This fix for digital divide helps nothing

Thirteen percent of adult Americans still don’t use the Internet. And while today’s digital have-nots cite a lack of interest far more often than unavailability of affordable high-speed broadband as the reason they remain offline, access is still a problem, especially in rural areas.

Over the past decade, private investment and public-private partnerships have made excellent progress toward closing the gap. The 2010 National Broadband Plan, which one of us directed, called for $350 billion in private investments for next-generation wired and mobile broadband networks — an amount exceeded in part thanks to new technologies and new competitors, including Google Fiber.

Meanwhile, the redirection of federal Universal Service programs to broadband has jump-started private investment in many underserved communities, with more money already committed. Upcoming infrastructure legislation may finish the job.

A recent study rolled out by UC Berkeley’s Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society and funded by the Communications Workers of America, however, advises Californians to abandon this winning strategy. Why? The report, which looks only at the first year of build-out for new fiber networks by AT&T in California, makes the unsurprising discovery that the company’s earliest installations have been “disproportionately” in the most affluent parts of the state, where customers are most likely to spend more for ultrahigh speed access.

AT&T’s fiber rollout has just started. But extrapolating wildly from a snapshot of data, the report illogically concludes that without immediate intervention rural residents will be forever “stuck in the slow lane on the information highway.”

The report’s methods are deeply troubling. It excludes every other carrier, including Comcast, Charter and Frontier, who already provide highspeed broadband to 30 million Californians and are making further upgrades, in part to match AT&T.

It also ignores mobile services enjoyed by 34 million Californians, numbers that have led to investments in new technologies to make wireless networks competitive with fiber.

But most troubling is the conclusion. The authors recommend legislation that would require identical fiber deployment throughout the state — mandates directed and enforced by the deeply troubled California Public Utility Commission.

Given the many unknowns as to how market forces will drive next-generation network dynamics, we think it both foolish and counterproductive to dictate deployment strategies, timetables or other investment requirements.

Simultaneous and universal build-out requirements, as the Federal Communications Commission has found for at least a decade, result in “delayed entry, no entry, or failed entry” — as serious a risk for existing network operators as it is for new entrants and municipal providers.

If we demand that anyone who offers ultra-high-speed Internet anywhere must offer it everywhere, we will get it nowhere.

In 1993, Gov. Pete Wilson vetoed similar legislation involving a short-lived broadband technology known as ISDN, noting that future developments would likely make it obsolete — which they quickly did. Following the union recommendations in the Haas report would slow deployment, exposing carriers to the same risk, with no benefit to Californians, rich or poor.

Alternatively, there is plenty that local authorities can and are already doing to encourage more inclusive broadband investments. For example, some areas may want to court early installation of next-generation 5G mobile networks as a way to stimulate competition.

Local authorities should also continue to work with providers, as they have with Google Fiber and others, to streamline zoning and construction rules for more efficient and faster build-outs. Where incumbents are unlikely to deploy nextgeneration networks quickly, communities should explore other options, including building their own systems.

But the last thing we should do is heed unfounded calls to abandon policies that are working.

Blair Levin is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution; in 2009, he oversaw development of the National Broadband Plan. Larry Downes is project director at the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy and co-author, most recently, of “Big Bang Disruption: Strateg y in the Age of Devastating Innovation.”