Jim Baller, of The Baller Herbst Law Group, wrote a great commentary on ConnectKentucky/Connected Nation (CKCN) today in his email alert today. He kindly gave me permission to reprint it below.

As I have mentioned in this blog before, my interest in CKCN stems from the fact that policy makers seem to mention it by name. So, whatever else they may or may not be doing, they are getting noticed in a way that other programs have not. Legislators seem to think that this is the answer so I think it’s worth the effort to find out which pieces have worked and how we can build upon the interest in CKCN to get to the National Broadband Strategy that Jim Baller brings up below.

One final note before I add Jim’s comments – the articles he mentions are long – but there are interesting in a he said, she said kind of way. In the right humor they will read like soap opera fodder for policy wonks and geeks.

Commentary from Jim Baller 

Many of you have asked me to comment on the controversy surrounding ConnectKentucky/Connected Nation. Here are my first impressions.

On this list and elsewhere, I have repeatedly praised CK/CN for their broadband mapping, consumer education, and demand aggregation activities. While some of their claims seemed exaggerated to me, I gave them the benefit of the doubt. At the same time, I often expressed concerns about their limited, incumbent-centric vision of America’s broadband needs and about their strong bias against public broadband initiatives.

In his lengthy article, Art Brodsky has now called many of CK/CN’s claims into question. Brian Meffert has responded on behalf of CK/CN. Links to both pieces appear below.

I hope that Mr. Meffert will provide a more detailed response, that Mr. Brodsky will reply, and that the unnamed sources to which both refer will step forward and enlighten us about what really happened in Kentucky. In a matter of this importance, we need to know the facts, and we should not pre-judge them in either direction.

Wherever the truth may lie, however, my main concerns about CK/CN will remain. In 2002, the US Department of Commerce issued a report entitled “Understanding Broadband Demand” in which it observed that “It is important to note here that the current generation of broadband technologies (cable and DSL) may prove woefully insufficient to carry many of the advanced applications driving future demand. Today’s broadband will be tomorrow’s traffic jam, and the need for speed will persist as new applications and services gobble up existing bandwidth. ” http://tinyurl.com/34e49y  

Now, six years later, we can clearly see how prescient the Department of Commerce was. While CK/CN are stuck on single-digit DSL and cable modem speeds, the world’s leading nations are pushing rapidly toward speeds of 100 Mbps to 10 Gbps. Such speeds will completely tip the balance of innovation and competitiveness in their favor. Ironically, the bandwidth-rich applications that these nations will foster would clog the arteries of the puny systems that CK/CN’s initiatives would produce.

To remain a leader in the emerging global economy, the United States needs a much bigger vision than CK/CN’s. We need to give all Americans, including those in the rural areas that CK/CN would serve, candid and unbiased information about the stakes involved and about the full range of options available to their communities. Moreover, we cannot afford to exclude any potentially viable initiative – public or private — that can help the United States fulfill its vision.

To be sure, we need reliable maps of broadband availability – as well as speed, quality, and price. No one disputes this, and many tools are emerging to achieve this goal. We also need better consumer education, including accurate data about offerings of incumbent and competitive providers. At the very least, CK/CN deserve credit for highlighting these needs.

But even more, America needs a national broadband strategy that is worthy of this great Nation. This can happen only if all major stakeholders, including the incumbents, candidly acknowledge that America faces a tremendous challenge, that time is short, and that the public and private sectors must work together, in a spirit of mutual respect, to meet this great challenge. We cannot allow the CK/CN controversy to bog us down or divert us from developing such a strategy.

Jim Baller

http://tinyurl.com/32w3cf  (Meffert)
http://tinyurl.com/yvvf2j  (Brodsky)