Guest viewpoint by Jim Baller, U.S. Broadband Coalition

Broadband connectivity to the Internet is rapidly becoming as critical to all walks of life as electricity has been for the last century. With the world growing increasingly competitive and dependent on knowledge-based industries, the nations that do best in providing their residents, businesses, and institutions affordable access to the fastest possible broadband connections will be the ones that are most successful in the years ahead.

Over the last decade, the U.S. has not fared well in the race for national broadband leadership. Unlike other leading nations, the U.S. adopted a hands-off policy toward broadband deployment, betting on the flawed assumption that competition between the cable and telephone industries would be sufficient to drive broadband deployment to acceptable levels. As a result, the U.S., once the undisputed world leader in broadband availability and adoption, has sunk to a mediocre 15th in broadband adoption among the 30 top industrial economies, and it is also lagging behind the leading nations on most of the other internationally accepted criteria of broadband success.

If the U.S. is to reverse these trends, we must have a bold and comprehensive national broadband strategy to guide our policies and action. Congress recognized as much in February 2009, when it included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 a provision requiring the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to recommend a national broadband plan to Congress by February 2010.

Developing a nationwide consensus on the need for a national broadband strategy took a long time and many voices. I, for one, first called for a national broadband strategy in October 2004, during my keynote address at that year’s Fiber to the Home Conference. Two years later, my partner, Casey Lide, and I co-authored two lengthy papers on this issue, one detailing our country’s need for a fiber-based national strategy, and the other setting forth an eight-step plan for developing such a strategy.

At about the same time, FCC Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein began to include calls for a national broadband strategy in most of their decisions and public statements. Nearly all of the presidential candidates, numerous members of Congress, and several prominent organizations began to do so as well.

At first, proponents of a national broadband strategy predictably argued that such a strategy should mirror their own traditional positions. To break through this logjam, Casey and I began to meet privately, first individually and then in small groups, with a wide range of stakeholders in America’s broadband future to determine whether real progress might be possible. When the group reached about 25 organizations, we circulated a confidential questionnaire to determine the nature and extent of potential consensus on a broad array of critical issues.

We found that there was much more existing and potential consensus on many of these issues than any of us had suspected. Real progress through real cooperation began to appear possible.

In July 2008, after a number of additional organizations joined our effort, we turned to developing a carefully worded joint “Call to Action” statement that would lay out several major points on which everyone could agree. This was a very difficult and time-consuming process. Kenneth Peres, an economist with the Communications Workers of America and the president of the Alliance for Public Technology, played a major role in this effort. Eventually it succeeded – again to the surprise of many.

Among other things, the statement reflected the group’s consensus that the U.S. urgently needs a national broadband strategy if it is to thrive in the emerging global economy. It also set forth the following five major goals as well as a framework for exploring the potential for further agreements:

No. 1: Every American home, business, and public and private institution should have access to affordable high-speed broadband connections to the Internet.

No. 2: Access to the Internet should, to the maximum feasible extent, be open to all users, service providers, content providers, and application providers.

No. 3: Network operators must have the right to manage their networks responsibly, pursuant to clear and workable guidelines and standards.

No. 4: The Internet and broadband marketplace should be as competitive as reasonably possible.

No. 5: U.S. broadband networks should provide Americans with the network performance, capacity, and connections they need to compete successfully in the global marketplace.

In early December 2008, on behalf of more than 50 organizations representing a cross-section of American life, we presented the Call to Action statement at an event on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. The signatories included prominent communications providers, high technology companies, manufacturers, consumers, labor unions, public interest groups, educators, state and local governments, utilities, content creators, foundations and other stakeholders in America’s broadband future.

The event received widespread, favorable media attention. The common theme of these reports was that scores of organizations that were traditionally vigorous opponents were united on the need for a national broadband strategy and were willing to cooperate to explore whether consensus was possible on the content of such a strategy. Before long, our group grew to more than 150 organizations and we named ourselves the “U.S. Broadband Coalition.”

Our next step was to form six working groups to address in greater detail the issues set forth in our Call to Action statement:

• The Needs Group is developing the case for a national broadband strategy, including why broadband connectivity to the Internet is essential throughout America, what’s at stake for the nation, and why a national broadband strategy is necessary.

• The Goals Group is focusing on defining what our national goals should be.

• The Metrics Group is exploring what data we should be collecting, analyzing, comparing and disseminating.

• The Availability Group is addressing supply-side barriers to the fulfillment of our national goals, as well as potential solutions to them.

• The Availability and Use Group is doing the same with respect to demand-side barriers and solutions.

• The Implementation Group is working on ways to put the potential solutions into effect.

This July, the coalition will meet in closed session to discuss our progress and determine where we agree and disagree. That will help us develop our final reports, which we will present at a public meeting in Washington, D.C., in September.

We hope to reach as much agreement on as many issues as possible. For issues on which cannot agree, we will try to provide thoughtful explanations of why the parties differ. Where possible, we will also suggest approaches that decision-makers might take to resolve our differences.

Our hope is that our reports and the dialogue at the conference will contribute to the FCC’s efforts in developing the National Broadband Plan that it will propose to Congress by February 2010 and to Congress’s subsequent deliberations on the proposed plan.

Two years ago, only a tiny number of voices were calling for a national broadband strategy. Today, we have national consensus on the need for such a strategy, and we are well on our way to developing one. To be sure, there are major differences among the key stakeholders that remain to be resolved. On some issues, intervention by the FCC and Congress will undoubtedly be necessary. But our progress to date has already made this effort worthwhile. Driven by a sense of common purpose, our participants are listening to each other with mutual respect and are responding to each other more constructively than they ever have done before. As a result, when we complete our process in September, we may well agree on many more issues than any of us had thought possible when we began.

Stay tuned.