During my testimony to the Commerce Committee of the Vermont House of Representatives today, we talked about what it means for Vermont to plan to be THE leader rather than a follower among US states in broadband deployment. Being the first e-state’ll have many rewards; it’s also hard and has implications on the strategy we have to follow.
For companies as well as states, taking leadership means aiming for an intersection with an unknown future rather than chasing the known past. In technology, that means getting to where the technology is going rather than to where it is today. That’s why it’s not enough for Vermont to say “we’ll make sure everyone has DSL available.” By 2010 that doesn’t cut it even though many dial-up prisoners would give their eye teeth for basic DSL freedom today. In fact we’re aiming for a minimum of 3-5 megabits symmetric to every fixed location by 2010 with latencies and jitter low enough for VoIP and video.
Since momentary leadership isn’t enough, a strategy for sustained leadership requires
achieving a commanding velocity, not just a position that others will quickly pass by. The commitment to velocity means that we see the 3-5 megabits at fixed locations by 2010 ramping to a minimum of 20 symmetric megabits in the next few years. And that’s a MINIMUM.
There’s no hope of sustaining leadership if leadership is achieved at the cost of lock-in to technologies which will soon become obsolete – as useful as those technologies are (and as much as you must use them) tactically. The plan to invest in middle-mile fiber and radio towers means that many different radio schemes can be tried at relatively low cost on the friendly infrastructure the State has created. New radios can replace old as the technology advances. New lights can replace old as fiber technology advances. Those who are risking their own capital on radios can do that much more easily if they don’t have to build and invest in base infrastructure at the same time.
Leadership means being qualitatively as well quantitatively as better . Going from 80% mobile voice and data coverage to 90% would be a quantitative improvement. Having 100% coverage outdoors for connecting cell phones and laptops is a qualitative difference. In just one area, public safety, think how planning and execution can be improved if the fast squad and the volunteer firemen know that their laptops will still be working all the way to, at, and from every incident they respond to – let alone their cell phones.
100% high-capacity broadband to all fixed locations is a similar qualitative difference – very different than 95% broadband access with some of that adequate and some of it not.
As hard as it’ll be to achieve leadership, the rewards are great:
Leadership means not just making it possible for Vermont businesses to compete but giving them a basis for winning that competition.
Leadership means not just making it possible for existing Vermont businesses to compete but also making it attractive for new businesses to come or form here.
Leadership means not only assuring that our kids don’t fall behind, it means giving them a leg up in an increasingly technical world. It means not only preparing them for good jobs here but also preparing them for the best jobs wherever they go.
Leadership means not only creating good jobs for our kids here, it also means attracting some of the best kids from everywhere else who are looking for great jobs in a great place.
And leadership’ll attract more private capital than followership. There’s more reward for backing a winner than subsidizing an also ran.
I got good coaching from Vermont WISPs and others in the business in response to my last post and was preceded at the committee by Tim Nulty of Burlington Telecom who talked about their exciting plans to bring fiber to homes in a bunch more towns – an important piece of the leadership puzzle. Great (not always easy) questions from the legislators on the Committee. Makes me optimistic.
Vermont Governor Jim Douglas will be the lead-off speaker at David Isenberg’s Freedom to Connect (F2C) conference in Silver Spring, MD next Monday March 5 at 9:00AM talking more about the e-state initiative. I get to introduce the ,Governor and I know there are a lot of Vermonters coming down. If you’re going to F2C even if you’re not a Vermonter, I look forward to seeing you.