How Do We Deploy Internet Service Like Electricity?

It’s 2017 and you’re going to buy a new house. You need to choose who will deliver the garbage on your public street, choose your electric provider that uses immobile pylons, and in some cases, sign up for the water service operated by a private utility. These are all second nature decisions you need to make to live a productive and sustainable life.

Net neutrality has been the decade’s most hotly debated topic. Today, we have a White House whose attitudes represent the antithesis of the entire concept. While it’s speculated that FCC commissioner Ajit Pai formerly supported concepts of open internet, it is well known that he is publicly against it.

My solution to the net neutrality issue is designed to be implemented on a local scale, based on the Clinton-Gore “information superhighway,” a national system of government-run servers and switches to provide vital information to every American household, much like how every house receives phone, gas, electrical and sewage service.

Unless you use well water, have propane, solar panels or a septic tank, you wouldn’t buy a house or live in one that doesn’t have these components, would you? Especially a phone line, such a basic form of communication that can also transmit data (albeit at slower speeds, unless using a sisgital subscriber line).

The Huffington Post described the “information superhighway” in detail:

There is a wire that goes into your home, school or office as everyone in America is entitled to phone service. This was based on a copper wire that was put in as part of the state-based utility and most of them are controlled by what are now AT&T, Verizon and Centurylink. And these networks were aging as almost all of America had been wired for phone service by the 1960’s.

Starting in 1990s, (though it varies by state), this copper wire was supposed to be replaced with a fiber optic wire, which would allow for new innovative services, not to mention cable TV and video. And it was always supposed to be an upgrade of the state-based utility known as the “PSTN”, the “Public Switched Telephone Networks”.

It was also supposed to be open to all manner of competition. You, the customer, would choose who offered you Internet, cable, broadband and even phone service over that wire.

Further, we learn that over the past 20 years, ISP customers and taxpayers have been paying into a system that was never going to happen through private enterprise:

By the end of 2014, America will have been charged about $400 billion by the local phone incumbents, Verizon, AT&T and CenturyLink, for a fiber optic future that never showed up. And though it varies by state, counting the taxes, fees and surcharges that you have paid every month (many of these fees are actually revenues to the company or taxes on the company that you paid), it comes to about $4000-$5000.00 per household from 1992–2014, and that’s the low number.

The progression of my plan would be pretty simple: test it out in a few, specific, targeted places, such as a town, city or county with enough resources to deploy the network, and then expand and deploy it nationwide. Some of this is already taking place with municipal broadband.

So what is the purpose of this, when there’s already plenty of competition in the marketplace today, you may ask? Well, there isn’t. Many markets across the country have near monopolies or oligopolies of service providers. Just take a look at the 2015 market share of the five major cable companies, and merge Charter with TWC.

How would this work then?

Isn’t it socialism?

No, you’d be wrong on that front as well.

This plan is about one concept, and one only: logistics.

The ineptitude of the telecommunications industry and the gross persistence of their lobbies to subvert congressmen means that municipalities and governments now need to take the reins to develop innovative strategies to connect its citizens to the vital utility.

Taking cues from private industry, we can look at FedEx as an example of how this would work. Within their massive distribution facilities, tens of thousand of packages move around every hour to board trailers, vans, planes and trains. Unlike UPS, FedEx does not own its ground vehicles or employ drivers (which is controversial), and they focus primarily on moving boxes to these vehicles. In other words, their income and profit is applied to the sophisticated sortation machines, equipment, facilities, software packages, R&D, and wages/salaries for those involved with the former. On the contrary, UPS owns all of its equipment and vehicles, not only increasing overhead costs, but also the amount of assets it needs to keep track of.

Another comparison can be made to the ACA open exchanges, in that customers can enter a government-run database of insurance providers and choose the best match for them. With municipal broadband, a similar dichotomy can exist.

What does this have to do with fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) and net neutrality? How can we build out a nationwide broadband network with this?

First, local governments that don’t already have an FTTP system find sources to fund the construction of the lines. It could come from selling renewable energy, such as that of a nearby dam, or investing in solar projects in the area. Or, it could be as simple as a small tax that guarantees fiber will be available to all of its citizens.

Next, ISPs would compete against each other to “deliver their packets” along the new utility. Just as FedEx moves boxes along the conveyors, ISPs will move packets along the fiber. If a customer finds a cheaper alternative because another ISP finds a cheaper way to get packets to them, then that option would be available. There wouldn’t be such a thing as “government run-Internet,” it would just be the government that guarantees and implements FTTP.

Finally, customers can still pay for their desired speeds with their chosen ISP along the public fiber. This doesn’t mean that ISPs can slow down traffic, even if a user is on a barebones plan, because the high capacities of fiber would make such attempts futile. As it would be nothing but an attempt to dig in a customer’s wallet, local governments would have the power to sue and fine the offending ISPs in the rare case that it occurs.

Even though the future of net neutrality is bleak at the moment, a bright future can exist close to home if we push for it.