Much of the entire world now relies on the vast infrastructure that is broadband internet — be it for work, education, healthcare, emergency communication or simple entertainment. Yet for its central role in our daily lives, most people don’t really know what it is or how it all connects.
According to High Speed Internet's survey of 1,000 U.S. residents, 80% of them don’t know how the internet works. Despite 74% of those surveyed believing they did, only 20% were able to actually explain it correctly.
In fact, many of the surveyed (60%) still conflate the idea of internet connection and the digital labyrinth of the World Wide Web.
Beyond a simple lack of understanding, the scale and complexity of physical equipment making up the internet’s backbone rarely enters the public conversation. Yet nearly a million miles of undersea fiber-optic cables run across our oceans to power international communication and data connectivity.
Throw in the esoteric industry jargon that is the word "broadband," and you put further distance between the people that use the internet (and need it for their daily lives) and the few who know what it is or how it works.
But the real blind spot isn’t just the infrastructure — it’s the people. The massive, largely invisible workforce that keeps the internet running is as unrecognized as the cables and signals they maintain.
Technicians, engineers, construction workers — among many other fields — are all integral to our digital world functioning. In fact, hundreds of thousands more are needed in the U.S. alone to make the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program’s ambitions a reality.
But how’s that supposed to happen when people don’t know how the internet works, and the word "broadband" clicks more in a c-suite boardroom than a living room?
This disconnect between industry language and public understanding is more impactful than it might seem. It maintains the industry as essential but, at best, misunderstood and, at worst, not understood at all.
If the industry is to catch up to what internet connection means to people today — a bedrock for economy, entertainment, health and more — broadband needs to evolve from its dial-up days. It needs to bridge the niche telecom world and reach people who use the internet for practically everything but don’t understand how it all comes together.
Out with the old ways, in with the new trades
Broadband isn’t the only trade struggling to recruit more people. Stigmas towards vocational schooling remain imbedded in early education, and in an age of data and social media, hands-on work isn’t always top of mind for up-and-comers (despite the irony that broadband trade work makes this era possible in the first place).
A silver lining does exist in that a growing number of young folks are ditching traditional university educations for alternatives like technical schools — as the cost-of-entry, money and stability of the trades speak volumes. One 20-year-old, Tanner Burgess, working as a welder expects to soon be making six-figures with only five years under his belt, he explained to The Wall Street Journal.
Broadband is no different, with high-paying roles that require only a diploma and some technical training to get started — training that is a fraction of the cost for a four-year degree (if not free).
For instance, fiber splicers make a national average of $74,020 a year as reported by Comparably — with plenty of regions paying much higher. The average salary in Boston Massachusetts is $112,955.
I spoke to an industry veteran, Chris Gemme, during a trade event in Atlanta, and he knows many technicians making well over six figures. He even cited one top-earner who made $175,000 by the month of July. "From January to July... that is a lot of money," reflected Gemme, adding that the technician planned to take the last quarter of the year off to do what he loved and spend time with his family.
Just last week while filming a splicing class hosted by The Fiber School, I spoke with two trainees, both of whom were already experienced in adjacent fields — one a voice-data technician and the other in construction. They were learning about the specialty to advance their current careers as well as the potential to slide into splicing, as they both seemed to see the prospects and stability of the trade.
Indeed, the money and opportunity may be there, but the issue remains: how do people find it if the trades are already struggling to attract people, and broadband struggles to break into the list for those who do consider skilled labor?
Nathan Larson, the current director of the Telecom Tech School in Colorado, explained to us in an industry event that most people “don’t realize this craft or trade even exists,” despite it being easier and cleaner than some traditional trades.
“From my experience, working in the fiber area is a lot less physical than putting on roofs,” he told us. “It's a lot cleaner than crawling under houses when a sewer pipe breaks when it's 20 below and someone has to crawl under there and fix it.”
And broadband trade work is uniquely positioned at the intersection of hands-on craftwork and technology, both of which are here to stay. “Electricity, plumbing, that hasn’t really changed. You're always going to need it. But this is something that's evolving all the time,” said Larson. “This is one unique, cool pathway that's just ever changing, ever growing. There's no end in sight right now.”
In a time shaped by the internet and technological growth, broadband could be there alongside ironwork and carpentry, but it is a newer trade burdened by an unfamiliar, industry-insider term that detaches it from the real focal point that users and prospective workers can relate to — the internet.
For fiber splicers and tower climbers to be recognized as essential tradespeople of our digital age, the industry may need to shed its alienating, old-school lingo and meet people where they’re at — online, with little awareness of the infrastructure that enables their connection.
The word 'broadband' no longer suits the era it’s meant to define, and leaving it behind — or at the very least revamping it — might be an important first step in connecting people not just to the internet, but to the industry itself. A name change surely won't fix everything, but I think when the very word fails to resonate with those who rely on it, or inspire those who might build it, the industry is left speaking a language few understand. A clearer connection may need to start with a clearer name.