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We Can’t All Be in Google’s Kansas: A Plan for Winning the Bandwidth Race

October 3, 2012 /

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Bear Paw Development Corporation is a private non-profit organization created for the purpose of administering programs to help improve regional economic conditions in Hill, Blaine, Liberty, Chouteau and Phillips Counties and the Fort Belknap and Rocky Boy's Indian Reservations.

While the Google Fiber plan provides a valuable model, other communities that want to ensure their residents get fiber to the home shouldn’t have to wait.

Even though America is in a "global bandwidth race" and our "nation’s future economic security is tied to frictionless and speedy access to information," according to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s latest speech – we don’t have a plan for winning that race.

And our current incumbent providers are not going to help. They’re not going to be the ones rolling out the fiber-to-the-home networks that could provide this speedy access to information. Why? They have no incentive to do so. Because they never enter one another’s territories, they don’t face the competition that might spur such expansion.

By Susan Crawford

Full Story: http://www.wired.com/opinion/2012/10/bandwidth-race-plan/