We Need Better Infrastructure for Better Wi-Fi

[Commentary] If fiber-optic lines ran to every business and residence in the country, we'd have a cloud of unlimited Wi-Fi connectivity everywhere we work, live and play. Only fiber can handle the tsunami of data uploaded by mobile devices and sensors Americans are going to use. The Federal Communications Commission took a major step in the direction of this vision by voting to open up a wide swath of frequencies for Wi-Fi use that had been previously controlled by the Department of Defense. But this will make little difference for consumers if the wires needed to facilitate Wi-Fi access in America are second-rate and controlled by the cable industry, and there is no plan for the country to upgrade to fiber.

The cable industry already controls the Wi-Fi market with its wires. This is great for cable: It can sell Wi-Fi services for a fee without having to invest a dime in new infrastructure. But consumers are stuck with the cable companies' proprietary Wi-Fi as well as their second-class wires. What’s most needed to improve wireless communication is for cities to call for publicly owned, privately built open access fiber networks -- with these in place, we'd have a cloud of free, public Wi-Fi in every part of our lives, not just more cellular service.

[Crawford is a visiting professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Law School]