According to Lowell C. McAdam chairman and chief executive of Verizon Communications, the US is doing well – we’re global leaders – when it comes to broadband deployment. In his recent Op-Ed in the New York Times, McAdam praises the industry that has built the broadband infrastructure in the US and praises the US policymakers who left them space to grow…

If he is confirmed, Mr. Wheeler will have the good fortune to be arriving at the F.C.C. at a time when the United States has gained a global leadership position in the marketplace for broadband.

More than 80 percent of American households live in areas that offer access to broadband networks capable of delivering data with speeds in excess of 100 megabits per second. Almost everyone in the country has several competitive choices for high-speed broadband service (with wireline, satellite and wireless options). Verizon offers 14.7 million consumers, in parts of 12 states and the District of Columbia, speeds up to 300 megabits per second via our FiOS network, which is poised to provide even greater speeds in the future. Companies like AT&T, Comcast and Time Warner Cable are also investing in their infrastructure.

He may be right; the market has done a good job of providing broadband to 80 percent of the population. Markets are good at recognizing the 80/20 rule – serving 80 percent is pretty easy and profitable. Serving the last 20 percent is hard. And that’s not meant to disparage the providers; many of them of done a great job. But I think it’s up to government to make sure that the remaining 20 percent get served – regardless of ease and profitability.

In a recent speech to providers, Blair Levin (formerly with the FCC not with GigU) recognized the disparity between industry and government goals…

That is, there are two questions that are at play:

• How does our country assure that we meet the communications needs of rural Georgia and America?; and
• How do you prosper as private enterprises?

The National Broadband Plan focused on the first but was not indifferent to the second.

I assume you are focused on the second but not indifferent to the first.

So again I praise the work that has been done, but we need to recognize that serving the last 20 percent will take 80 percent of the effort – because the last 20 percent includes areas with low population density, that are difficult to reach and include potential customers who are not clamoring for broadband access. So maybe rather than looking at an adversarial relationship between industry and policy or regulation, this is an opportunity to develop a partnership that helps reach both goals.

McAdam makes the case that we’re much better off than our European counterparts…

Contrast this with the European Union, where innovation and investment in advanced networks have stagnated under an onerous regulatory regime that limits investment and innovation, and where today only about 2 percent of households have access to broadband networks with 100-megabit-plus speeds. “Once, Europe led the world in wireless communication: now we have fallen behind,” Neelie Kroes, the European Union official responsible for broadband policy, said in a speech in January. “Europe needs to regain that lead.”

There are a couple of things that strike me here. First, in the last couple weeks (while in the UK) I have had very good access to broadband on trains, buses, ferries, in cities such as Dublin and remote towns like Tobermory (on an island in the Inner Hebrides in Scotland). I’ve been to broadband meetings here and there seems to be a drive to improve access. Even in the example above, Kroes seems to be rallying the troops to improve. Second, Europe isn’t our greatest competition. According to the latest Akamai report, the countries with the fastest average connection speed and greatest percent with access to high broadband include: South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Latvia…

If we want to be global leaders, we need to recognize that the US is no longer a leader. We aren’t topping these charts – and we haven’t for a while. Our competition isn’t the city, state or country next door. Our competition is global – and that includes South Korea, Japan and Hong Kong. It’s time to reassess our strategy because what worked to get us to 80 percent might not work to get us to 100 percent. Levin’s speech included an interesting perspective on need to reassess – he was talking specifically about Round One of the FCC’s Connect America Fund (CAF), but I think it applies here…

I wasn’t troubled that the first phase of the implementation of the Connect America Fund—CAF1—did not accomplish what the Commission hoped it  would.  The problem, to me, was that despite the evidence, the Commission wanted to pretend reform was working perfectly.