Alissa Centivany
ABSTRACT
With recent investments in broadband network development, policymakers have devoted new attention and resources to the social, economic, and political questions surrounding broadband development. While progressive policy in this space necessarily depends on careful forward thinking, it would also benefit from more thoughtful forms of hindsight that bring the lessons of history to bear on the ongoing problems of network development. This paper re-thinks and re-grounds current broadband development efforts from the standpoint of three central challenges -- concentration, incumbency, and interconnection -- that have long shaped and limited policy efforts in the telecommunications and wider infrastructural industries. Long-term success of the sort envisioned under the National Broadband Plan and broadband stimulus programs will depend on new and better solutions to these problems.
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