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“U.S. Government Broadband, Inc. now bringing you the World Wide Web at lightning speeds.”  Wait - the U.S. Government provides broadband?  But, the Government isn’t a telecom—yet.  A member of the Obama Administration is supporting the idea of a U.S. tax-subsidized public broadband network.  Just imagine, high-speed internet everywhere, even in the most rural parts of the country.  Plus, this isn’t your ordinary cable internet - when they say high-speed, they are talking 100 times as fast as what we have now. 

So, theoretically, you could sit back and stream HD movies to your laptop, even if you’re in the middle of nowhere.  Isn’t that what we all want?  For most of us, the answer is yes, but, is such a large-scale telecom project possible?  Well, Australia and Singapore are already in the process of successfully implementing such a network and Britain and the Netherlands are making their own network plans. 

Of course, nationwide, government-sponsored internet has its opponents, particularly the private telecom sector.  Private telecoms would have to compete with the Government to be your ISP, but may not have the capital to meet tax-subsidized pricing plans.  The Government also has regulatory powers that private telecoms simply do not have.  There’s also the question of how the Government will manage customer service and system maintenance of such a large network.  The U.S. is geographically much lot larger than Australia.  Just because Australia is having success with nationwide broadband, doesn’t mean it will be feasible here.

While I am all for bringing broadband to every part of the country, I believe that a piece of the access equation is being overlooked.  Even with nationwide broadband, there are still going to be people who cannot afford a computer to connect to the internet, as well as those who won’t be able to afford even a subsidized internet plan.  Will the nationwide broadband plans also include a subsidized hardware program to supply computers to low-income persons? 

Also, considering the degree of bureaucracy in Government, I find it unlikely that such a large project would move forward expeditiously.  I also believe that the private telecoms will use what money and power they have to lobby heavily against such a project.  That’s unless Congress implements the idea of leasing out its broadband infrastructure to the private telecoms to help soften the pitch.  We won’t know exactly what Congress has in mind though until February 2010 when it releases its official national broadband strategy.

Read: [National Journal]