The Great Disconnect!
A quick aside from marketing and other similar topics. On the surface this post might not appear to apply to my normal readers, but it does affect everyone AND it may impact marketer's ability to connect to customers in the future.
If you use a cell phone to talk, text, email or surf, did you know that most of time your call, text, email or web request is traveling on fiber optic cable under the ground...not through the air? It's true.
We all want to communicate when and where we want. That can be a voice conversation, an email, a text message or some form of video chat – just to name a few options. What used to be done solely from home can now be done from an iPad, a laptop or a smartphone.
Interestingly, all of these capabilities are still reliant on the network that keeps your home connected. Not the wires that actually come into your home, but rather what those wires are connected to, the broader network of fiber that stretches across town, the county, our state and our world. It is that network that connects us all.
It is that underground network of fiber, which companies like Panora Telco, Marne Elk Horn, Walnut Communications and hundreds of others like them own which carry almost all of the wireless calls, emails to your smartphone, text messages and allows you to access the Internet from your wireless phone.
Wireless phones CANNOT function without an underground network to support them. This is a greatly misunderstood point by customers and more importantly regulators. It is the Great Disconnect!
The National Broadband plan, or more importantly the FCC rule making process currently underway, will have an impact on all of this because it incorporates changes to the funding model about how companies like those named above get paid to transport traffic. On the surface this is a good thing because changes are needed to adjust for the significant changes in the marketplace.
Deeper down is where the problems start to surface. It becomes apparent that DC regulators want to apply different rules for different areas. They are proposing to change the long held position that all American’s should have equivalent services, by giving more populated areas better services than you will be able to get.
Lest you think that 'only rural areas' will be affected, know that the FCC considers all of Iowa and many other rural states across the country as too rural to deserve the same services as a customer in, for example, New York, Washington DC and LA receive.
If regulators have their way, the cost recovery system will be changed in such a way so these companies will not be able to maintain the network that makes it all possible – including wireless services and broadband Internet. In addition, companies will not be able to bring expanded Fiber to the Home products which will provide huge bandwidth potential - up to 100Mb per home.
When you talk with Federal legislators, tell them to make sure the FCC treats less populated areas the same as metro markets. We all deserve the same platform for opportunities.
If you are interested in details go to www.thegreatdisconnect.org or talk with your local communications provider. Please help spread this message. Thank you in advance.
