As first published in Blandin Foundation eNews..

The introduction of 12 Mb satellite service has got lots of people thinking about “what is good enough?” What are the benchmarks for good enough? We are seeing Gb fiber availability heavily marketed in Kansas City and Chattanooga and made available in many places with FTTx networks. Clearly that is “good enough.” I have a 12 Mb connection from Comcast and most times that seems good enough, except when I do a speed test and I am getting less than a couple Mb. There are also times when I get 20 Mb over my 12 Mb connection. For rural township residents that struggle with dial-up or slow DSL or 1st generation satellite, an upgrade to an “up to 12 Mb” connection seems like a blessing. The same is true with a provider promise of future 6 Mb DSL or fixed wireless service.

The truth is that the characteristics of what makes up “good” broadband vary between people, even in the same household. For those who download or stream video as their primary activity, speed is everything and bandwidth caps are considered a fatal flaw. For teleworkers, the ability to log in to corporate Virtual Private Networks is critical; some teleworkers are being told that only wired networks will do as wireless networks are considered too unreliable due to weather and other variables. Mobility is a critical concern for others who want to bring their connectivity and their devices with them wherever they go.

The emergence of this high capacity satellite also clouds the technology upgrade path. Previously, rural communities, especially townships, could envision a path that included incremental fiber installation – to key anchor institutions and to cell towers with fiber being pushed closer and closer enabling better DSL speeds or even FTTH. With enhanced satellite services, will the increasingly fragmented broadband marketplace still support fiber installation or will satellite Internet and television combined with a cellular telephone/smartphone be the end-game telecommunications package for rural residents? I wonder!