Is Universal Broadband Service Impossible?

TL;DR

This paper argues that achieving universal broadband is challenging but proposes a feasible strategy for deploying a basic broadband service that meets most needs without strict guarantees like low latency.

Contribution

It introduces a new approach for universal broadband deployment that relaxes current guarantees, making affordable access more achievable.

Findings

A basic broadband service can deliver most critical applications.

Low latency guarantees are not essential for universal adoption.

A plausible deployment strategy can bridge the digital divide.

Abstract

Broadband Internet service is widely expected to be the fundamental universal service for the 21st century. But more than a decade of national and international struggles to close the digital divide between broadband haves and have nots suggest that reaching global universality will be a very difficult task. This paper argues that the strong guarantees made by the current broadband paradigm - low latency and constant availability - are unnecessary obstacles to its adoption as an affordable and universal digital service. We show that there is nonetheless a plausible strategy for deploying a Basic Broadband service that does not require such guarantees and is able to offer, at reasonable cost, almost all the critical and valuable services and applications currently delivered over low latency broadband, synchronous telepresence excepted.