Corning, Educause Panelists Promote Broadband Incentives
Representatives of a maker of optical fiber and a group of university IT managers agreed that there’s a role for government incentives to promote super-fast broadband. But Corning executive Stan Fendley and Telepoly President John Windhausen, who consults for the Educause group, disagreed Tuesday at the first Broadband Breakfast Club event how best the government can help. NCTA President Kyle McSlarrow, who’s critical of the broadband loans made by the Agriculture Department’s Rural Utility Service, said any direct government subsidies should go only to rural areas.
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Windhausen supported the most sweeping government program of any of the three speakers: a Universal Broadband Fund lasting four years to help pay to get very high speed connections to every home and office. The effort would cost $97 billion, and the government might pay one-third, he said. “Given the financial situation we're in now, there’s probably no better time to make the broadband investment we need in this country,” Windhausen said. The spending would provide an “economic stimulus” that “will pay for itself over time,” he added.
Fendley said “public policy makes a huge difference in broadband deployment.” But he seeks a much less expensive alternative. A broadband provision in a farm bill that Fendley helped draft while a Senate aide would let companies deduct from their taxes as business expenses half their investments to provide 5 Mbps downstream and 1 Mbps upstream service to rural and underserved areas. He estimated the cost at $72 million over 10 years. “The government is not going to step in and build its own network,” said Fendley, Corning’s director of legislative and regulatory policy. “We need to find ways to encourage the private sector.”
The U.S. isn’t “where we want to be,” McSlarrow said. Deregulation, such as unbundling, spurred competition between telcos and cable operators, he said. Cable operators will increase data transmission speeds by moving to digital video networks and using DOCSIS 3.0 wideband technology to combine channels to raise output, McSlarrow said. Bonding four channels, operators can achieve 160 Mbps downstream and 120 upstream, he added. Windhausen said DOCSIS is “moving in the right direction” because, “in three to five years, we're going to need those 100 megabits.”