Potential Results of Ubiquitous Wireless Broadband Internet Service

What would be the benefits to society of ubiquitous wireless broadband service? The possibilities are limited only by the imagination. The following pages delve into looking at where 802.11 could benefit government and society.

National Defense Residential Broadband Network (NDRBN)

A number of new technologies have arrived on the market that make the deployment of broadband Internet access cheaper, simpler, and more convenient to deploy. Incumbent quasi-monopolistic service providers have failed to make broadband Internet access a priority for their customers and for national defense. In the interest of homeland security, it is imperative that our national leaders quickly adopt a policy for building the National Defense Residential Broadband Network.

The Problem

The federal government has been lambasted for failure to internally share intelligence that may have prevented or at least mitigated the attacks of September 11, 2001. Investigations into these allegations reveal outdated computer systems in the intelligence and security services at all levels of government. For a variety of reasons, intelligence and law enforcement agencies experienced difficulties in sharing information. Technologies developed in the dot-com boom could have overcome many of the technological shortfalls of these government networks. Relatively simple technologies such as restricted access web sites, encrypted email, video conferencing, and voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) could streamline the intelligence-sharing process and prevent future attacks.

Although such technologies are readily available and relatively inexpensive, the telecommunications infrastructure that would deliver these services to small city or rural police forces and the residences of agents who require this information is, for a number of reasons, inadequate. Broadband Internet access is available to only 8 percent of residences nationwide. The availability of broadband Internet access for small city and rural police forces is probably no better.

The Solution

Just as the interstate highway system in this country was introduced as the National Defense Highway System and was initially funded as a defense project, a comparable program could provide a majority of American households with broadband Internet access with a multitude of societal and economic benefits. Some authorities state that this universal broadband deployment, that is, broadband Internet access to a majority of American homes, could produce a consumer benefit of $500 billion annually.

The National Defense Residential Broadband Network (NDRBN, an acronym pronounced "nidderband") would best use wireless broadband (802.11b and associated protocols) to deliver broadband services to the "last mile," that is, the residence or small business. This would ensure redundancy and survivability in the network and would encourage investment in a wide range of technologies and businesses, creating millions of jobs.

Benefits

The NDRBN would provide many benefits for both the military and for civilians. National security applications would include:

• Allowing government security offices to interact with state and local police forces via a variety of Internet resources (web sites with current terrorism intelligence information, email alert bulletins, video conferencing, video on demand, and cost-free, long-distance voice) resulting in a streamlined process for sharing information on terrorist threats nationwide. This would empower servicemen and -women with a means of working at remote sites, including their residences, which could save the Department of Defense (read U.S. taxpayers) billions of dollars annually in telephone, travel, and relocation expenses. This would also enable military reservists to stay in touch with their units remotely via email, high-bandwidth web sites, video conferencing, long-distance calling, and video on demand.

• Allowing military veterans subject to recall to stay informed of military issues via email, web sites, video conferencing, and video on demand.

• Empowering the Veterans Administration (VA) to provide "e-medicine" healthcare applications for millions of veterans who currently find the VA system overwhelmed, resulting in delayed or inadequate care. E-medicine would also save the taxpayers millions annually in VA healthcare costs.

Civilian applications and benefits include

• Reducing U.S. dependency on foreign oil by empowering Americans to telecommute using video conferencing technologies. This applies equally to reducing costly business travel utilizing the same technologies. Studies have shown some 30 percent of the U.S. work force could telecommute if residential broadband Internet access was available.

• Developing and deploying e-medicine applications to improve healthcare for citizens and reduce the overall cost of providing healthcare. This network would connect all hospitals, clinics, and doctor's offices to patients statewide.

• Enhancing distance learning for both adults and school-age children via email, high-bandwidth web sites, video conferencing, and video on demand.

• Enabling an urban work force to move to less densely populated (and less costly) parts of the state. This could be an engine for rural economic development

• Boosting worker productivity by jump-starting the now beleaguered Information Technologies (IT) sector of the economy.

The Opportunity

Just as the National Defense Highway System is now a highly valuable part of our civilian economic infrastructure, the NDRBN could be a powerful engine for economic development.

