Let us not make the American mistake
Living in rural has its benefits. It also has its costs - like, not gaining access to some of the urban niceties of life. We think that’s fine and fair, obviously. As it is also true that those who live in urban don’t gain access to some of the joys of rural.
We do not, for example, guarantee mains electricity to every house in the country. We don’t even guarantee piped water and sewage services to every dwelling in the land. They can be purchased, certainly, but at their cost of provision. That cost of provision varying with the degree of rurality.
Water, sewage, ‘leccie, we agree they’re all great things to have but we do not guarantee them to all geographies. So, we think, it is and should be about mobile phone signals or broadband internet.
The solution may depend on the world’s richest man. Elon Musk’s Starlink, which currently provides home internet signals over satellite, is launching a new generation of spacecraft that can connect to mobile phones.
A new space race is pitting SpaceX, Starlink’s owner, against rival satellite firms hoping to fix “not spots” on the ground from hundreds of miles above the Earth’s surface.
If their plans come to fruition, finding yourself up a mountain or in a valley without a mobile connection could become a distant memory.
As the price of these desirables changes then of course the decision over whether or not to have that desirable changes. Fine, markets adapt very well to changes in technology.
But that American mistake that we need to avoid.
The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program provides $42.45 billion to expand high-speed Internet access by funding planning, infrastructure deployment and adoption programs. All 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the five territories participating in the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program have approved Internet for All plans. NTIA approval means all 56 states and territories are taking the next steps to request access to their allocated BEAD funding and select the providers who will build and upgrade the high-speed Internet networks of the future.
That mistake is having a huge plan to do this. Further:
In 2021, the Biden Administration passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which included a provision to give $42.5 billion to the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program to provide under-served and rural areas with internet access. To date, it has connected nobody.
The plan required U.S. states and territories to submit plans for investment and deployment by the end of 2023, which all have done. Expected roll out won't occur until 2026 by most optimistic deadlines.
As we understand this Mr. Musk’s technology is banned from this program. On the slightly odd grounds that it’s Mr. Musk’s technology. At least that’s how it appears.
Our point is about plans. Technology is changing, as technology does. That then tips things at the margin. This piece of rurality can now be connected at acceptable cost so let’s connect this specific piece. Then, perhaps, wait a little longer for that next foot forward in the technology of provision and so on.
The grand advantage of this is that we have decision making exactly where it should be. Certainly there’s a value to broadband, to a mobile signal. There’s a cost to it too. The optimal coverage is where the benefit exceeds the costs. Something best worked out by those who gain the benefit having to pay the cost and thereby doing their own calculation.
You know, markets?
Tim Worstall