Daily Inspiration Quote by John Britton

“We feel there is already widespread broadband available today” is the kind of sentence that tells you more about an institution’s comfort level than about the world it claims to measure. The key word isn’t “broadband” - it’s “feel.” A mathematician reaching for emotion-language suggests a moment when the data either isn’t there, isn’t flattering, or isn’t politically convenient. It reads like a defensive press line: not an argument, but a mood, offered in place of proof.

The phrasing also hides behind scale. “Widespread” is a wonderfully elastic claim: it can mean “present in many places,” “available to most people,” or “available if you squint at the coverage map and ignore price, speed, and reliability.” Broadband debates have always hinged on that ambiguity. Is access a technical possibility, a consumer product, or a lived reality? By leaving “available” undefined, the statement quietly shifts responsibility away from providers and policymakers and onto the public’s expectations.

If Britton is speaking in the late 20th-century transition from academic networks and early consumer internet toward mass connectivity, the subtext is institutional impatience: the job is done, stop asking, stop funding, stop regulating. It’s also a neat example of how technical authority can be used to launder a policy position. Coming from a mathematician, the sentence lands with an extra irony: a field built on rigor deploying vagueness as strategy.