A Different Solution to Resolve Broadband Accessibility

“It is better to solve one problem five different ways, than to solve five problems one way.” ― George Pólya

Reading these words, and publishing them, requires bandwidth. Living in an area where broadband is accessible to me, and perhaps to you, is something with which we could agree can be taken for granted. We’ve come to rely upon high speed internet access for our work, our entertainment, and our education. This is not the case for many who live in areas where broadband access is not economically viable for providers or too costly for users.

Many nonprofit organizations, associations, governments, and businesses are working hard to resolve this problem. Solutions are being worked through a variety of public policy strategies and collaborations. These efforts are to be applauded as we can agree no one solution will resolve the problem as the elements which produce a lack of broadband access are formed due to multiple reasons.

Policy strategies are certainly worthwhile efforts. We can and should advocate for laws, appropriations and grants which provide resources to providers, communities and groups which would or could fund expansion of broadband to underserved areas. We can consider innovative and perhaps disruptive technological solutions which can reduce the financial impact on providers, consumers, and governments to achieve a great conclusion whereby high speed internet access is easily accessible to all those who want it. Broadband access remains a consumer choice to be made by a consumer purchase a service where not every person or family will embrace or can afford the need.

Businesses could be constrained to technology solutions which are funded from governments and government requirements. This can squelch real innovation and disruption which can drive sustainable and effective solutions as choice matters. Those leading policy initiatives should be mindful of solutions which are limited to “what we already know.” This mindset can result in limited gains and disappointing results. Yes, on most levels, nothing is free and most every solution requires investment and expense for deployment and while we consider those realities, consider the short and long term returns. With broadband policy, not every solution requires digging a trench.

Limitations of Broadband Access

“The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need people who can dream of things that never were.” - John F. Kennedy

Think for a moment about how you access the Internet in your home or business. In most instances, an optical fiber or copper cable is run from a trunkline to where you are. This is sometimes called the “last mile” or the physical connection between a home or business and a network. Often this could mean digging a trench a short distance through your yard or running a cable to the location via poles.

All means of delivering this cable/fiber to a home or business involves cost and return on investment for the entity seeking to deliver a service via this cable or fiber. Depending upon where you are to the trunkline, that cost could be less or more expensive to a provider. Typically, if you change providers, another cable is buried in the yard to the trunk. You see, providers do not always play well together and do not always like to share.

As consumers, our minds are agnostic to the means by which signals reach our homes or businesses. In other words, we do not care how the internet gets to our location, we care more about routers, wi-fi, extenders, cables, modems, the things we can see, touch, and feel. More importantly, we care if we have bandwidth. Why on earth would we care about the infrastructure, the stuff under the hood? If you have high speed internet access, you understand. The only time you care about the infrastructure is when someone with a shovel or digging equipment stops your ability to receive your internet.

As a consumer, we want to reach businesses from our homes, stream movies and music, talk to our friends and family, show pictures of the food we eat, the ability to pay bills, access health care, learn, grow, create and so many more things.

As a business we want to reach customers, consumers, governments, and other businesses to buy our products and contract for our services. We want to engage with the public and provide them with information, provide bill pay services, provide health care access, teach, grow, and create. When a portion of our society is unable to reach us or we to reach them, our message is lost as is the opportunity. It matters.

Basically, we don’t really care about how the technology works as long as it works and it works as advertised.

For many parts of our country from rural areas and small towns to high poverty areas, an internet service provider may not be able to realize a positive rate of return to serve these customers. Satellite is a solution, but it can be expensive as a service. There is another solution to the problem of efficiently connecting providers with customers.

Money Solves All Problems?

Is money the solution? Sure, in some ways if we throw enough money at a problem, the problem can disappear. Let us think a moment of that argument because it is a common method of problem solving. The more you spend, the more the solution can work, right? Well…that is not always the case, as we learn too often, and it is often wasteful. What about smart solutions? Those solutions which do not require large infrastructure investment yet achieve the resolution of a problem, can they be considered?

I will throw another wrench into the works. Imagine we are not only talking about broadband alone but instead we are talking about broadband and electricity monitoring, measuring, and control. How do those two things go together and why should we be concerned about pulses of electricity across a wire? Our future is broadband. Our future is increased demand, usage, transmission, and generation of electricity. Those two dynamics are related and problematic.

The solutions I'll share with you here are not free. There is a need for investment from the point of view of home builders, home/business owners, and broadband providers. This conversation is not about how much money to spend as that is not really the best solution, instead, the conversation is more about HOW money is spent resulting in efficient solutions with big gains.

A Solution to Rural Broadband Limitations

“It isn’t that they cannot find the solution. It is that they cannot see the problem.” - G.K Chesterton

An engineering firm, CoolWaters Technology, has developed a product with the technology to resolve rural broadband access limitations efficiently, the Advanced Infrastructure System (AIS). Notice the word “System”, (Def: a system is an organized collection of parts (or subsystems) that are highly integrated to accomplish an overall goal). While primarily an energy management system for a home or business, the AIS integrates broadband, multimedia, IoT, and Smart Home into the system. Here is why this system can be a game changer.

A small development or community located in areas where broadband providers may not realize a lucrative return on investment to run cable to individual homes and businesses. The AIS can be used to network broadband wirelessly from home to home and business to business. The technology is secure and can operate using the best communication protocol for the area (or the provider) including cell phone, Wi-Fi, microwave, or something else. The Mesh Network capabilities makes it more reliable.

