Broadband: Not for Kids Only

"It doesn't matter if my parents have broadband or not -- they're just as clueless about a computer with a fast connection to the Internet as a slow one."

The words came from a musician in his 20s, a well-educated African American who works with artists in hip-hop culture. He was one of seven of us sharing a table in the ballroom of the Radisson Hotel across the street from USC, and we were among a couple hundred people who turned out the other weekend for a Los Angeles town hall meeting about the future of the Internet.

As I drove to the meeting, Barack Obama was on the radio explaining how he intended to spend the massive economic stimulus package he was preparing. I heard him say it would go to improving the American infrastructure in a way that would eclipse even the building of the transcontinental highway system during the Eisenhower years, and that he'd invest billions in roads, schools, sewer systems, mass transit, dams, electrical grids and other public utilities. I heard him say he'll be asking Congress to create green jobs, whose workers will build windmills, install solar panels, develop alternative fuels and retrofit homes with fuel-efficient heating and cooling systems.

But it was when he talked about broadband that he really got my attention. "It is unacceptable that the United States ranks 15th in the world in broadband adoption," he said. "Here, in the country that invented the Internet, every child should have the chance to get online." When it comes to infrastructure, the Information Superhighway isn't just a metaphor any more.

What the president-elect didn't say, though I learned it at the town hall meeting, was that America descended to our 15th-place standing during the Bush years, at the start of which we had been fourth. He might have added that broadband is way more expensive and way slower in the United States than in many other countries. The average broadband offering in Japan is 10 times faster than the average service available to U.S. consumers -- at half the cost. People in countries like Finland, France, Korea, Sweden and Italy also pay less to get more.

Though Obama singled out children as particularly in need of access to the Internet, he could also have pointed to the economic, geographic and racial dimensions of the digital divide. While only 24 percent of American households earning more than $50,000 per year are not connected to the Internet, nearly three times that amount -- 65 percent -- of homes with less than $50,000 in annual income are not online. Nearly 60 percent of rural households don't subscribe to broadband. Fifty-five percent of white households have broadband, compared to 36 percent of black and 35 percent of Latino households.

I'd be thrilled if every kid in the country had broadband. Accomplishing only that would at the same time put a nice dent in the economic, geographic and racial disparities in high-speed access to the Internet. What troubles me is that it could have minimal impact on the Americans who aren't spring chickens -- like the parents of my hip-hop tablemate who don't go online.

Don't get me wrong. I know people in their 90s who browse the Web and people in their 80s who are more adept at editing video online than I am. I know baby boomers who are on Facebook, much to their children's chagrin. I know many people who are not young enough to have grown up using computers, but who nevertheless read political blogs obsessively, upload pictures to Flickr, watch television clips on YouTube and television programs on Hulu, use Zillow to find out how much their houses are worth, get driving directions from Mapquest and Google the people their kids are dating.

But I suspect that the reason I know so many adults who depend on broadband is that most of the people I know are older and more educated and affluent and white than the majority of the country. At my table at the Internet for Everyone town hall, there was a librarian who described the stream of people who had no computer at home -- who came to the library because they were told to apply for a job online but had no idea how to use a Web browser to do that and no e-mail address to put on their application. A Latina at my table, who works in Los Angeles' MacArthur Park neighborhood, described parents who have no idea how to help their children use a computer to do homework. These Americans are as important to our economic and civic life as everyone else.

What's the downside to focusing a national broadband build-out on schoolchildren? Sure, it'll prepare them for the future. But it's their parents who are being laid off and who need all the information they can get about job alternatives and emergency assistance. And it's their parents and grandparents who need the Internet to participate in political movements, to pry information out of governments and hold officials accountable, to give voice to community concerns and give reach to minority views. Like it or not, broadband has become the spine of our economy and the glue of our society, and every American adult who can't easily get online is as disenfranchised as every kid who doesn't have access to broadband is disadvantaged.

If you'd like to be part of the conversation that began at the Radisson, you can do it via an online forum -- the Digital Town Hall at www.InternetforEveryone.org/townhall. The irony is how many people there are whose voices need to be heard who don't know their www from their elbow.

This is my column from The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. You can read more of my columns here, and e-mail me there if you'd like.

Follow Marty Kaplan on Twitter: www.twitter.com/martykaplan

Comments

[daddysboy]

Oh my goodness; I think I hadn't looked at those numbers because I didn't want to know they were so pathetic. A third of America is still watching the television for information! (hmmm, that translates to about 33 percent - go figure) No wonder there are so many ill and misinformed people out there. This also explains why the television executives haven't been jumping out of windows just yet. The fact alone that so many people have been left behind in the last 8 years is frightening to me on several levels. Reasonable and equal access to one common mode of shared communication is the holy grail of democracy and the fact that information travels in two directions on the internet is even better. Is there ANYTHING that didn't completely suck in the bush administration? I guess you could call this every American left behind.

