Intellectual Property Law

Michigan highspeed internet access

By Susan Crawford

From a recent Farber list message:

Late last month, Senator Inoyue held a hearing on broadband and asked those testifying at least twice how much it would cost to deploy broadband across the entire country. No one had an answer for him.

If we expect to have nationwide broadband, if would be helpful to have an answer. Does anyone on the IP list have a good estimate for the cost of:

— nationwide fiber broadband (reaching 98% of the population or
so) and

— nationwide ultrafast (100 mbps+) wireless?

While we’re waiting for that answer, it would be good to know where we are with highspeed internet access numbers.  Try Michigan.  I sent out a graduate student recently to find out what the penetration/speed/cost figures were in Detroit, Flint, and Pontiac.

Results?  No data.  Nothing public out there - other than the concededly weak existing FCC data.  We’re continuing to dig, and it may be that students will be able to do a survey that will pull some information together.  Let me know if you have better data than the FCC does.

Today’s link, in honor of the VP debate:  Five Sites That Will Boost Your Political Awareness.

Full post as published by Susan Crawford Blog on October 02, 2008 (boomark / email).