**Note, this article was written during the COVID-19 pandemic, I did not dare to publish it until now, the time is right, we need to act quickly and as a team!**
FIBER OPTIC NETWORK FOR THE AMERICAS MANIFESTO
We believe it’s time to unite visions for all of America, from Alaska to Chile, and make us the most connected continent in the world through the largest fiber optic network the world has ever imagined while respecting each country’s sovereign rights and pushing forward a joint agenda for fiber connectivity.
Intro
The world has changed overnight. While there have been many movements in the past to connect more people with fiber, as a region have failed to implement a strong strategy to truly bring connectivity to each corner. In the poorest areas, the effect of having a lack of internet access is becoming most evident. While public schools in Mexico are trying to offer online classes, teachers are devastated by the fact that students willing to continue with their studies, cannot do so due to the lack of Internet access. I am sure that is true for most of LATAM and even some areas of the USA and Canada. Not to mention companies that require their employees to be connected remotely and simply do not have access, or the quality of the connection is deficient. Companies like Twitter have announced that from now on all its employees can work from home indefinitely; so, we are never going back to what we used to consider “normal”.
What is fiber and why it is of utmost importance right now?
Fiber Optic Cables consist of several hair-thin pieces of glass strands through which laser light pulses carry all the data of the world. All digital information (calls, videos, pictures, social media, emails, etc.), is simply reduced to the binary system of 0’s and 1’s consisting of 8 digits (for example, the binary code for the letter A would be 01000001, each “0” would mean no light pulse (off), while the “1’s” are sent as light pulses (on).
Under the current COVID-19 contingency, it has become more evident that we need much better connectivity with fiber to all homes of the Americas. Think as an analogy to the time when electricity came to be; the USA made a massive private/public effort to bring electricity to each corner of the country. Having access to such new technology resulted in the USA being at the forefront of all the great inventions of the electricity age (the light bulb, the microwave, blenders, washing machines, TVs, toasters, the computer, and even the Internet itself); Edison and Tesla, among others, would not have been able to bring us all their great inventions if they didn’t have access to electricity.
Now we face a tremendous disadvantage against other regions of the world where fiber investment by both, the private and public sectors, has been extraordinarily strong (Check out Susan Crawford’s book “FIBER: The Coming Tech Revolution – and Why America Might Miss it, 2018). It is said that the new “Ubers”, “Facebooks” and “Googles” will come from those countries which have the best internet (fiber) connectivity.
Even though people might think 5G (wireless), would mean the end of fiber, it is the other way around. To make 5G work, each small cell tower would need to be connected to fiber optic cables to be able to carry the exponential load of information that it needs to carry between its huge network of small cells that get closer to the end user.
Reactivate the local economies (Roosevelt’s BIG DEAL Highway Program).
Between 1933 and 1939, Roosevelt reactivated the USA’s economy through the largest national highway program, among others, designed to put people back to work. This dense regional “digital highway” construction program would incentivize all the local economies by detonating the creation of new companies in charge of rolling out fiber networks, not to mention the creation of a new generation of fiber technicians, installers, network designers, investors, educators, manufactures, and the new generation of digital companies that require high bandwidth Internet access. This would prevent us from entering a “Great Depression” Style Economy; and also prevent massive immigration movements in the region, the likes of which have not been seen since World War II, as new sources of labor would be created in all countries; not to mention reducing the humanitarian crisis this is already creating in some of the most vulnerable areas. Time is of the essence!
How to do it
This must be tackled from multiple angles in a coordinated manner.
- We need a platform(s) to educate people on what is fiber and its relevance for our times at all levels: from governments to regulators, businesses, schools, academics, investors, etc. (even an intendant should understand the importance of fiber). It should also aim to train and educate a new generation of fiber technicians, network designers, educators, leaders, and entrepreneurs.
- We need to have round tables with government, regulators, intellectuals, businesses, etc. to come up with better recommendations on how federal governments, states, and municipalities can ease the deployment of fiber while making sure those companies deploying respect the environment and federal, state, and local laws.
- To win credibility this needs to be driven by Universities (and all other institutions of learning), the public, businesses, and all other parties (including political parties), and, particularly by Millennials! –they understood the new digital economy before this pandemic. This is a matter of survival. We need to adjust to our new reality quickly and act swiftly!
- Young generations, who understand social media better than others, can be a key driver of this “AMERICAS’ SPRING”; they can make this a trending topic, and help in building/designing this powerful platform(s).
- Governments will have to take notice. This would also include the large number of initiatives that already exist. For instance, there is already a large network of Universities in LATAM that have been working for quite a few years on developing a fiber network to interconnect all institutions of higher learning in the region, but with limited success due to lack of financing and local permits/regulations.
This is our chance to give birth to this movement and it would make all parties involved winners. But again, time is of the essence!