Every crisis brings fringe players out of the woodwork, and COVID-19 is no different.
The flat-earthers insist we can open immediately and ignore the certain rebound of the virus. The doomsayers tell us we should be in a bunker for the next two years. The trick for policymakers is to separate the signal from the noise and follow the facts.
That’s the perspective of Richard Bennett, the founder of the High Tech Forum website and a 30-year veteran of internet research. So, he has a well-earned and insightful perspective on the issue of broadband policy.
“Some are claiming that U.S. broadband is ‘breaking’ during COVID-19 (it’s not) and that the Federal Communications Commission is misleading the public with claims about universal broadband availability (the FCC simply stated, accurately, the number of homes without broadband has fallen to historic lows at 5.6%),” he recently wrote.
One of the most outlandish claims has been made by Sascha Meinrath, who argues that U.S. broadband infrastructure is failing because of COVID-19 traffic surges and “decades of deferred investment.” Meinrath is a longtime overseer of a former Google project known as Measurement Lab, which has been regularly proven wrong in its critiques of internet infrastructure.
Here’s the reality: U.S. broadband has withstood a 35% spike in demand with virtually no degradation of service whatsoever. It’s passed the COVID-19 stress test perhaps better than any other industry.
What’s more, the resilience of American broadband stands in stark contrast to other places like Europe where officials have had to ask companies like Netflix, Disney and Facebook to throttle their speeds because the older, more heavily regulated European networks can’t handle the traffic surges.
As Mr. Bennett points out, “It is woefully wrong to claim U.S. broadband is degrading under COVID-19.”
And what about the claims about underfunded networks in the U.S.? That contention is belied by the fact that in the last two decades, U.S. broadband providers have invested nearly $75 billion a year. That amounts to $1.5 trillion over 20 years.
Again, compare that to what has happened in Europe. Even as the European Union desperately tried to catch up, U.S. broadband invested 31% more in the past few years than did the Europeans ($387.2 billion compared to $253.1 billion eueros between 2014 and 2018).
The bottom line is that this U.S. investment and foresight is paying dividends at the very hour America needs it most.