[rjmiller]

You make this argument as if dial-up internet access doesn't exist. The households you speak of likely aren't just missing a broadband connection, they probably don't have a computer at all. While I agree with your goal, your argument is very poor. The argument you make would work for some kind of public computer education program.

A better argument is that a broadband connection is necessary to participate in the 21st century, both culturally and economically.

[Overd0g]

Frankly, all they use it for is instant messaging anyway.

[daddysboy]

That's quite a projected, over-simpl­ification. Was that supposed to be humorous? Besides, if chatting about nothing is what gets you online, you're bound to explore something new eventually and you may even learn something. That is FAR less likely on a cellular telephone chatting about nothing; where what you're more likely to discover is the wall or person you're walking into.

[PlanetKansas]

I think including internet access in the rebuilding the US infrastructure is brilliant, but the focus should be spent on replacing and redesigning the entire web to close all of the holes that make security and spam such a burden and expense to every user.

The WWW was designed with open archetecture so that a small community could write applications. It has outgrown its original purpose, and we will soon see the next devastating market crash, when mafia outfits in Russia and China begin robbings banks like a chapter out of Neuromancer.

I believe a government led effort to redesign the web would solve this problem and create a whole new high tech boom, with America at the center.

[aSecondAmerican]

There will be a growing digital divide between rural and urban areas unless there is a concerted effort to string fiber to the boonies. We need the 21st century equivalent of the rural electrification act.

[daddysboy]

Sat February 23, 2008: (CNN) -- Japan launched a rocket Saturday carrying a satellite that will test new technology that promises to deliver "super high-speed Internet" service to homes and businesses around the world.

The rocket carrying the WINDS satellite -- a joint project of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries -- lifted off its pad at 5:55 p.m. (0855 GMT).

If the technology proves successful, subscribers with small dishes will connect to the Internet at speeds many times faster than what is now available over residential cable or DSL services.

The Associated Press said the satellite would offer speeds of up to 1.2 gigabytes per second.

[ladyv]

I'm confused by this. Are we imagining that if children get broadband in their homes they're somehow going to prevent their parents from using it? There doesn't seem to be the suggestion that we're just talking broadband to schools and public libraries, and the former is the only one that excludes parents, anyway. We seem to be talking about availability of broadband in the home. Certainly it's part of a bigger picture of hurdles - is there a subsidy for the computer equipment as well? I have at least two machines that would support broadband that need minor repairs that are just sitting around my home unused, and I'd be glad to donate them to an organization that would do those minor repairs (I'm talking like a fan, or something) and put them in homes that need them. And another hurdle is that the parents will be less likely to know how to use it than their kids, but that's a different problem. But the focus on getting broadband to children seems to me to inherently include getting it to their parents since it'll be in the home. It's not like health care, where a kid with good health care still suffers if their parent has no health care.

[geniepiper]

Well put. I am one of the non affluent seniors, female, age 62, who has become familiar with computers. In fact, I teach them to kids and adults at a local community center. But the economy has made it such that I have to rely on the broadband at the center for my own Internet access. Would certainly appreciate any help I can get.

[RightWingMarine]

we have an inalienable right to high speed internet?

What does the ethnicity of broadband subscribers have to do with anything? Are you alleging that service providers are using a racial litmus test to determine who does and does not get broadband?

Let me guess, the solution is more govt money, right? We need to have the govt pay to provide not just a broadband connection but a computer too because one without the other is kind of pointless. And people can't have old, slow computers they all need to be state-of-the-art and funded by the taxpayer.

[timm0]

You need to trade in your Marine helmet for a beginner's thinking cap... start slowly so you don't hurt yourself.

[toypiano]

Ironic, coming from someone who says s/he's in the military -- funded by taxpayers. Let me guess, we should pay for your exploits and toys but not provide educational and vocational support to other Americans? I suppose you went into the military because you were so ... affluent.

[RightWingMarine]

you don't see a difference between funding a military that guarentees your freedom and funding a program to give your money away to people because they believe they should have it?

[Deni]

We are a small, broadband provider in rural Oregon. Not everyone in our area has access to wired phone lines and electricity, much less broadband. But, we do the best we can and we provide a great service for our customers. We also provide free public access service at the library and a few other public access places around town. The choices in our area are us (obviously the best choice!), satellite (Hugesnet or Wild Blue) or dial-up if you have a wired phone connection. This country has a long way to go to catch up with the rest of the world in a number of areas (health care, anyone??), courtesy of Bushco. Personally, I'd love for Obama to put our little ISP out of business! But, politics being what they are, I don't expect it in Obama's first term. Maybe his second.

[eilish]

All I can say is God save me from WildBlue - please please please!!!! (oh, and I am old and poor and very politically active)

[Ghost In The Machine]

Amen. Well, stated... and Obama with his Blackberry addiction is just the Prez to do this!