The first thing that stands out as you peruse the Federal Communications Commission's latest report on rural broadband is that it reads like it was actually written by somebody.

"As long as a grade-school child living on a farm cannot research a science project, or a high school student living on a remote Indian reservation cannot submit a college application," the 78 page document begins, "or an entrepreneur in a rural hamlet cannot order spare parts, or a local law enforcement officer cannot download pictures of a missing child without traveling to a city or town that has broadband Internet access, we cannot turn back from these challenges."

Who penned these words? If you guessed William Booth of the Salvation Army, you are getting warm. Bringing Broadband to Rural America is the first big FCC published survey that I've come across that is signed by the head of the agency, in this case interim Chair Michael Copps. It definitely has the senior Democrats' crusading tone, and turns an otherwise dreary list of bureaucratic recommendations into a Rooseveltian call to arms.

"Infrastructure deployment is something Americans do well; it plays to our national strengths," the report notes. "We have built out canals, bridges, electricity, telephone service, roads, and highways. Now, with much history to learn from and with an array of technological resources at our disposal, we can and will do it again."

Thank you, Dr. Win-the-War.

Human faces

But first, let's get the dreary stuff out of the way. The 2008 Farm Bill required the Chair of the FCC to crank out this compendium outlining "a comprehensive rural broadband strategy" that answered three questions. What is the state of rural broadband? How can the government help overcome obstacles to its expansion? And how can key government agencies cooperate in doing this?

The report's answer to query number one is candid. "The Commission and other federal agencies simply have not collected the comprehensive and reliable data needed to answer this question," it confesses. The survey cites a 2008 Pew Broadband Adoption Study which found that between 57 to 60 percent of urban/suburban consumers have broadband, compared to 38 percent of rural residents. That last number is pretty close to a National Telecommunications Information Administration estimate: 39 percent. But these numbers are "inexact," the FCC concedes.

So what does Copps do to fill in the gap? He borrows inspiration from James Agee and Walker Evans' Depression era classic Let Us Now Praise Famous Men and tells a story, taken from a filing submitted by the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council.

Although we do not have accurate data on broadband deployment in rural America, MMTC presents one community, Weirwood, Virginia, and through Weirwood gives 'rural broadband deployment' a human face. As MMTC describes it, Weirwood is an isolated rural community on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, on the site of a former cotton plantation. Weirwood is only a mile and a half from U.S. Route 13, along which lies a broadband Internet backbone. The residents of Weirwood, however—mostly African-American descendents of former slaves—lack access to broadband. MMTC states that Weirwood has 'absolutely no ability to raise internally' the funds needed to build a broadband node to the community from the existing backbone line. Pending acquisition of thorough, reliable, and disaggregated data, we glimpse through Weirwood the state of broadband deployment in impoverished rural areas.

It's rare that one finds literature in an FCC document, but the policy wonks will be looking for specifics. Here they may be somewhat disappointed. Sure enough, the report acknowledges the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act's call for a national broadband map, recommending that the FCC and the Obama administration "continue their efforts to coordinate federal, Tribal, state, local, and private mapping efforts." But Bringing Broadband glides past difficult questions about who will really oversee the production of this map—the government or a telco-backed nonprofit like Connected Nation?

The document urges reform of the Universal Service Fund, but is very brief about how. It looks for ways to encourage interagency cooperation, recommending that the FCC create a "comprehensive website that will provide a centralized access portal for information concerning all federal programs addressing broadband." But beyond that, the report calls for the continuation of the National Economic Council's interagency working group, and not a lot more. Much of the essay is an encyclopedia of extant consultative agreements between states, localities, Indian tribes, and Federal agencies.

The heritage we bring

But what stands out above the forest of Executive Orders, memorandums of understanding, and legal precedents is Copps philosophy about government. And here he is as plain as fiber. "Relying on market forces alone will not bring robust and affordable broadband services to all parts of rural America," he writes. "Therefore, all levels of government should explore ways to help overcome the high costs of rural broadband deployment."

Where does the FCC's temporary boss find precedent for this? First, in the American past—in the New Deal's Rural Electrification Service, in the Federal government's railroad land grants, in the US postal system (which heavily subsidized newspaper delivery with cheap rates), in the Federal Highway Act of 1956, and, of course, in the Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency, germinator of the Internet.

"Federal funding and visionary federal agencies created a noncommercial enterprise that would ultimately generate enormous sums of money, transform nearly every aspect of our daily lives, and change how the entire world communicates," Copps declares. "This is the heritage we bring to the current challenge of comprehensive broadband deployment in rural areas."

Second, he finds his precedents in the rest of the world—in Australia's promise to upgrade most of its homes and work offices to 100 Mbps, in France's "dead zone programme," which lets operators use public cash to get mobile service to thousands of rural towns, and in Sweden's "stadsn�tt" network, a municipal fiber network rent out at cost to ISPs.

"A complementary government role in broadband deployment can yield advantages that a free market solution cannot achieve alone," the report concludes. Give me a broadband New Deal, Copps is whispering to Congress.

The problem is that what he's got now is the Recovery Act's $7.2 billion in broadband stimulus cash, and a labyrinth of federal and state agencies that will oversee its deployment. Copps' obvious hope is that this inadequate mess is just the beginning. "We are at an early stage in the national effort," he observes, and is cautiously writing the story as he wants it to play out—a story that will continue with the National Broadband Plan Congress expects the FCC to complete by February of next year.

"I view this Report as a prelude to, and a building block for, the national broadband plan," Copps concludes, "which will address in greater detail and on a vastly more complete record, the input of all stakeholders and the steps the nation must take to achieve its broadband goals."

Copps is also filling a void created by the absence of a permanent agency chair. That, perhaps, is why a footnote to this report indicates that it represents his views and not the FCC's proper. It is unclear when the heir apparent, Obama nominee Julius Genachowski, will finally get his Senate confirmation hearing. It is also uncertain whether Genachowski's Clinton era/dot-com narrative will entirely comport with the decidedly old-school philosophy we're currently getting from the FCC's former college teacher.

But if nature abhors a vacuum, so does government. So until the new boss shows up, just remember that there's nothing to fear but fear itself, at least for now.

Listing image by Eric Bangeman