Broadband's free ride?

It seems we haven't learned our lesson from municipal Wi-Fi. City after city in the U.S. has proved that “free broadband for all” schemes don't work. But now FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is proposing not a citywide Wi-Fi network, but a nationwide WAN on licensed spectrum, which he expects operators to pay for. If the Advanced Wireless Service-3 auction actually takes place, I predict disaster from the start.

The FCC proposes to take 25 MHz of spectrum in the 2.1 GHz band and auction it off as a nationwide license — but with several strings attached. The biggest is that the winning bidder must offer broadband services, presumably funded by advertising. There is at least one company interested in such a setup, M2Z Networks, and Martin appears to be tailoring auction rules — or so say his Congressional critics — to M2Z's business plans. Martin's critics also complain that such an auction scheme wouldn't raise the billions the U.S. Treasury is used to raking in.

I have no problem with the goal of broadband for all, but in the halls of the Capitol and the FCC, that goal rings as a hollow political gambit. If broadband for all really is a national priority, then the government needs to step up and fund it. These half-baked plans that bizarrely combine the trappings of progressivism with the free market just won't work. If we really do view broadband as a national right, we have to approach it the same way we do highways, education and health care. Maybe the government doesn't need to take over the nation's broadband infrastructure, but it certainly needs to subsidize it. It's no coincidence that many of the countries that politicians point to as having surpassed the U.S. in broadband penetration also are ones that directly subsidize broadband service.

If broadband is not a fundamental right of every citizen, then let the free market take over. Sure, many operators won't ensure poor, elderly or rural residents have broadband, but then again, BMW isn't required to make an affordable car. The FCC holds the country's airwaves in trust. It can use that spectrum as a public resource, as it does with public safety and military bands, or it can lease it to commercial entities. It can't do both, though, and trying to is either greedy or dishonest. In this case, it's likely both.