Universal Broadband: How Can Barriers to Access Be Overcome?

Our 10 government, industry and nonprofit representatives answer in what ways they think barriers to broadband access can be overcome.

Chris Mitchell: One way is to change the expectations. Historically a lot of municipal fiber networks were expected to break even financially. And we don’t expect our roads to break even financially. We expect our roads to enable many indirect benefits and be the platform for commerce. We should increasingly expect the same of open fiber networks that are publicly owned.

Michael Mattmiller: It’s bringing stakeholders together to think about which groups are best suited to providing services to close the broadband gap. In Seattle (WA), we [are reducing regulatory barriers, building public-private partnerships]. If, and only if, those first two options aren’t successful, we’ll need to understand our ability to be a municipal retail provider.

Joanne Hovis: Federal, state and local policy should favor competition and investments. All federal and state broadband and telecommunication funding mechanisms should be open to competition and not restricted to incumbent phone companies, as many of them still are. State laws that restrict the participation of local communities or any other entity in deploying broadband or offering broadband services are counterproductive and only serve to reduce broadband investments and innovation, particularly in rural areas where private entities are less interested in investing.

[Joanne Hovis is a member of the Benton Foundation's Board of Directors]