An average broadband connection in the United States is 1.5 Mbps down and 768 Kbps up -- about enough speed to watch a fairly low resolution streaming video or do some casual web surfing. Cable modems are faster and you can certainly purchase more connectivity, if you can afford it. But, on average, consumers are offered asymmetrical (faster download/slower upload) broadband connections and no one seems that unhappy about it. They should be.
A child born in Korea or Singapore this year will be a digital native of their respective countries. They will grow up in a time when all of their telecommunications tools: video, voice and data are based completely upon digital technology. And they are very likely to start their journey through the Internet with 100 Mpbs symmetrical broadband connection.
Let's see. American Digital Natives 1.5 Mpbs, other competing countries 100 Mpbs. You don't need to be a technologist or a mathematician to do this calculation. They have 100 of something we have 1.5 of. They can move information much faster than we can.
In practice, this is a real problem. Information = currency. This is well understood. If you have exclusive information, you can easily convert it to cash. As ever, the flow of information equates to economic success. So it logically follows that the faster one can move information, the more successful one is likely to be. From battlefield to Bloomberg terminal this is an immutable law of the doing of life. How long can America maintain its Super Power status in the Information Age? The simple answer is, only as long as its digital citizens have the ability to move information faster than any competitive entity in the global information economy.
America is used to being "the" Super Power. This term, once reserved for our military -- industrial complex, has been broadened, by common usage, to refer to all of our technological prowess. "American Technology" is widely regarded (by average American citizens) as the best in the world. Many would argue that we have already abdicated this role, but assuming we're still at or near the top -- how long can we stay there?
We need to understand that other countries around the world do not have legacy infrastructure owned by private companies. Our private enterprises, with private agendas are tasked with helping our Digital Citizens compete with foreign governments and their public agendas. Our side is thinking about corporate profits, their side is thinking about global competition in the Information Age.
On February 17, 2009 analog television will cease to exist. It will be replaced with digital television. To facilitate the switch, the government gave licensed broadcasters the rights to new "digital" airwaves and put their old "analog" airwaves up for auction. The big winners were America's two largest telecommunications companies, Verizon and AT&T. Although it sounds like business as usual (big telecommunications companies buying up digital spectrum) this is anything but business as usual.
The groundwork has now been laid for America's digital telecommunications future. Our access to bandwidth and our ability to move information around the Internet is now firmly in the hands of a very few organizations. What, if anything, should we do about it?
This is an extraordinarily complex issue and it is well beyond the capabilities of any one individual to think through. What I propose is a series of public policy debates. We'll bring together representatives from all areas of the telecommunications space and government and together, we'll draft a comprehensive policy recommendation that we can bring to the leadership.
We need to articulate a clear vision for our technological future and we need to start right now. You can help. To get involved, please click here and join the US Digital Citizenship mailing list. We are putting together a series of Digital Citizenship workshops and conferences at major trade shows. We would welcome your participation.
Shelly Palmer is Managing Director of Advanced Media Ventures Group LLC and the author of Television Disrupted: The Transition from Network to Networked TV (2006, Focal Press). Shelly is also President of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, NY (the organization that bestows the coveted Emmy® Awards). He is the Vice-Chairman of the National Academy of Media Arts & Sciences an organization dedicated to education and leadership in the areas of technology, media and entertainment. Palmer also oversees the Advanced Media Technology Emmy® Awards which honors outstanding achievements in the science and technology of advanced media. You can read Shelly's blog here. Shelly can be reached at shelly@palmer.net
Follow Shelly Palmer on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@shelly_palmer
Silicon Valley did it right. Philly? San Fran? I don't think they need to scrap it, just adopt a better plan.
www. wirelessphiladelphia.com, www.alfredvassallo.com, www.onesolution.com, www.mcallenwireless.com
In the early 90's the phone companies were allowed to raise rates and to charge a surcharge if they built the infrastructure for a public "Information Superhighway"
They took our money and built nothing. This is fraud. the US government has done nothing about this.
Big companies keep small innovative companies out of the market place by buying up politicians and with lawsuits. Look at what has happened to places in the US who have tried to build a public network.They are sued.
The US Government is owned and controlled by a few big companies. It is government by big companies, and for big companies.
Until we get the big money out of government the things that will help the American people the most will not get done.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/28/AR2007082801990_pf.html
A more pressing issue is net neutrality. The primary right-wing argument against net neutrality, stagnant internet speeds, is stupid because Japan and West Europe have stricter neutrality laws and much higher speeds than us. In America, the corporations are still fighting to transform the internet into a one-way medium like radio and television so they can continue to brainwash us while maintaining their monopoly.