A friend told me recently that nobody really cares what is under the hood, or behind the curtain, and he was right. From a consumer point of view, living rurally and working remotely can be a possibility if the infrastructure exists. For providers, linking to the AIS networks can open up services to new customers efficiently and cost effectively. The AIS as a system, Installed in a home, can open doors for rural residents to the rest of the world. The Mesh network also means homes (standalone or apartments) can be connected together in the same manner.

Broadband management came about when a group of government directors in Mexico were listening to an AIS electricity management presentation and started asking “Can it do this…”. That feedback from customers contributed to the AIS design: A system which can meet increased demand for electricity; Better monitoring and control of electricity; Banking Services; Education Services; Transition from cash to digital payments; and more.

Electricity Management Steppingstone

“Management is Doing Things Right; Leadership is Doing the Right Things.” - Peter Drucker

The AIS started as, and is, an advanced electric panel with circuit breakers and electricity metering capability. The AIS uses high speed, two-way communications to talk to the utility and it grew from there. So here is a little about the foundation of the AIS as well as a story we wrote about the condition of the grid.

In general, when people hear electrical capacity and load, they think of generation and transmission infrastructure sets of issues. To some degree they are right, but that did not help a few million households in Texas in February of 2021.

New homes and businesses, and high demand caused homes, neighborhoods, and large areas to “lose” power. Yep, the “B” word hit Texas, a huge, extended, blackout. To make it worse, with new products, the impact could have been reduced, even prevented. Without resolving usage limitations of homes and businesses the addition of more electrical appliances, lighting systems, and electric vehicles will only make weaknesses in an already aging electrical grid worse.

The AIS, with its solid state circuit breakers and controller, allows users to program and control electricity usage and load by circuit. Think of it this way. As a consumer, you can control how you pay your bills, monitor how you are spending money, and even how your diet impacts your health to the last penny and final calorie. Now you can do the same thing with the electricity coming into your house with the AIS. In other words, you can control almost everything about how and when your home or business uses electricity and that saves you money. You can set priorities as to which circuit are turned off and in what order instead of the whole house being turned off. Infrastructure matters even when we do not care what is under the hood, we want it to work for us and it can.

Your current electrical system for your home is not working the way it could or should and certainly will not work as efficiently as you buy more electric devices, a new electric vehicle for example or smart devices through your home.

Our Future is in Reach

“Lots of companies don’t succeed over time. What do they fundamentally do wrong? They usually miss the future.” - Larry Page

For years, I sat at tables with groups talking about problems with people who would talk of solutions and outcomes. We seldom got it right and for me, it is one of my greatest professional disappointments. It was almost as if we were conjuring solutions with a Ouija Board with the expectation for success.

What is before us can be considered as a coming storm and some may suggest that storm will have existential impacts on society and our world. I am not able to comprehend that level of scope. Rural broadband and improving how electricity is used, are concepts I can comprehend because the solutions are in reach and affordable without digging as many trenches.

The Biden administration is advocating that by 2030 half of the motor vehicles sold will be electric. Let that really set on your mind for a moment. There are multiple weaknesses to this position even as we can admire it. Energy generation is compromised and limited in many areas and as you charge your new electric vehicle in your garage, can your home provide enough power to charge the vehicle, your electronics, air conditioners, kitchen appliances, lights and the washer and dryer?

The truth is that many homes across the United States are old with old power panels ill equipped to handle increased load. Even if generation capacity was optimal, the electrical capacity of your home is not unlimited. The truth is demand for faster and faster broadband is going to increase and infrastructure cost is not going away with cables run under ground or on poles.

In the United States, there are roughly 144 million residences and millions of businesses. Almost everything we rely upon draws power and many of those “everythings” are connected to a network and exchanging information and control. This condition will only grow. The solutions are not just a table topic for a conference, testimony at a hearing or a line item on a budget.

Resolving power constraints to a growing electrical world and enabling an efficient means of accessing broadband networks is actually an integrated solution and one that is far more affordable by unit than by trying to solve both problems exclusively.

These solutions are here today and as much as they are affordable, they return multiple benefits to consumers, businesses and society. “It is better to solve one problem five different ways, than to solve five problems one way.” ― George Pólya. I led this article with that quote. As rural broadband continues to be a problem worthy of solution, a concern remains. Are we closed minded to consideration of a limited number of solutions based upon what we know or are we receptive to solving problems using technology which has broader capacity to resolve additional problems?

Perhaps it is time to win the Kentucky Derby on something other than a mule.

About CoolWaters Technology LLC

“Never Doubt That a Small Group of Thoughtful, Committed People Can Change the World. Indeed, It Is the Only Thing That Ever Has.” - Margaret Mead

CoolWaters Technology is an Engineering Design and Development company that is bringing tomorrow’s technology knowledge and experience to an environment where it can be best utilized, our clients.

CWT’s product is Engineering Design and Development expertise in high technology markets. Developing high tech products for customers unable to develop them on their own, providing the engineering expertise to solve the seemingly unsolvable problems involved with these new technologies.

Their team has developed new and innovative products for our companies including the first UL Listed smoke detector for your home, the first commercially viable GPS system, and assisting NASA on the first Apollo Spacecraft.

Learn more by visiting https://coolwaterstech.com/ or contact me to set up a meeting and we can introduce you to AIS and all of its features.

Michael R. Terry is the Principal of GSLP Texas LLC, a Texas based government affairs and ventures strategy firm www.gslptexas.com

Photos licensed under CC BY-NC-ND and CC BY-SA