Ever since the 1970s, the notion that the telecommunications network would eventually serve as a data superhighway has been an aspect of our culture. Preliminary telecom pioneers observed the potential and paved the way over the next 4-plus decades to where we are currently: at a juncture in our history when this superhighway will be open to all Americans. 

Going by the American Jobs Plan Fact Sheet, the bill “will bring affordable, reliant, high-speed broadband to all Americans, which includes more than 35% of rural Americans who lack access to broadband at minimally acceptable speeds.” 

In August, the Senate passed what is currently referred to as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, legislation that is being debated in Congress this week as the House of Representatives votes on its passage. Currently, there is $65 billion assigned to broadband infrastructure expenditure as aspect of the bill with approximately $47 billion of the allocation devoted to developing networks. The critical phrase that requires some consideration in the Fact Sheet language is “broadband at minimally acceptable speeds.” 

The hurdle legislators encounter is how minimally accepted speed is calculated. If you observe how regulatory agencies perceive broadband presently, it’s framed as a technology-neutral decision. In actuality, it is driven by special interest groups concentrated on safeguarding technologies that while useful historically, are no more capable of being compatible with the applications, services, and compute requirements required to support Americans, at home, work, or play. 

Some specialists and experts will inform you that a technology-neutral strategy is critical as it enables local and state governments to select the infrastructure that is correct for its own community. A 2020 research by RVA, carried out on behalf of the Fiber Broadband Association, discovered that “persons with lower-performing broadband connections are rationing Internet utilization inside the house. Among users with the slowest bandwidth and highest latency, 49% reported actions like asking other family members to curtail internet utilization during work video conference calls.” 

Michael Render, president of RVA, LLC, an organization specializing in broadband research, lately specified “some assume second-tier broadband, with reduced speed, lower reliability and increased latency, will suffice for the more rural regions of North America. Market research, and the experiences witnessed in 2020, disqualify such thought. Accompanied by population shifts to rural regions, rural citizens now require and demand the highest quality broadband available – which fibre quantifiably delivers best. An accelerated rollout appears critical to the future of the USA and Canada.” 

What tech neutrality does is perpetuate the reality for rural Americans, minimally acceptable broadband quickness is adequate – keeping the digital divide intact. After broadband speed requirements leap ahead, as several industry specialists forecast will occur as demand for telehealth, precision farming, smart home, 8k streaming, and AI-driven applications trickle into the mainstream, the divide will only expand wider. These technologies are only starting to cross the chasm into mainstream utilization and when they do, legacy broadband technologies will leave residential users restricted and not too happy. 

Compression of the runways of these legacy infrastructure tech further is the new normal paradigm of WFH, putting pressure on residential networks that were mostly developed to support voice calls and recreational usage. The virtual workforce is here to remain for several Americans, leading to more individuals moving outside of cities to more cost-effective, and often less interlinked, rural regions. 

Congress would reap advantages from viewing the infrastructure challenge via the lens of its constituents rather than from the perspective of the tech organizations that don’t live in their state or hometown. Via this lens, why would any elected official vote for its communities to obtain “minimally accepted speeds” at a time when it can select to make investments in every single individual’s future? 

The PEW Charitable Trust lately specified that the broadband component of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act “is representative of a historic moment in national broadband policy; the size and scope of the proposed investment acknowledge that the hurdles at hand and how crucial high-speed web access is to make sure American’s economic future. The COVID-19 pandemic, which has restricted millions to work, go to school, and carry out much of their lives on the internet – has driven home the fact that quick, dependable, and cost-effective broadband is a critical component of the nation’s infrastructure.” 

The commentary is concentrated on the advantage that broadband as infrastructure serves in our lives presently as shaped by the alterations incited by the pandemic. But, we’re not developing a broadband infrastructure for today. We’re developing it for the future, for the next generation of creative thinkers, engineers and organizations that are usually born in rural societies. 

To provide these inventors, innovators, and visionaries a broadband infrastructure with no restrictions, it has to receive support from fibre. Fibre broadband has proven to have an instant and long-lasting effect on communities, adding to local GDP, appreciating home values and opening up well-paid jobs. The actuality is that with unrestricted capacity, the prospects are endless. We currently have the window to develop an unforeseen level of opportunity for anybody with a computer and fibre broadband connection. Why would we settle for anything lesser? 

RVA’s research, commissioned by the FBA and put forth in the Fibre Broadband can eradicate the North American Rural Digital Divide white paper signified that in 2021 a home of four needs 131/73 Mbps of bandwidth that will expand to 2,141/2,044 Mbps by 2030. Provided that the infrastructure funding is concentrated on developing a network that will support that family in 2030 and beyond, fibre is the sole pavement that should be leveraged when developing the next phase of the information superhighway in the USA. 

This week, as the House manages conflicting priorities and deadlines, the requirement to pass the infrastructure bill ought to transcend party politics and posturing as it confers advantages on all Americans – those that desperately require the digital divide to close, and the remainder of us that will reap advantages from their contributions once they can enter the internationally connected marketplace.