“I’m Luke Skywalker, I’m here to rescue you.” Luke Skywalker, Star Wars (1977).
What’s the difference between innovation and investment? I find myself pondering this question frequently these days. Over the past ten years or so, the FCC focused on encouraging “investment” in “infrastructure” based on the previously fashionable view that the United States needed to build more broadband infrastructure. Lately, however, the FCC seems more concerned about “innovation” than the other two little “i” words, investment and infrastructure. So the FCC has decided to rescue “innovation” through prescriptive net neutrality rules.
But, what is “innovation” (and is it really in trouble)? The dictionary included with OS X says innovation is “a new method, idea, product, etc.” In other words, an “innovation” is anything that is “new.” For the pro-net neutrality folks, however, innovation isn’t defined nearly so broadly. No, for the pro-net neutrality folks, innovation means new Internet applications. In their way of thinking, the billions of dollars of investment being made to develop and deploy new OFDM-based (WiMAX and LTE) wireless broadband infrastructure is not innovative. Let me show you what I mean.