TIA Telecommunities

Housing Boom October 12, 2007

Posted by ianmartinez in : Trends, What's New?, Policy , trackback

When I noticed the Internet Innovation Alliance’s new broadband blog, I predicted IIA’s Internet heavyweights would “inform the debates in a major way.”

I think it’s happening.

Bruce Mehlman’s post yesterday on High Speed Housing is the kind of substantive analysis the alleged “experts” — that have no policy experience — simply don’t generate. Also, it’s the kind of consensus, commonsense approach to policy that the best tech wonks and regulators have long taken.

Mehlman lays the right tone right away:

Too often in Washington, the debate is characterized only by the extremes. It’s either zero regulation or heavily-subsidized, government-run bureaucracies. Confiscatory taxes or “read my lips” no new taxes. Unfettered free trade or xenophobic isolationism. The reality, of course, is that most issues require a bit more nuance.

We all know what government is not, and suspect the ways it might help, when it comes to broadband deployment. But what’s bold out there? What new ideas are there that might reconfigure the way public policy and broadband deployment goals dovetail? He’s got a suggestion:

But another one of government’s important but under-appreciated roles is as a market participant, and in this regard there is more we could do right now to promote broadband deployment and usage.

Every year the federal government invests more than $34 billion to house low-income people, leveraging $10 billion in private investment through the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program. The government tries to be a smart buyer of such real estate, opting for such attributes as energy efficiency and construction quality. This is clearly not regulation, but rather government spending our tax dollars prudently. But so far the government has not chosen to build broadband-ready low income housing. It is time it started.

So many public policy issues wrapped into one juicy blog post. From multiple dweller unit regulations to the digital divide, this idea touches them all. It’s an idea that’s hard to dismiss offhand and warrants further discussion.

We’ve written about regulation and free markets working together on this issue. And Grant has written about the ways in which consensus solutions are there for the taking.

Can this be an issue that develops a head of steam?

Save This Page Google Yahoo MyWeb