Who Understands All This Technical Stuff Anyway?

Well, the quick answer may be – not many people. It seems somewhat scary for local, state and national leaders to be making policy decisions on technologies that they may not fully understand. If we want to deploy more broadband (and deploy it in areas that may not have the normal market-driven forces at work), it seems that it would be helpful to have more technical resources available to decision-makers who are trying to understand broadband issues.

Last month, Geoff Daly of App-Rising.com spoke at the annual conference for the National Association of Regulatory Commissioners on wireless broadband. In his speech, he points out some of the pros and cons of wireless broadband – in a way that is easy to understand. What areas will it be most useful in (ex. mobility-driven applications)? What are the drawbacks (lack of standardized technologies)?

Daly’s goal was to educate the regulatory commissioners gathered together there from all around the country. We won’t try to spell out his entire speech here, but we recommend reading it. He even points out what he sees as a technical problem in a wireless plan around libraries, suggested one of the FCC commissioners. And that makes us wonder – where do these national leaders go for technical advice? Of course, the FCC commissioners have dedicated staff but what about all the utilities commissioners and state-level leaders? There are a multitude of technical issues surrounding broadband deployment, and you don’t have to look far to also see the volume of complex regulatory and legislative requirements around varying technologies.

At the e-NC Authority, we get lots of calls from local leaders and state leaders who are trying to sort out these questions. They most often ask about deploying wireless service and/or developing fiber networks. We do provide technical advice to local and state leaders in North Carolina, but only as much as is possible with our small staff and limited financial resources. And there are some other groups which do this as well, such as the Center for Public Technology at UNC-Chapel Hill, which offers training for government IT professionals.

But there still seems to be a lack of technical assistance available to those who need it most – those who may be trying to decide where to invest millions of dollars allocated for a community network, or those state legislators who are trying to decide how to write a particular piece of legislation. There are always industry professionals and vendors to provide consulting but can you get objective advice from a vendor?

In any case, until we have enough public entities willing to invest in technical staff members that really understand broadband technologies, or in policy staffers that really understand the policy side, we just have to hope that leaders and interested citizens are taking the time to read Daly’s columns and the thousands of other blogs, presentations and in-depth papers that examine these issues.