{"id":191,"date":"2013-01-17T14:17:51","date_gmt":"2013-01-17T19:17:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/01\/how-to-get-fast-internet-service-susan-crawford.html"},"modified":"2013-01-17T14:17:51","modified_gmt":"2013-01-17T19:17:51","slug":"how-to-get-fast-internet-service-susan-crawford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/01\/how-to-get-fast-internet-service-susan-crawford.html","title":{"rendered":"How to get fast Internet service —Susan Crawford"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nSusan Crawford has a plan\n\nfor getting us fast Internet access<\/a> for jobs, community, education,\nand health care.\n<\/p>\n

\n\n<\/a>\nSusan Crawford wrote for Wired 2 October 2012,\n\nWe Can’t All Be in Google’s Kansas: A Plan for Winning the Bandwidth\nRace<\/a>,\nabout how the incumbent telephone and cable companies that provide\nour Internet access aren’t going to help:\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nThey have no incentive to do so. Because they never enter one\nanother’s territories, they don’t face the competition that might\nspur such expansion.\n<\/p>\n

\nInstead, incumbent internet access providers such as Comcast and\nTime Warner (for wired access) and AT&T and Verizon (for\ncomplementary wireless access) are in \u201charvesting\u201d mode.\nThey’re raising average revenue per user through special pricing for\nplanned \u201cspecialized services\u201d and usage-based billing,\nwhich allows the incumbents to constrain demand. The ecosystem these\ncompanies have built is never under stress, because consumers do\ntheir best to avoid heavy charges for using more data than they’re\nsupposed to. Where users have no expectation of abundance, there’s\nno need to build fiber on the wired side of the business or build\nsmall cells fed by fiber on the wireless side.\n<\/p>\n

\nIf the current internet access providers that dominate the American\ntelecommunications landscape could get away with it, they’d sell\nnothing but specialized services and turn internet access into a\ndirt road.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nSo what is her plan?\n<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
    \n
  1. \nProvide loan guarantees for building basic competitive fiber infrastructure;\n<\/li>\n
  2. \nPreempt state laws that make it difficult (or impossible) for municipalities to commission their own fiber networks;\n<\/li>\n
  3. \nRequire wholesale providers to build open, non-discriminatory networks as a condition of getting access to rights-of-way; and\n<\/li>\n
  4. \nRequire separation between content and transport providers to avoid the risk of harvesting.\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    \nOK, that sounds like a national-scale plan that requires national laws.\nOr does it?\n<\/p>\n

    \n\n<\/a>\nShe’s recommending fiber buildout like Google is doing.\nThat’s one path.\nBut there is another that may be available to us right now.\nConsider\n\nSoftbank CEO Masayoshi Son buying Sprint<\/a>.\nHe’s not doing it for landline fiber.\nHe’s doing it for radio bandwidth.\n<\/p>\n

    \nAs we know,\n\n4G LTE is much faster than DSL<\/a> here in Lowndes County,\nbut\n\nit costs too much,<\/a>\nand the U.S. incumbents\n\nwill keep playing their bait-and-switch games.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
    \n\n\"AT&T<\/a>\n
    \nAT&T DSL\n<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
    \n\n\"VZ<\/a>\n
    \nVerizon 4G\n<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

    \nGeorgia does not<\/em> have state laws that prevent municipal Internet services.\nAny or all of the local city governments, the Lowndes County Commission,\nor the Industrial Authority can float bonds.\nAnd\n\nthe example of Houston County<\/a>\nindicates that local voters might be willing to approve a SPLOST\nthat included fast Internet access for everybody.\nRegarding Prof. Crawford’s 3 and 4, the local governments could perhaps:\n<\/p>\n