Do No Harm

Google Fiber is an ongoing effort by Google to deliver internet services to consumers with speeds roughly 100 times faster than most users experience today but at a comparable price. In the areas it is being introduced, competitors like Comcast or others large providers are forced to compete or perish. Google took an interesting approach, however, by building on a proprietary model rather than using existing facilities wherever possible. The reason? Avoiding open access. 

Open access is at the center of President Obama's National Broadband Policy and it basically says that you, as a company, use your assets to build a national network and then everybody gets to use it at the same price. Cool. So FedEx buys a fleet of planes and delivery vehicles, not to mention several huge and highly automated sorting centers, and then has to offer its service to all comers, whether they want their package there overnight or don't care when it arrives, all at the same price. There's a lot of incentive there to innovate! 

This article critques the National Broadband Policy from this perspective and finds it wanting. Google asks that government at least not throw roadblocks at companies trying to innovate. That is definitely a sound policy for government to follow! The simple fact is that private investors are not going to sink their dollars into any venture where there is not at least a reasonable possibility of a decent rate of return on their money. "Open Access" is one of those policies that if money were free and available for the picking, it might work. Since that is not the case, however, we might at least get out of the way when people with money are willing to take risks with it to innovate new products and services, like Google Fiber, that benefit the entire economy and eventually all consumers. "Do no harm." applies to more than the field of just medicine. 

www.cnet.com/news/what-have-we-learned-from-google-fiber/