45 years ago, I installed my first Broadband Coax drop!

About that same time, we were already mapping Broadband all over Michigan.  Also at that time, it was mostly the (Big 3) Auto Industry developing the cable modem and true (mid and high split) Broadband coax networks, using it to streamline production in industrial plants across the country.  By the mid 80’s, we were adopting their innovations and running data at 10+ Mbps alongside two-way real-time video distance learning to hundreds of K12 and Higher Ed buildings across entire counties.  Little did the cable companies realize then what kind of “killer app” technology they had, and how it would become the DeFacto standard for high-speed Internet as the World Wide Web emerged another decade later.  It took another two decades and a Pandemic before most of the world realized how much true Broadband Internet had become essential to so many things in our society. 

Today, fiber is unarguably the practical (cost and performance) champion in this arena, but coax is still more prevalent and still #2 in the performance category (and will be for another 20 or more years).  And when it comes to accessibility to these two gigabit class internet technologies, the physical construction and mapping rules are pretty much the same as they were 45 years ago, and they apply to both.  (All other wired technologies related to this topic can be a conversation for another day).

After 30 years of growing up with this stuff, I founded DCS Technology Design to do even more, and today, another 15 years later, we are making progress.  Our mapping work speaks for itself, bringing more inclusive funding opportunities to more unserved homes across Michigan than any other methodology has been able to accomplish.  But there are still gaps and we continue to look for ways to reach everyone (with Fiber).  The Rural Electrification Act of 1936 didn’t suggest using windmills (or solar panels if they had existed then) for reaching the isolated rural areas of America.  No, their goal was to build the electrical transmission and distribution lines needed to reach everyone.  Shouldn’t our goal today be the same, just now with fiber?  If we could get electrical lines there 100 years ago, why can’t we get fiber lines there today?  Unfortunately, I still see a lot of indifference (and even resistance) to that goal.  What do you think?