High speed internet: The next crucial infrastructure

In a recent column on MidwestBusiness.com, communications technology consultant and professor James Carlini declares that high speed internet is the next essential piece of infrastructure for the United States:

Some look at the traditional infrastructure elements as roads, railways, airports, bridges, waterways, dams, docks, drinking water and wastewater facilities.

While these are all important elements, power and network infrastructure should be included as well. All of these elements are essential in creating the new infrastructure that exemplifies the relevance of “location, location, connectivity”.

Indeed, high speed internet reaches across all aspects of our economy and our society, so it must be considered just as important as highways and telephone service. And that means we must make a serious effort to understand the current state of high speed internet access and improve that connectivity for the future.

The first step, Carlini argues, is creating a comprehensive map of current high speed internet access that includes internet speed, location, and pricing. As Carlini writes,

This would be very critical in assessing how competitive a state is along with its ability to attract and maintain corporate facilities. It would also help to understand where help is needed in boosting speeds from megabits to gigabits.

One proposal to achieve such a map has already been introduced in Congress by Senator Daniel Inouye. This bill would require the FCC to raise its definition of "high speed" connections and collect data down to nine-digit zip codes.

In the absence of such a federal government-led effort, there are two additional routes to better data collection: one is the Connect Kentucky model, in which local non-governmental organizations take the lead in collecting internet access data; the second is an open-source, bottom-up mapping effort.

The Information Technology Information Foundation (ITIF) recently released a proposal for this kind of user-generated map. As the ITIF paper states,

One promising and economical alternative would employ an open-source model to obtain penetration, speed and price data in a bottom-up fashion. To accomplish this, the Commission or the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) would oversee the administration of a website where consumers could automatically test the speed of their broadband connection and enter additional information, including their location and their monthly broadband cost. With the help of mapping technology such as that offered by Google Maps, the resulting proliferation of data points could very quickly yield a nationwide picture of local broadband deployment, prices and speeds.

Speed Matters has already created a map along these lines, based on the results of our speed test. This map gives an important look at general trends of internet access across the country.

Still, the kind of map our country needs to set policy must be more comprehensive, and any user-generated map must be seen as merely complementary to a full-fledged data collection effort. Only when we as a nation get serious about understanding the current state of high speed internet connectivity will we be able to achieve the universal access we need to maintain a strong economy and equal opportunity for all.

Beefing Up State of Illinois: Solid Economy Equates to Solid Infrastructure (MidwestBusiness.com)

Senator Inouye Introduces Broadband Data Improvement Act (Speed Matters)

High speed in the Blue Grass (Speed Matters)

Open Source Mapping Database for Broadband Data Recommended (Information Week)

Comments of Information Technology Innovation Foundation to FCC (ITIF)

Speed Matters State-by-State Report

Speed Matters Speed Test