Fiber: The Coming Tech Revolution―and Why America Might Miss It

What is the fuss about fibre optics? Conventional methods (at least in some countries like the USA) for delivering data and information is through the copper wire. Crawford tells us that ‘If the information-carrying copper wire is like a two-inch-pipe, fiber optic is like a river fifteen miles wide.’ Whereas we cannot download a 4K film through the wire, fibre optics lets us download 10 films in a second -ONE second and 10 films (movies, as Americans say). This book examines how far behind America is in this area. Fibre optics is actually a technology that is decades old, but it caught on seriously in Korea, China, Japan, Singapore and other Asian countries, America did not. Crawford explains why. There are several reasons. One of which is that it requires a great deal of co-ordination and co-operation among the telcos and government. That is the norm in Asia but absent in America. She explains why this is crucial. It is no use having the fibres if you cannot bring them through the last-mile, that is, into the homes of the citizens. This is not happening in America whereas ‘China is installing twenty-thousand last-mile fiber optic connections every single day’. Only 11 million American households out of 126 million are fibre connected… South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore have virtually 100 percent fiber adoption at low prices…’ And that is one key factor – low prices. The problem does not lie with the Asian countries but with America’s own big businesses and telcos. Some seem to be deliberately ignoring the importance of fibre optics by repeating the claim that eventually, everything will be wireless. Crawford dispels this ignorant claim. Wifi cannot work unless the fibres bring the load near enough to its reach – in other words, to the last mile. The problems are manifold and Crawford wraps up all the last bits in the chapter, ‘What Stands in the Way’. As she says, fibre optics alone won’t make an area thrive, but without it, ‘thriving won’t happen’.

When I first heard about this book, I immediately ordered it. The basic premise of fiber optic connectivity being critical to enabling technological progress and that America should lead the world is a worthy national debate. But I was truly disappointed by Ms. Crawford's outdated research, limited understanding of broadband technologies, and clearly one-sided look at how to get there. The net result is eleven chapters, repeating the same liberal elite socialist propaganda over and over again, looking for the federal government to save us all. By the end, I was pulling my hair out thinking how much of an opportunity was wasted by her failure to objectively look at this issue. Some key things that were left out:- She doesn't objectively analyze the Rural Electrification Act that she uses to justify why government should lead the charge to deploy fiber to everyone. Research from her own colleagues at Harvard have criticized it as a very costly subsidy, funded by taxpayers, with minimal transparency. I would have loved an objective analysis on how it could have been done differently to be more sustainable and effective. Nor did she even mention, much less research the results from, the 2014 Rural Gigabit Network Pilot Program from the REA.- She glosses over the fact that fiber alone, doesn't attract industry. She admits to this late in the book, but doesn't spend any time analyzing what is needed beyond just connectivity, like strong educational institutions and a culture of fostering innovation for true economic impact.- She ignores the fact that for rural electrification to occur, new technologies and approaches were necessary (e.g. 7200v distribution networks). This would have been very interesting to look at what innovations are needed to make rural fiber economically sustainable. Advances in flexible fiber bundles, low-latency mesh networks, and low cost fiber distribution electronics were are all ignored. She really should have partnered with engineering colleagues at Harvard or nearby at MIT. She epitomizes the saying, "It's easy to sound brilliant when you are unencumbered by the facts."- In her effort to make incumbent telecom providers the bad guys, she completely ignored how their early investments in fiber-to-the-home have funded most of the advancement in fiber deployment technologies for companies like Corning and that they continue to make huge investments in additional fiber deployment every year. Undoubtedly these companies are for-profit enterprises and need financial incentives to invest, but making them out to be the evil empire is unfair.- She ignores ways that government could partner with telecom service providers to make rural fiber deployments make more financial sense. A good example would be Sunrise Township in Minnesota, where the local government and a local electric co-op partnered with a telecom service provider to deploy fiber in more cost-effective way.So, in summary, this book is a biased political stump speech for big government socialism from the liberal elite perspective. With its sparse and outdated facts and figures and lack of objectivity, it missed a great opportunity to start an effective bipartisan national debate on a very important topic. So tragic.

This book highlights how far most of America is behind other countries in the installation of critical fiber-optic infrastructure and the conduit needed to house it. How every town in America needs a Dig Once Policy, and how this resource needs to be publicly owned. It also dispels some of the myths surrounding much less reliable, lower-performing, shared bandwidth wireless tech being forced on our communities by the FCC on behalf of big wireless like Verizon, AT&T, etc, that has to be backed up by fiber anyway. In short, "whoever controls the fiber controls how communications will happen, how good they will be, how cheap they will be, and if they will honor our 1st Amendment." This book explores all of those issues and recommends that this critical infrastructure be a public resource for many resons. It also dispels the myth that companies like CenturyLink are providing real options by explaining their business model. This is all done is a very high level way so that anyone can read, and benefit from this book.

Harvard Law prof Susan Crawford writes clearly, tells good stories, and provides a comprehensible overview of how digitized communications and information go from one person to another. She makes the case that only glass fiber optic cables can deliver the vast and speedy amount of information that businesses and professions will be using in the very near future or, in places like Singapore, Korea, and much of China are already in use. She makes it clear that in the very near future, unless the US defeats the cable giant incumbents, which charge much more for cable access than their brethren in other countries, and deliver vastly slower and less consumer-friendly service, unless they go the way of the buggy whip, the US will be severely crippled in global competition, education, and social provisions. Joe Biden, are you listening?

What is the fuss about fibre optics? Conventional methods (at least in some countries like the USA) for delivering data and information is through the copper wire. Crawford tells us that ‘If the information-carrying copper wire is like a two-inch-pipe, fiber optic is like a river fifteen miles wide.’ Whereas we cannot download a 4K film through the wire, fibre optics lets us download 10 films in a second -ONE second and 10 films (movies, as Americans say). This book examines how far behind America is in this area. Fibre optics is actually a technology that is decades old, but it caught on seriously in Korea, China, Japan, Singapore and other Asian countries, America did not. Crawford explains why. There are several reasons. One of which is that it requires a great deal of co-ordination and co-operation among the telcos and government. That is the norm in Asia but absent in America. She explains why this is crucial. It is no use having the fibres if you cannot bring them through the last-mile, that is, into the homes of the citizens. This is not happening in America whereas ‘China is installing twenty-thousand last-mile fiber optic connections every single day’. Only 11 million American households out of 126 million are fibre connected… South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore have virtually 100 percent fiber adoption at low prices…’ And that is one key factor – low prices. The problem does not lie with the Asian countries but with America’s own big businesses and telcos. Some seem to be deliberately ignoring the importance of fibre optics by repeating the claim that eventually, everything will be wireless. Crawford dispels this ignorant claim. Wifi cannot work unless the fibres bring the load near enough to its reach – in other words, to the last mile. The problems are manifold and Crawford wraps up all the last bits in the chapter, ‘What Stands in the Way’. As she says, fibre optics alone won’t make an area thrive, but without it, ‘thriving won’t happen’.