New Zealand’s version of a national broadband plan, which calls...

Blair Levin, architect of the FCC’s plan, Tuesday during a New America Foundation symposium. Levin spoke following a presentation on “Kiwi Connected” by Graham Mitchell, CEO of state-owned Crown Fibre Holdings, the company established by the New Zealand government to build out a broadband network. Mitchell said the plan calls for 100 Mbps connections for 75 percent of the population, while an associated program will bring high-speed access to rural areas and schools. Mitchell explained that much of the investment is expected to be recovered, so the total government expenditure should end up being closer to what would be a $27 billion program in the U.S. “If we had come to [the administration] and said our plans calls for $100 billion … I think we would have been laughed out of the White House, or that would be the polite thing that they would have done to us,” Levin said. The U.S. hit comparable targets without similar government investments, he said, noting that competition in the U.S. market helps. “One size doesn’t fit all. You have to start with where you are,” Levin said. “We have two wires going into more than 90 percent of homes. I think only Canada is kind of equivalent.” Levin said the U.S. spends $4.5 billion a year on the high-cost portion of the Universal Service Fund. If that money is redirected to broadband, the U.S. could effectively dedicate $27 billion to rural build out over a period of years. he said. “We put out a plan, without raising the high cost fund, to do something similar [to New Zealand] though not at the same speeds,” he said. Ben Lennett, senior policy analyst with the foundation’s Open Technology Initiative, questioned whether cable-telecom competition in the U.S. will mean wide broadband roll out. “Whether that’s worked out well for us is pretty highly debatable,” he said. “We have a structure right now where cable is virtually the speed monopoly in a lot of communities. [Verizon’s fiber-based] FiOS has not been deployed all over the country.” Wireless is viewed as a “third pipe” but is “owned by the same companies that own the telephone company,” Lennett said. “We sort of see an increase in speeds, but you're actually seeing an effort by the cable companies, and even AT&T now, of instituting not just [usage] caps on their mobile service but caps on their DSL service.”