Winter 2018
It's not new news that the United States trails many other developed nations in the availability of high-speed Internet connections built with fiber-optic technology. Crawford (law, Harvard.; Captive Audience) not only elucidates the technical reasons why this is true but delves into the policy and legislative efforts that favor incumbent technologies (cable and wireless telecommunication) and thwart so-called last-mile fiber connections from coming into U.S. homes and businesses at competitive prices. Moreover, the author examines the opportunity costs of this lack of infrastructure in terms of the impact on health care, education, economic development, and socioeconomic equity. Most compellingly, she compares local attempts in a number of American cities to bring gigabyte service to residents with varying degrees of success, rather than looking to overseas models in which differing cultural and governmental factors may contribute to triumph or failure. Finally, Crawford offers recommendations for changes needed at the state and federal level to make state-of-the-art fiber connections a practical reality. VERDICT Crawford presents a compelling call to action for politicians and concerned citizens about the promise of fiber connections and the roadblocks that may stand in the way.—Wade Lee-Smith, Univ. of Toledo Lib.
10/29/2018
A little fiber will go a long way, according to this book’s plan for improving access to healthcare, education, and transit—and for combating inequality—in the U.S., which posits that “all the policies important to us as a country... depend on having last-mile fiber and advanced wireless services available cheaply to everyone.” It may sound like a tough sell, but Wired columnist Crawford (Captive Audience) convinces with impeccable journalism and empathetic portraits of rural communities and low-income cities in distress, the ails of which could be much alleviated by a large-scale federal investment in fiber optic connections. She looks to Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Scandinavia, all far ahead of the fiber curve, and compares their swift progress to the sluggish and haphazard efforts of American cities, which seem to lack the political will to make the switch. As she explains, fiber presents a cheaper and faster alternative to copper and DSL, which could enable low-income citizens easier access to healthcare and education via emergent possibilities like, respectively, telepsychiatry and robots that allow sick students to participate in classroom sessions from home. Crawford’s work is both refreshing and potent in how it clinically identifies the problem, and proposes a straightforward, feasible solution. (Jan.)
A timely and urgent look at how America is sacrificing its digital future, productivity, connectivity, social mobility, entrepreneurial growth, education, and every other public good, thanks to rapacious telcos, scumbag lobbyists, and negligent, cash-hungry politicians. . . . You should be reading this.”—Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing“Crawford convinces with impeccable journalism and empathetic portraits of rural communities and low-income cities in distress, the ails of which could be much alleviated by a large-scale federal investment in fiber optic connections . . . Crawford’s work is both refreshing and potent in how it clinically identifies the problem, and proposes a straightforward, feasible solution.” —Publishers Weekly“Essential reading.” —Kirkus Reviews, (starred review)“Crawford’s narrative is a damning indictment, grounded in facts, and a critically important story. But Fiber also offers a way out of connectivity misery.”—Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, Science“Trenchant and personal.”—Foreign Affairs “If we can just finish the last mile for fiber to reach into households, Susan Crawford shows, we can unleash a revolution of economic growth, education, and health, and address inequality in a whole new way. Crawford shifts effortlessly from the heights of policy to the literal ground level and shows us the way.”—Anthony Marx, President, New York Public Library "By vividly describing a world filled with fiber-enabled technology as well as the perils and possibilities for achieving it, Susan Crawford has written a playbook for a fairer and more prosperous United States."—Andy Berke, Mayor, Chattanooga, Tennessee
“Engaging and accessible … An indictment of national regulatory politics and crony capitalism and a love story about the plucky local governments overcoming the odds to bring their own communities into the twenty-first century. A microcosm of what ails America—and what nonetheless can give us hope.”—Yochai Benkler, Harvard Law School
“Engaging and accessible … An indictment of national regulatory politics and crony capitalism and a love story about the plucky local governments overcoming the odds to bring their own communities into the twenty-first century. A microcosm of what ails America—and what nonetheless can give us hope.”—Yochai Benkler, Harvard Law School
“If we can just finish the last mile for fiber to reach into households, Susan Crawford shows, we can unleash a revolution of economic growth, education, and health, and address inequality in a whole new way. Crawford shifts effortlessly from the heights of policy to the literal ground level and shows us the way.”—Anthony Marx, President, New York Public Library
★ 2018-10-28
The great promise of "cheap, unlimited connectivity" via fiber-optic cables.
In South Korea, Sweden, and many other Asian and northern European countries, enormous amounts of data travel through fiber directly into homes, providing limitless communications capacity. In this comprehensive account, Crawford (Harvard Law School; Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age, 2013), a former science and technology adviser for Barack Obama, argues that, lacking fiber-to-the-home connections, most Americans "suffer from totally inadequate, horribly expensive connectivity that cuts whole populations off from opportunity, adequate health care, and a decent education, and thwarts the development of new businesses." In the United States, fiber connects cities but stops short of entering neighborhoods. Instead, information comes into 84 percent of homes through far more limited copper wire. That is like traveling through a 2-inch-wide pipe as opposed to the 15-mile-wide river afforded by fiber. Drawing on five years of research and interviews in cities from Stockholm to Santa Monica and Chattanooga, Crawford describes how fiber is made, its ability to encode information on pulses of light, and why "very-high-capacity wireless connections—5G—require fiber to run deep into neighborhoods and buildings." An unabashed booster of fiber to the home, she details the impacts of so-called "last-mile fiber connectivity" (China is installing some 20,000 such connections daily), including greatly improved opportunities for everything from business, learning, and medical care to urban problem-solving. Fiber's huge broadband capacity makes possible a remarkable, reliable virtual presence. "Fiber plus advanced wireless capability is as central to the next phase of human existence as electricity was a hundred years ago," writes the author. At present, unregulated cable and phone monopolies control expensive into-the-home connections, with no incentive to upgrade to fiber. If the benefits of fiber connectivity are to reach beyond urban, affluent areas into rural and poor households, it will require local leadership and new federal policies.
Essential reading for digital policymakers—and citizens seeking change in this arena.
