Ten Things You Need to Understand About Broadband

Just posted a four page piece called Ten Things You Need to Understand About Broadband. Read the whole thing at FirstMile.US or cheat with just reading the ten things here...

1. Open infrastructure is an essential building block to universal broadband.
2. Broadband Adoption = Access + Applications + Affordability + Accessibility + Assistance
3. There are many different roadblocks to adoption in “underserved” communities.
4. At least five factors must be measured to understand why an expensive-to-serve area has no or sparse broadband.
5. Urban communities have the most nonadopters.
6. Public-good “Grand Challenge” applications are the killer apps for government.
7. Subsidized middle-mile fiber combined with community connection points will catalyze first mile deployments in expensive-to-serve areas.
8. Successful programs that create new adoption must be feted and scientifically analyzed so we can replicate success.
9. Mapping is a-good-thing, but empirical data is better.
10. Sustained local leadership has the biggest and most dramatic effect on creating broadband demand, creating a community broadband spirit and attracting the attention of communications providers.