The Brookings Institute recently posted an article from Blair Levin on the four paths to getting “abundant Internet bandwidth” to a community…

1. For communities that have or are likely to attract Google Fiber, the starting strategy is detailed in the handbook Google itself commissioned. If Google arrives, the incumbent telecommunications company and cable provider will do what they have always done: accelerate their own gigabit efforts. Google Fiber could expand to, at most, 20 million homes in six to eight years. Communities serving those other 100 plus million homes should follow the sensible recommendations within the Google handbook, but they’ll need to develop different growth strategies.
2. One set of such communities are those that don’t fit the Google algorithm but enjoy the scale and density necessary to create an attractive next generation investment case.
3. Another set of communities are smaller, less dense communities but with characteristics that can attract private capital to accelerate next generation deployments.
4. The fourth set of communities are rural, where government involvement must play a larger role.

I read the article last week and I was frustrated. The first three paths provide advice on how to act for the community:

1. Follow the Google checklist
2. Create an attractive investment case
3. Attract private capital

And for the fourth option, for rural areas … government must play a role. Hmm. That’s not really a game plan. It’s a wait to play plan. But then it occurred to me that maybe this article is written for the policymakers as much as for community leaders. If that’s the case, I think it’s suggesting that government take a page from Google’s handbook themselves.

First –don’t take the provider’s word that certain areas don’t want better or access or don’t deserve better access. And I don’t mean all providers – we have some great providers in rural Minnesota who are bring gig to their communities (Paul Bunyan, Farmers, HBC…)  – I mean the providers who aren’t stepping up!

Five years ago, 1,100 communities demonstrated their desire for next generation, gigabit-speed broadband by applying for Google Fiber, the company’s ultrafast Internet service. For several years, incumbent Internet service providers dismissed the concept, often saying no one wants that much speed and the cost of such networks did not justify the expense.

Yet in the past 12 months, every major incumbent, covering over 80 percent of the population, has announced plans to deliver mass-market gigabit. The largest ISP, Comcast, announced its entire footprint would be gig capable by 2018.

Second – keep pushing for more as Google Fiber continues to push providers to do more…

Announcements are not deployments. The catalyst for the announcements has been additional Google Fiber deployments. If Google’s effort stalls, actual deployments will also stall and price increases would follow.

For government this might mean pushing with deployments where there are none – or it may mean offering carrots in the form of funding but perhaps pushing for more in return – higher bandwidth to be specific. Sometimes we all need a push!