One of the ironies of the current broadband situation in the US is that staunch free marketeers defend the status quo even though the result of their views has been duopoly and high prices. Meanwhile, other countries (including those with a reputation in some quarters for "socialism") have taken aggressive steps to create a robust, competitive, consumer-friendly marketplace with the help of regulation and national investment.

Critics, it's time to stop the quibbling: the data collection practices that show the US dropping year-over-year in all sorts of broadband metrics from uptake to price per megabit might not prove solid enough to trust with your life, but we're out of good reasons to doubt their general meaning.

On March 26, 2004, George Bush talked up the importance of broadband. "This country needs a national goal for... the spread of broadband technology," he said. "We ought to have... universal, affordable access for broadband technology by the year 2007, and then we ought to make sure as soon as possible thereafter, consumers have got plenty of choices when it comes to [their] broadband carrier."

But multiple reports show that countries around the world are beating us at broadband, and we're putting our economy and technological leadership at risk through a truly stunning failure to cast a national vision. Other countries are doing better at this, and they're doing it through a combination of financing, fear (competition), and federal mandates.

Report US ranking FTTH Council, "Asia Lead the World in FTTH Penetration" (July 18, 2007) 11 Robert Atkinson, "The Case for a National Broadband Policy" (June 2007) 12 OECD, "Broadband Statistics to December 2006" 15 ITU, "Broadband Statistics for 1 January 2006" 15 ITU United Nations Conf. on Trade and Develop., "Chapter 3, the Digital Opportunity Index" 20 Website Optimization, LLC, "US Jumps to 24th in Worldwide Broadband Penetration" (August 21, 2007) 24

This was the message of John Windhausen, president of Telepoly Consulting, who authored (and is currently lobbying for) the "Big Broadband" plan for 100+Mbps fiber optic connections to every home in the country. The plan is backed by the higher-ed IT association EDUCAUSE, and Windhausen presented his work to members at an annual policy gathering this week in Washington, DC. While Windhausen's model might not be the one ultimately adopted by the US, he did explain just how other countries have managed to leapfrog us. First, though, he dismissed two common canards. (Quack, quack; bang, bang.)

A common criticism of the OECD broadband numbers that put the US in 15th place worldwide is that they cover countries less rural than the US, with its amber waves of grains and the purple majesty of its mountains at twilight (word on the street has it that God sheds grace like dead skin on these places, too). But Windhausen pointed out that other countries with more rural areas are beating us in broadband. Norway, Iceland, and Sweden, for instance, all have a greater rural mix than does the US, and all are higher in the rankings.

In addition, nearly all the countries beating us have a smaller Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita than the US; in fact, only Norway and Luxembourg have a higher one.

So if being a broadband laggard can't be chalked up to either having less money or more farmers, what can explain it? Windhausen says that other countries have deployed the "three Fs" listed above as they made broadband a key piece of national policy.

Japan. The government requires local loop unbundling so that new ISPs can emerge without having to rewire the last mile every time. The government also has a 34 percent stake in NTT, one of the major telecoms, and has ordered it to deploy fiber whether or not it shows a profit; broadband is considered a key piece of infrastructure that can't simply be deployed only where it is profitable. The government also subsidizes a third of the cost of all fiber-to-the-home deployments in rural areas, where rolling out new lines can prove terribly expensive. The result is one of the fastest broadband networks in the world at one of the lowest price-per-megabit points anywhere.

France. In France, local loop unbundling was mandated in 1999 (the US ditched similar rules a few years later) and multiple competitors emerged. In December 2007, new fiber rules were promulgated that required all new construction to be compatible with fiber, which is much cheaper to install at the time of construction. The country's policies have been successful enough that competing ISPs like Iliad and Neuf Cegetel are no longer just content to lease their lines but are rolling out their own fiber infrastructure. While fiber ramps up, DSL too remains far above US offerings, providing 20Mbps for around $20 a month using ADSL2+ technology of the kind AT&T is now deploying for U-verse (though in AT&T's version, only part of this is available for Internet access).

Sweden. Sweden was the first European nation to have a broadband policy, and it has sunk $820 million into infrastructure so far. That might not sound like much, but it represents a $30 billion expenditure for a country the size of the US. The Swedish government is now recommending another $500 million to build fiber out further into rural areas, and fiber lines are unbundled to encourage competition.

Canada. Finally, Canada adopted a broadband plan in 2001 and it treats broadband as a core infrastructure element. It has about the same rural/urban mix as the US but a smaller economy per capita, and it is near the top of the OECD rankings.

Despite the repeated claims of the current administration that our "broadband policy" is working, the US actually has no broadband policy and no aggressive and inspiring goals (think "moon shot"). The EDUCAUSE model suggests investing $100 billion (a third comes from the feds, a third from the states, and a third from companies) to roll out fiber to every home in the country. Whether the particular proposal has merit or not, it at least has the great virtue of being an ambitious policy that recognizes the broad economic and social benefits from fast broadband.

Here's hoping that the next president, whoever he (or, possibly, she) is, gives us something more effective—and inspiring—than this. It's telling that the current administration's official page on the President's tech policy hasn't had a new speech or press release added since... 2004.