When it comes to broadband, we Americans are a bit like Maverick and Goose in Top Gun. We feel the need for speed — download speed, that is. We cringe at reports that show average U.S. download speeds lagging behind those of other countries. Representative Rick Boucher [D-Va.], chairman of the House Communications, Technology & Internet Subcommittee, says that within the next five years, 80 percent of Americans should have access to broadband speeds that are more than ten times what we have today.
And now Google has gotten into the faster-is-better game, announcing on Feb. 10 that it plans to create a broadband network with download speeds of as high as 1 gigabyte per second — about 100 times faster than those available today.
No one is denying that download speeds matter. But too heavy an emphasis on megabytes and gigabytes per second threatens to obscure a more pressing issue during a period of high unemployment: how broadband can be harnessed to create jobs.
Look Homeward, Congress
Regulators and lawmakers will have a chance to address the link between Internet access and the unemployment rate in the coming weeks as the Federal Communications Commission drafts its National Broadband Plan, a road map for increasing access to broadband, due to Congress in March.
Currently, about two-thirds of Americans subscribe to a broadband Internet service. A range of wired and wireless technologies — cable, DSL, WiMAX, and others — make broadband access possible at work, at home, and almost everywhere in between. As the government hashes out a plan for bring fast Web connections to the remaining one-third of the population, it must avoid getting bogged down in detailed discussions of how much better foreign broadband systems are than those in the U.S. — and instead keep a close eye on ways broadband…