Bring U.S. Broadband Up to Speed

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• Medical technicians transmit mammograms, MRIs, and glucose screenings from rural stations and mobile vans to central interpretation facilities in minutes, cutting days of transport time and increasing the efficiency of radiologists and the quality of patient care.

• Farmers use wireless telemetry to manage remote irrigation systems and avoid driving hundreds of miles daily, saving thousands of dollars of fuel, water, and time over the course of a growing season, while simultaneously reducing carbon emissions.

In the U.S., improving health care by cutting duplication and waste and enhancing quality of care will require better management of patient data and more robust networks. In addition, manufacturing and retailing need the data-mining capabilities that high-speed broadband enables. Furthermore, research and development is directly dependent on analyzing and moving immense quantities of data. The networks the U.S. now has are just too slow and not pervasive enough.

Aside from missing out on innovation, the U.S. also is missing opportunities to better manage its infrastructure: bridges, roads, tunnels, elevators and other facilities. With ubiquitous, reliable data networks, video surveillance can monitor facilities 24/7, microtelesensors the size of an aspirin can be used to gauge heat, stress conditions, or aberrations that signal infrastructure is at risk. Minnesota might have avoided any loss of life if monitors had been used on the interstate highway bridge that collapsed into the Mississippi River.

Provide Incentives for Industry Investment

I believe that if the government primes the pump and provides the right regulatory environment, the telecommunications industry will invest the $20 billion to $30 billion needed to build complementary wireless and wired broadband networks that reach at least 90% of the American population. This would include expanding the number of wireless towers, upgrading their capacity, expanding fiber networks, and upgrading cable TV boxes from analog to digital to expand bandwidth on existing cable systems. I urge the government to put up $10 billion to $15 billion in a combination of low-interest loans, tax advantages including accelerated depreciation, and other incentives for companies to invest in the telecommunications "plumbing" that will deliver end-to-end high-speed service to many more Americans. One step should be consumer subsidies to help people upgrade their cable TV boxes. If the investment climate is right, industry will employ private capital to create the powerful and pervasive communications infrastructure our country needs. Government assistance can help finance extending the service to sparsely populated and low-income areas where it is not economically viable.

But building telecommunications networks is different than building highways because newer, less-understood technologies are involved. In such cases, history has shown that corporations are better suited to make the crucial technological decisions and risk capital than more risk-averse government agencies. A high-speed Internet cannot be mandated or regulated into existence. The key is to give the private sector incentives to invest. But policies and regulations must be predictable and technology-neutral. No one, least of all the government, has perfect vision as to what technologies will yield the right combinations of capability and affordability.

Some of the right policies are decidedly old-fashioned—the private sector would need investment tax credits and the right to accelerate depreciation, for example.

Getting the right policy mix also would require shattering the myth of net neutrality. It may seem like a high-minded ideal to argue that everyone should have unfettered access to telecom networks at a discounted rate. But one low price for unlimited use destroys telecommunications companies' incentive to invest the tens of billions of dollars needed to create and maintain networks. For them to earn an appropriate rate of return on their investments, they must be allowed to charge rates based on usage. People who consume massive amounts of bandwidth, by distributing movies online, for example, would pay more than small users. Net neutrality works directly against the goal of unleashing private capital and know-how to build a nationwide, high-speed mobile Internet. Regulatory clarity must be in place before the private sector will risk capital.

It should not take much time to sort out all these issues. The place to begin is by recognizing a simple reality: America is seriously behind other countries in some of the future's most important infrastructure capabilities. But if America clears the obstacles to bold investments in telecommunications, it will provide a foundation for innovation and competitiveness and help its battered economy to rebound.

Trujillo is chief executive of Telstra, the largest Australian media and telecommunications provider.