America’s Net Gain

With slightly above 74% Internet penetration, the United States is a lowly 19^th place among nations as to Web access, falling behind countries like Bermuda, Greenland and S. Korea. Hey, we invented the damned Web! Accelerating high-speed Internet penetration has been a goal by the Obama administration since the campaign for the Presidency began. So here’s a basic question for you: What’s more important in the hierarchy of American mass communications and media: telephone, television or Internet? It is part of the socio-cultural paradigm shift that is literally transforming the world.

With telephone access virtually universal in the U.S., cheap and affordable, and television being pretty close – even with the new digital broadcast model replacing the older analog system that ended on June 12 of last year – the question remains as to the relevance of high-speed Internet access. Can you function in modern America without that access? What happens to children who have very limited access to the Web when they enter the work world? Can you live without television or the telephone if you have Internet access? Clearly, there are lots of folks who are addicted to television programming who don’t have a television. They can receive most of their favorite films and TV shows, even library material, via the worldwide Web, from iTunes or Netflix for downloads, Hulu or even the Websites of their favorite networks, to name a few. They can even Skype their way into the telephone networks. But if all they have is traditional television and a telephone, they most certainly cannot browse, email or engage in modern social networking.

Do you see the storm clouds forming? The Obama administration is trying to open bandwidth, let more people communicate through the Web, and create new technological values – like instant access to your healthcare records for medical professionals (vital in emergency situations) – from this new interconnectivity. Ubiquitous and affordable access. Telecasters are fighting to hold on to the bandwidth they have been accorded – even those little spots where they aren’t currently using it. Common carriers/Internet Service Providers/cable systems are fighting for the right to limit excessive use of their wires and wireless airways, prioritizing who gets what level of access, in order to foster more commercial (revenue-generating) uses. They even point to how some of the biggest users are content pirates, who violate copyrights with little c oncern for the economic consequences. These two objectives – controlled versus open access – are almost mutually exclusive, and guess who has the big lobbying money to press their case?

The issue generally falls under the rubric of “net neutrality,” in which the Internet is either a toll road controlled by the bigger interests or a freeway open to all without limits. The Obama administration has answered the question in my opening paragraph with a clear emphasis on Internet access as more important than telephone or television. The March 13^th New York Times: “The Federal Communications Commission is proposing an ambitious 10-year plan that will re-imagine the nation’s media and technology priorities by establishing high-speed Internet as the country’s dominant communication network… The blueprint reflects the government’s view that broadband Internet is becoming the common medium of the United States, gradually displacing the telephone and broadcast television industries. It also signals a shift at the F.C.C., which under the administration of President George W. Bush gained more attention for policing indecency on the television airwaves than for promoting Internet access... According to F.C.C. officials briefed on the plan, the commission’s recommendations will include a subsidy for Internet providers to wire rural parts of the country now without access, a controversial auction of some broadcast spectrum to free up space for wireless devices, and the development of a new universal set-top box that connects to the Internet and cable service.” Between pressures to reduce the deficit and the intense lobbying efforts of the big telecommunications companies, this threatens to be a long, drawn-out struggle between competing values.

The March 11^th Time Magazine gives us another reason the big telecommunications companies are scared of bandwidth upgrades: “[W]ith the exception of Verizon and its FiOS program, the U.S. bandwidth industry has been reluctant to go beyond its copper wires. For one thing, upgrading to fiber is really expensive. For another, offering users massive Internet bandwidth can create a good reason for them to cancel cable and telephone services, because they would be able to get much of what they want from the Internet.” The title of the article says it all: “Bandwidth is the New Black Gold.”

The administration has staked out its position pretty clearly: “For much of the last year, Julius Genachowski, the F.C.C. chairman and the plan’s chief salesman, has laid the groundwork for the Congressionally mandated plan by asserting that the United States is lagging far behind other countries in broadband adoption and speed. About a third of Americans have no access to high-speed Internet service, cannot afford it or choose not to have it… In a speech last month, Mr. Genachowski observed that the country could build state-of-the-art computers and applications, but without equivalent broadband wiring, ‘it would be like having the technology for great electric cars, but terrible roads.’” The NY Times.

To the administration, “dial-up” access is almost tantamount to no access at all, and children in unwired classrooms are simply not ready to compete in a wired job environment. The big telecommunications companies claim that virtually open access to their pipes will slow down the Web, clog their systems and materially interfere with their ability to provide more mainstream content and services to their customers (coincidentally, where they make the big bucks). Where do you come down on this debate?

I’m Peter Dekom, and being here to watch these changes is fascinating… and a tad scary.