A National Broadband Plan: The Social Entrepreneurship Model (Opinion)

Using broadband infrastructure to promote jobs creation, workforce development and entrepreneurship education through the building of social entrepreneurship and asset-based community development modalities.

The primary outcome expectations of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) include significant jobs creation, promotion of economic recovery and assistance to those most impacted by the recession. Technology will surely play a pivotal role towards attaining these goals and integral to retraining misplaced workers while sustaining the programs that are launched through the massive social investment of the ARRA.

Robust and feature rich broadband wireless networks launched in our communities, cities and counties would provide direct cost savings and increases in productivity for all of our local governments, first responders, colleges and schools, libraries, workforce investment boards, smart grid and all other public/private systems, agencies and non-profits throughout our regions, not to mention providing low cost ubiquitous high speed wireless internet access and communications for our residents and businesses.

New tele-medicine, tele-work, employer outreach, community outreach, digital inclusion for low-income households, distance learning, workforce development programs and smart grid applications are all borne of these cost-effective high speed fixed, nomadic and mobile wireless networks that will also attract corporate investment within our regions and communities and drive economic stimulus and growth.

So how do we make this happen?

By definition, Asset-Based Community Development (A-BCD) is a methodology that seeks to uncover and highlight the strengths within communities as a means for sustainable development. The basic tenet is that a capacities-focused approach is more likely to empower the community and therefore mobilize citizens to create positive and meaningful change from within. Instead of focusing on a community's needs, deficiencies and problems, the A-BCD approach helps them become stronger and more self-reliant by discovering, mapping and mobilizing this model using all their local assets. Few people realize how many assets any community has.

Using this definition as the premise and incorporating into this model, the empowerment that our communities unknowingly maintain to create positive and meaningful change from within

lies with technology. The layperson or average citizen does not realize that the assets needed to generate revenue that stays within their communities, and would support self-sustainability of these communities where we work and live, are literally right there under our noses.

The asset being referred to is wireless spectrum... particularly WiMAX wireless spectrum using the 2.5GHz Educational Broadband Service (EBS) band and the 3.65GHz band.

Designing and building out a WiMAX network is not rocket science but does require experience and expertise. This also introduces a community wide educational component starting with public awareness to promote the social capital needed to kick start this program. If our schools and colleges acted as the lead agent in this endeavor then we would be off to a good start.

It is these same colleges and schools that have the rights to what is now known as the 2.5GHz Educational Broadband Service band (formerly the ITFS band). Beginning in 2004 the FCC changed the rules on this band that allocated its use for broadband. This basically catapulted this spectrum real estate from swamp land to ocean front property. However, rather than educating these non-profits on the value of the asset they had maintained for decades the FCC allowed Clearwire and Sprint/Nextel to approach these non-profits, checkbooks in hand, and entice Boards of Trustees to lease their spectrum to these incumbents.

These non-profits include