulation mandating single technologies when newer technologies are easier.
Ev Ehrlich
- Quantity of new services and devices are increasing
- Changing manufacturing
- Changes the way things are organized to accomplish production
- The Web is an avatar of markets
- it is a representation of markets
- economic benefit of broadband depends on the ubiquity of access
- new skills, numeracy, literacy are all important
- passport to economic citizenship
- consumers must drive development
- many don’t need 100Mbps to their home
- many don’t want a wired connection, wireless works best for them
- importance of the regulatory environment
- what are the goals
- the profits of the companies are not the problem
- the real issue is that the digital divide might become entrenched
Q&A
Q: Something about spectrum allocation policy I didn’t really understand
EV: Digital real estate is still dealt with like a fiefdom
Q: More about spectrum policy
“PCAST evaluation” ???
Rob: Give first responders priority in a general purpose spectrum, not a special spectrum
Q: About spectrum reverse auctions vs. secondary auctions & the level of government involvement
Q: Australia scaling down national program from 100Mpbs to the home to 25/fiber to the node. What do you make of this?
John: Gov’t shouldn’t establish what the needs of the public are. i.e. minimal speed. sets a ceiling, not a floor in the long run.
Larry: Gov’t can’t keep pace with innovation
Q: Heather Braum, NEKLS: Relevance is a big issue. People don’t understand their own needs. Connect2Compete. EveryoneOn. Are you aware of this programs?
Larry: Yes. Worked with Clintons. Bill & Melinda worked with later. libraries are crucial in getting that connection out. Global Lines For Global Good. Show relevance, the more likely they are to use it. Newbies need libraries.
John: The obstacles, are social, economic, and geographic. You don’t solve those by mandating a speed level for a connection.
Rich: High speed to libs, isn’t important if the communities are supporting the library.
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