Unfortunately, the U.S. Federal Government Needs to Get Involved with FTTH

Implications: 1.      Government should only be involved with a public service when the private sector cannot do it as well or cannot make a profit in doing it. 2.      True broadband accessibility for all residential customers has to be mandated in the same way as the original universal telephone service. 3.      Otherwise, the U.S. will no longer remain competitive with the rest of the world.  

Analysis:  Wal-Mart did a much better job than FEMA with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. UPS and FedEx can track down individuals a lot more effectively than the Immigration and Naturalization Service. In not nationalizing the healthcare system, the U.S. offers the best medical care in the world. Americans should want to limit the further encroachment by Big Brother. An over $3 trillion budget (an amount that is hard to conceptualize) is an abomination when there is a constitution based on limited government.   

But we are at a crucial crossroads in telecommunications in the U.S. Verizon and company have not been all that enthusiastic about providing adequate residential service – and it is unclear that small independent telcos can pick up the slack. Within 20 years, just about all customers will have to use IP telephone service because the ILEC’s will be retooling to save on operations costs. It is not impossible to envision a time in the not-too-distant future where everything is done via the computer – bill paying, appointments for the doctor, etc. Having the proper amount of bandwidth that is reliable and readily upgradeable will be a necessity akin to providing electricity, water, etc.  

The ILECs will need to be forced into following their charters based on universal service. It has become clear that too many people are being punished by the Verizons of the world because they do not live next to a huge office complex.   

Does anyone really think that Verizon is going to put FiOS out to the sparsely populated territories it serves? Of course, not. There is not any money to be made there. However, if it had to pay a substantial penalty on the customers that they are currently serving until they provided service to the other areas of their footprint, then perhaps broadband availability would increase.   

Regarding the Tellabs study, it is certainly interesting, but it would be unbelievable if anyone were surprised by the results. Regretfully, the free market will not solve the problem of the disparity in the level of service across the nation. “Universal service” (which in the 1970s meant a phone in everybody’s home) needs to become “universal broadband service”. The FCC, Congress, and the local regulators have to insist that the service providers, regardless if they are RBOC's, ILEC's – and now cable TV firms – provide a newly defined broadband standard to every American home and business to achieve the goals set forth in this study. Groups such as the Fiber to the Home Council should be insisting that having only about 2.5 million homes nationally connected to a fiber network is a travesty. It is also time for companies like Tellabs to form partnerships with non-telecommunication companies to push for these same reforms.