We must speed up the deployment of broadband in order to bring

Host: The skyline glowed in electric blues and sterile whites, the hum of a city that never slept pulsing through its streets like data through fiber. From the top floor of a half-finished office tower, the view stretched endlessly — a mosaic of screens, signs, and the quiet tyranny of connection.

The windows rattled faintly from the wind, reflecting the silhouettes of two figures: Jack, his jacket hung loosely on his shoulders, and Jeeny, standing beside a glowing digital map projected on the wall — dots of light spreading like constellations across a virtual America.

The room smelled of coffee, metal, and ambition.

Jeeny: (softly, reading from a tablet) “Michael Oxley once said, ‘We must speed up the deployment of broadband in order to bring high-speed data services to homes and businesses. The spread of information technology has contributed to a steady growth in U.S. productivity.’”

Jack: (snorts) “Ah, the poetry of progress. Nothing says romance like broadband deployment.”

Jeeny: (smiles) “You joke, but he wasn’t wrong. Connectivity built this century.”

Jack: (leans against the window, looking out) “Built it, sure. But it’s also breaking it.”

Jeeny: “How so?”

Jack: “Because we connected everything except ourselves.”

Host: The neon outside flickered. A train rumbled far below, its faint whistle bleeding through the glass. The light from the digital map danced across their faces — Jeeny’s warm and open, Jack’s sharp, skeptical, carved from shadows and sleepless nights.

Jeeny: “You always see the dark side of things. Isn’t that exhausting?”

Jack: (half-smiles) “No, it’s habit. Someone has to look at the cost of all this brilliance.”

Jeeny: “And what’s the cost, according to you?”

Jack: “Time. Quiet. The patience to think without checking your phone every two minutes.”

Jeeny: (gently) “You say that as if technology’s the villain.”

Jack: “It’s not the villain. It’s the mirror. And we don’t like what it’s showing us.”

Host: The projection flickered — the dots shifting, expanding, a living organism of infrastructure and ambition. Each light was a town newly wired, a family newly online. Progress, glowing beautifully from afar — yet cold when touched.

Jeeny: “You ever think about what Oxley meant? ‘Speed up deployment’ — that wasn’t greed. That was hope. He saw what connection could do: access, opportunity, equality.”

Jack: (nods) “And for a while, it worked. Broadband built bridges.”

Jeeny: “And now?”

Jack: (quietly) “Now those bridges are toll roads.”

Host: His words hung heavy, the hum of electronics filling the pause. The city lights shimmered like circuits — alive, impersonal, pulsing with a beauty that demanded both awe and suspicion.

Jeeny: (crosses her arms) “You talk like the internet’s a lost religion.”

Jack: (smirks) “It is. Once we worshiped gods, then machines, now speed.”

Jeeny: “Speed’s not the enemy, Jack. Stagnation is.”

Jack: (turning toward her) “Then tell me — when did faster start meaning better?”

Jeeny: (steadily) “When slower started meaning forgotten.”

Host: The lights from the projection dimmed slightly, casting long shadows across the room. The tension between them felt almost magnetic — a philosophical tug-of-war staged in glass and light.

Jack: (softly) “You really believe all this — data, fiber, networks — makes us more human?”

Jeeny: “No. But it gives us the chance to be.”

Jack: “Explain.”

Jeeny: (steps closer to the projection) “Every connection, every byte, is a hand reaching across distance. The kid in Iowa learning to code. The grandmother in Detroit video-calling her son. The small business in Maine finding customers in Tokyo. That’s what broadband does — it dissolves isolation.”

Jack: (quietly) “And creates new kinds of it.”

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) “Only if we let it.”

Host: The screen between them glowed brighter, bathing them in that sterile, blue-white light of modernity — the same light that builds and blinds.

Jack: (rubbing his jaw) “Productivity. That’s the word Oxley used. Growth, output, efficiency. You think the future was worth the trade?”

Jeeny: (turns toward him) “I think every tool starts as a bridge and ends as a mirror. What we do with the reflection — that’s on us.”

Jack: (grinning faintly) “You sound like a manifesto.”

Jeeny: (shrugs) “Maybe progress needs one.”

Host: The wind howled faintly outside, rattling the glass. The room seemed to breathe — the walls humming with electricity, the servers below their feet alive with the quiet heartbeat of the network.

Jack: (after a pause) “You know what scares me? The fact that we can send a picture halfway around the world in a second but can’t find two minutes to talk to the person sitting next to us.”

Jeeny: (gently) “You’re not wrong. But that’s not the network’s fault. That’s ours.”

Jack: (sighs) “Yeah, but we built it to make the world smaller. And somehow, we made the loneliness louder.”

Jeeny: (softly) “Then maybe the next step isn’t faster broadband — it’s better bandwidth for the heart.”

Host: Her voice trembled with quiet conviction. The projection flickered again, and suddenly the map shifted — the glowing dots turned from data points into something almost organic, pulsing like veins across a body. The image of connection — literal and emotional.

Jack: (looking at it) “You really think technology can fix us?”

Jeeny: (smiling sadly) “No. But it can remind us that we were never meant to stay disconnected.”

Jack: (after a long silence) “Maybe Oxley saw it coming. Maybe productivity wasn’t just about work. Maybe he meant the productivity of understanding.”

Jeeny: (nods) “Exactly. The spread of information wasn’t supposed to make us efficient — it was supposed to make us empathetic.”

Host: The city below flickered again, its millions of windows glowing like tiny screens. From this height, humanity looked less like chaos and more like circuitry — imperfect, alive, interdependent.

Jack: (smiling faintly) “You always find the poetry in policy.”

Jeeny: (laughs softly) “And you always find the warning in progress.”

Jack: “That’s why we balance each other out.”

Jeeny: (with a grin) “Balance — that’s the real connection.”

Host: The lights dimmed as the projection faded to black. The city’s heartbeat remained, a hum below their feet. For a moment, they stood in silence, two silhouettes against the skyline — one made of skepticism, the other of faith, both shaped by the same restless hope.

Host: And as the camera panned slowly out — the tower shrinking, the city sprawling, the lights flickering like stars — Michael Oxley’s words echoed, no longer about policy, but about people:

That connection is more than technology.
That broadband, fiber, speed — these are just tools.
That true productivity is not in megabits,
but in how well we use our access
to build bridges instead of walls.

And maybe, just maybe,
the real deployment we need
is not of networks —
but of understanding.

Host: The final shot:
The city glowing like a neural map.
Two figures silhouetted in the window.
A faint smile between them —
the smallest, strongest signal of all.