Lobbying group outlines big-pipe dream

A plea last week by tech heavyweights for the federal government to make widespread broadband deployment a priority may have been somewhat self-serving and unrealistic, experts say, but it is also significant.

The Technology Network, a lobbying group known as TechNet, is calling for the government to help make 100M bit/sec connections available to 100 million homes and small businesses in the U.S. by 2010. TechNet is backed by 250 technology companies including Cisco, Intel and Genuity.

Broadband should be a national priority this century "just like putting a man on the moon was an imperative in the last century," said John Chambers, CEO of Cisco.

The theme of TechNet's proposal is that with less regulation this seemingly impossible broadband dream could be achieved.

Less regulation appeals to Dale Witt, a product manager at IP Dynamics who makes recommendations about his company's broadband service.

"My motto is if you want something fouled up get the government involved," he says. There are some things the government does well, but creating more regulation for the high-tech industry is not one of them, he says.

While Witt says he's not looking for more government involvement in broadband deployments, he says the government should play a role in opening local networks.

"Today, there is a lot of finger-pointing between [regional Bell operating companies], ISPs and long-distance providers," he says. This is because RBOCs still control local copper lines even though users buy DSL service from other ISPs.

Industry experts agree. Currently, RBOCs have little incentive to roll out more broadband services because they have to share the networks they are building with their competitors, says Thomas Nolle, president of consultancy CIMI, and a Network World columnist. This cuts into RBOCs' profit margins and makes it difficult for them to justify spending money on broadband deployments.

"No one believes in their heart of hearts that the government is going to provide money for something like this," Nolle says. "But if a push for broadband is going to be achieved, you need some sort of government agenda, because it won't happen naturally."

Even if the government isn't paying for the broadband rollout, it should have some goals and policies in place that could help push deployment along, he says.

Rolling out a new fiber-based infrastructure, which TechNet proposes, will happen only if money could be made by doing so, Nolle says.

While TechNet believes more competition will help advance broadband, Lisa Pierce, an analyst with Giga Information Group and a Network World columnist, questions whether competition will solve the country's broadband problems. There was much competition during the competitive local exchange carrier boom, but those companies couldn't survive, she says.

"The fundamental question that has to be asked is how much of the market do you go after when trying to build these networks with massive amounts of capacity," Pierce says. If the government decides that 70% of the population must have access to 100M bit/sec service, the question is how do you pay for that, she says.

It's not clear if the group is recommending that the government come up with a plan similar to Universal Service, which requires phone companies to charge higher rates in urban areas to subsidize building out services in rural areas.

One thing that is clear is the vendors that presented the broadband policy recommendations would all benefit in varying degrees if 100 million homes and small businesses had access to 100M bit/sec services, Pierce says.

Moreover, the benefit of that kind of bandwidth isn't known today because applications that would eat up 100M bit/sec are not widely used. Consequently, the unknown costs of such a project are not justifiable, she says. There are also new compression algorithms being tested that may let traditional service providers get a lot more bandwidth out of existing networks, she adds.

TechNet's call for less regulation comes at a time when the provisions of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 are generating hot debate. Essentially, the telecom act forces incumbent providers to open up their networks to competitors if the incumbents want to be allowed to offer long-distance services.

Critics of the act have lined up behind the Tauzin-Dingell bill, which would remove many of the federal and state governments' abilities to force the incumbent carriers to open their networks. TechNet members say they are not behind the bill. The bill, which was put forward last year, is still languishing in Congress.