FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband

Wed Aug 26 22:39:14 UTC 2009

They have a saying in politics to the effect that "the perfect is the enemy
of the good." This is a pretty good illustration. We have the opportunity to
improve connectivity in rural America through the wise expenditure of
taxpayer funding, and it's best not to squander it by insisting on top-shelf
fiber or nothing at all. Let's push the fiber a little deeper, and bridge
the last 20,000 feet with something that won't be too expensive to replace
in 3-5 years. The budget ($7B) just isn't there to give every barn some nice
GigE fiber, even though it would make the cows happy.  

Richard Bennett

-----Original Message-----
From: Joe Abley [mailto:jabley at hopcount.ca] 
Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 1:42 PM
To: Fred Baker
Cc: nanog at nanog.org
Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband

On 26-Aug-2009, at 13:38, Fred Baker wrote:

> If it's about stimulus money, I'm in favor of saying that broadband 
> implies fiber to the home.

I'm sure I remember hearing from someone that the timelines for disbursement
of stimulus money were tight enough that many people expected much of the
money to remain unspent.

Does narrowing the scope of the funding to mandate fibre have the effect of
funding more and better infrastructure, or will it simply result in less
money being made available? Does it matter?