In addition to the human capital, many vendors of telecommunications equipment are experiencing financial difficulty in this down market and offer their products at considerable savings over what they charged two years ago. Components critical to building the NDRBN could be purchased by the builders of this network at great savings relative to their costs two years ago.

A crucial element of the NDRBN is the vast network of fiber-optic cable that constitutes the backbone of the Internet. Of all the fiberoptic cable laid by telecommunications companies, no more than 10 percent (estimates vary widely, but are universally pessimistic) are "lit", that is, in use and generating revenue.^[1]

This overabundance has been termed "bandwidth glut" and has resulted in the bankruptcy or near bankruptcy of many such businesses. The chief reason for economic woe in this business sector is an inability on the part of the infrastructure builders to deliver broadband Internet access to residences and small businesses; that is, supply has greatly exceeded demand in the short term. In short, a nationwide "skeleton" for the NDRBN has been built by the private sector and now lies dormant. These networks or the bandwidth they provide can also be had at great savings from financially troubled service providers.

Two potential approaches exist for building the NDRBN: The NDRBN will be government built, owned, and operated, or the NDRBN will be privately built and operated with government incentives for private sector entrepreneurs. As a government project, the NDRBN would exist as an Internet-access-only entity and provide no content or specific services of its own. In this capacity, the NDRBN would be analogous to the interstate highway system. Citizens would use the NDRBN to access the Internet in the same way they use an interstate highway to "access" their home, place of work, or business. Just as the interstate highway system was built by construction contractors, the NDRBN would be built by telecommunications infrastructure contractors. Once built, an appropriate government entity would maintain the network for the common good just as state highway departments maintain the interstate highway system, albeit with monies from the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Although some might argue this constitutes government interference in the private sector, it should be asked as to why only 8 percent of American residences have broadband Internet access. This is despite the fact that most of the technologies listed earlier have been available for a number of years and that the nation is living in one of the most prosperous periods in the country's history. It can be argued that private sector entities have failed or refused to deliver broadband Internet access and it now falls to the government to provide this service for what is potentially a $500 billion annual benefit to the U.S. economy.

Another argument is that the monopolistic structure of the telephone and cable TV industries has blocked the timely rollout of broadband Internet access. These entities have had little incentive to provide this service. Cable TV companies usually have exclusive franchises to provide cable TV in their areas of service and are faced with no competition; as a result, they will not make the necessary investment in infrastructure to offer broadband Internet access. Telephone companies, despite the provisions of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, also face little competition in their specific markets and, as a result, provide less than 10 percent of their subscribers with broadband Internet access.

A compromise between public and private construction and ownership of the NDRBN would be to provide incentives to service providers to roll out broadband Internet access. This would cover the construction and maintenance of certain parts of the NDRBN. 802.11b or similar wireless technologies are relatively inexpensive to deploy and may provide opportunities for "Mom and Pop" small businesses to offer such Internet access in their neighborhoods. Most Americans first subscribed to the Internet via small, local ISPs who could get into the business for as little as $5,000 depending on the size of subscriber base they sought. Many such operators are still in business today. The same scenario could work for the rollout of the NDRBN.

The deployment of the NDRBN need not be the scene of "pork barrel" projects. Government incentives for small entrepreneurs could be limited to government-backed SBA loans aimed at NDRBN builders or tax relief for a number of years following that builder's construction of their part of the NDRBN. It should be noted here that the transcontinental railroad network would not have been built in the United States were it not for the incentive of federal land to the railroads in exchange for miles of track laid.^[2]

The benefits of the NDRBN are manifold. The current environment in the telecommunications market presents a grand opportunity for our society to build this network for the common good (and common defense). New technologies make the rollout of this network both technologically and economically feasible. Like President Eisenhower's National Defense Highway System, a wide variety of options exist to fund, build, and operate this network as a partnership between the public and private sectors. The time to build the NDRBN is now.

^[1]"Numbers Crunched," Telephony Magazine, October 14, 2002: 26.

^[2]See Stephen Ambrose's Nothing Else Like It In The World (Simon and Schuster, 2000) for a treatment of funding schemes for the transcontinental railroad.