I like to keep an eye on what folks are doing around the world – but I know that their situation is so different from the US that it’s often an apples-to-oranges comparison to talk about what they are doing but I ran across a theory that I loved too much not to share…

Ofcom is a consumer protection agency focused on telecommunications issues in the UK. They are encouraging the UK to provide fiber in rural areas first. Their reasoning is that the folks is rural areas too often missed the latest upgrade so they are even farther behind and they need that leap frog jump into the next generation of solutions.

It makes perfect sense. The government plays a much larger role is providing telecommunications services across the UK. And apparently this organization has come up with good suggestions in the past that haven’t been heeded – but at least someone is realizing that it makes more sense to upgrade dialup to fiber than upgrade to DSL this year, fiber in 5 years.

I also like the assumption that it has to be done. I think that once we recognize the undeniable need to build an ultra high speed infrastructure then we can look at the long term costs of band aid solutions versus solutions that are more deeply rooted. Sometimes I feel as if we’re making community and region-wide decisions as if we’re going to move sometime soon. I’d rather that we start making policies based on the assumption that we’re going to stay.