Down to the Wire

Thomas Bleha

From Foreign Affairs, May/June 2005

Summary:  Once a leader in Internet innovation, the United States has fallen far behind Japan and other Asian states in deploying broadband and the latest mobile-phone technology. This lag will cost it dearly. By outdoing the United States, Japan and its neighbors are positioning themselves to be the first states to reap the benefits of the broadband era: economic growth, increased productivity, and a better quality of life.

Thomas Bleha, the recipient of an Abe Fellowship, is completing a book on the race for Internet leadership. Previously, he was a Foreign Service officer in Japan for eight years.

The PITAC should also do its best to promote ultra-high-speed fiber access for one-third of all U.S. households at $40 to $45 per month by 2010. It should use its convening power to bring to the table all the stakeholders in the millions of miles of unused fiber that run below U.S. city streets. The purpose of such discussions would be to encourage the widespread use of existing fiber by analyzing the reasons for its current disuse and seeking ways to make it viable. The PITAC might also recommend legislation to permit the National Science Foundation to provide matching grants to bring fiber to the campuses of colleges and universities across the country. This program could be modeled on the highly successful National Science Foundation Network (NSFnet) project that brought the Internet to campuses in the 1980s.

Finally, by 2010, the PITAC should suggest ways to create a comprehensive, nationwide, third-generation cellular infrastructure. With such mobile phones Americans would, at long last, be able to talk with one another regardless of where they are. A first step might be for the PITAC to bring stakeholders together to sift through the many economic, legal, regulatory, community, and environmental issues that currently stand in the way. Another would be for the government to begin considering now the requirements of fourth-generation wireless technologies. The new policy would also anticipate the likely convergence of wireline and wireless that will provide the anytime, anywhere, any-device connections to the Internet that have long been predicted. For starters, however, the government should take steps to ensure that by 2007 the hundred largest cities in the United States will no longer be riddled with dead spots and that third-generation mobile phones will be available in select rural areas as well.

Reaching these goals will require top political leadership and consistent, purposeful government policies, as well as private-sector action. It will be the Bush administration's task to tell Americans how broadband could change their lives, provide the leadership needed to set out and reach specific goals, and fashion the competitive market framework that will foster fast progress. Another four years of drifting would likely leave less than one-half of the nation with somewhat cheaper but slow broadband service, a substantial portion preferring to stick with dial-up, and a significant share with no affordable access to broadband at all.

Unfortunately, it could take half a dozen years (or more) to reach these goals, and meeting even that timetable would take commitment, resourcefulness -- and luck. In the meantime, the world leaders in broadband and mobile-phone service will continue to move ahead: Japan is already expected to have a comprehensive nationwide ultra-high-speed fiber infrastructure, as well as an entirely new third-generation mobile-phone infrastructure, in place by the end of the year. As usage grows, Japan and its neighbors will be the first to reap the substantial economic, innovative, and quality-of-life benefits of their enlightened leadership. It is now time for the United States to summon the will to catch up with them, so that Americans, too, can look forward to the rewards of the broadband economy.