Fast Internet Access Will Transform America, But FCC Needs to Step Up, Panelists Say

Ensuring access to broadband for every citizen is just the latest in a long string of major infrastructure buildouts faced by previous generations, said former FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, according to prepared remarks. Railways, highways, electricity -- each was a huge challenge and each helped jump start the economy, and Internet access is just the latest example, he said. Copps encouraged better spectrum policies to reduce barriers to entry and incentivize competition. Unlicensed spectrum, database-driven spectrum access and smart radio technologies can all further competition, he said, and more special access at lower prices would also “fuel significant telecom growth,” he said. Right now, special access is “a multi-billion dollar disincentive to competition and, in my judgment, a serious drag on the deployment of badly needed telecommunications infrastructure.” Copps also encouraged the U.S. to look toward how other countries are deploying broadband, and the policies they use to make it happen. Facilities sharing might be necessary “if hugely expensive communications infrastructure is going to work to the advantage of all parties,” he said.

The FCC has to be “more decisive on spectrum management issues,” said Michael Marcus, who worked on numerous spectrum issues in his 25 years at the FCC. He cited TV white spaces as the most important priority for wireless regulation. “There is no rational justification” that they could deal with the AT&T/T-Mobile and NBC-Comcast mergers in one year, “and yet eight years going, TV white spaces -- they haven’t been able to deal with it,” he said. Lack of enthusiasm, lack of resources, and uncertainty about the details have held things up, he said. Right now the only places people can use TV white spaces are “three obscure rural areas,” he said. The FCC must finish the TV white space docket and let the products “sink or swim on their own merits."

"When it comes to bandwidth, the country needs a psychology of abundance, not a psychology of scarcity,” said Blair Levin, former leader of the FCC’s National Broadband Plan preparation team. Representatives from organizations engaging in “big pipe experiments” like Gig.U and the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program discussed the early successes of the programs in their communities. Michael Smeltzer of the Urbana-Champaign Big Broadband program, a partnership with the University of Illinois funded by a $22.5 million NTIA grant, said they planned to serve hundreds of anchor institutions and roughly 5,000 fiber-to-the-home connections. Economic development resonates with city council members no matter where they are politically, Smeltzer said. “The areas that have got fiber to the home have grown, and the areas that don’t are not necessarily growing -- or worse, they're getting smaller,” he said. Plus, installing fiber is “the right thing to do."

Geoff Daily, executive director at FiberCorps in Lafayette, La., wants to develop a “community-scale living lab for next-generation technologies.” The group is working to establish itself as a such a lab for health innovation, he said. Enormous amounts of bandwidth will hopefully spur innovation, although the current reality is not as good as the rhetoric quite yet, he said. “We've got all this bandwidth -- now what? How do we actually improve healthcare? Improve education?” What’s important is ensuring a sufficient outlay of fiber as the infrastructure that will make innovation possible, he said, calling fiber “the printing press of the digital economy.”