Obama is strongly pro-neutrality. You can read about his positions on his web sites and there are you-tube videos of him talking about this. He obviously has a keen understanding of the subject (being younger probably helps). Clinton is trying to please both sides by taking a weaker stance and endorsing a compromised plan. She has also taken a lot more money from the cable companies.
government needing to control networks, and to allow private companies to compete
with each other over them, you would find that, I strongly support your position. I think
the giving up of net neutrality, would almost consign us, vis a vis other countries, to the
dark ages.
Information is no different. None but those who pay shall have it. God help us.
"From developing advanced television services to implementing new Internet technologies, Palmer’s pioneering efforts have made him the successful creator, producer, composer and television Renaissance man he is today."
the way we do business. I happen to have a Classical CD collection of 2500 CD's, the important
thing is not the physical presence of those CDs, but the knowledge of what I consider superb
performances. The same thing is true of my DVD collection. It also has the effect of democratizing
distribution, in that symphony orchestras and other artists can be the masters of their own
fate, rather than the thrall of the big recording companies. It could also have the same liberating
effect on book publishing and independent movie makers. One key factor that was needed was
low cost terabyte hard disks, and the other is low cost monitors with resolutions on the order of
2400x3600 pixels. They are still not here.
I find it rather astounding that you had so much engineering talent in companies like Bell Labs, Lucent and many others and literally PISSED the opportunities away because of netwit BLUESUITS from harvad, stanford, u of chicago and many other MBA whore houses.
We need to replace copper cable with fibre optic but it is such a massively expensive undertaking that unless the infrastructure is installed by governments the revenue that could be generated would not even pay the interest on the financing.
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977229568&nav=Namespace
The real problem is that cable companies bribed politicians (excuse me, "donated to their re-election campaigns") to stop those politicians from mandating extra bandwidth to the cable they were stringing to cover future growth. Why would they do such a thing? To prevent a cable TV competitor from piggy-backing on the optical fiber cable they put up. Delivery utilities such as fiber cable, water pipes, electrical wires, roads should be owned by local, state, and federal governments, not a private company precisely due to the entry cost for competing suppliers.
Yes, and this article proves it. While I agree that all people are better served by access to higher bandwidth, I disc\agree with pretty much every statement in this article. It's hard to know where to begin. Here are just a few examples:
Anyone who uses "America" as a single entity is wrong. Kurt Vonnegut called it a "granfalloon". Look it up.
Information = Currency ... not. Money is a form of information. Information is an infinitely richer concept than currency.
"America" is a superpower... not. Most of "America" are powerless and living in third-world conditions. The oligarchs are a superpower, because of military might and economic dominance.
You are suggesting that "America's" superpower status is a good thing, that should be preserved, and that giving broadband access to ordinary people will somehow further that goal. Huh? Giving broadband to ordinary people will further democracy and people power, which is the opposite of what you are advocating (superpower status for the few).
ianrthorpoe:
American investment funded India's birth into the digital age which has allowed them to take american jobs. Global Crossing went belly up after paving the oceans with fiber. Who was left holding the bag on that ponzi scheme?
Yeah, you're a navel-contemplating fool. Bush has certainly driven us into following him into a corrupt occupation of Iraq, but at least 2/3s of this country are against his stupidity. No other "superpower" contender has a population willing to oppose its leadership.
Giving broadband to "ordinary" citizens makes sense because there are many such citizens who can help make this a better nation. Look at the Internet you moron, can you imagine having the discussion HuffPost and UseNet allows without the Internet? (I may be an atheist but God save me from morons.)
You're missing my point that unless you are a billionaire wannabee like Rumsfeld, Cheney, and the rest, you are not the superpower. You, and the rest of us, are the victims of the superpower. What's good for the billionaires and their wannabees is usually very bad for the rest of us.
"Who do you wish to see passing us..."
My point is that you and I are not the superpower. The billionaires and their wannabees like Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rice and so on, make up the "superpower class". The rest of us are usually the victims of their power, not the beneficiaries.
The benefit of broadband - for - all is that it promotes democracy and empowers all of us. That's the opposite of empowering the "superpower class".
BTW I don't want t pay to educate anyone. Not a nickel. They can all be beasts of burden for all I care. Of course I would rather purchase educations than bombs. But I'd really rather not buy either.
I wrote (essentially):
Your attitude explains why the US is declining (collapsing?) into irrelevancy. When your Chinese master sez, "Lift that bale, tote that barge," then you'll wish you had cared. That is, if you're not to tired to think.
You could test your theory about social spending, move to a country where they don't have any: Haiti, Somalia, etc., tell us how great it is.
I have discussed this issue in my own blog, and see considerable merit in launching an infrastructure project to terminate fiber in every business and residence. Then, like the airwaves, content providers would pay for the transportation of their packets. This would create low barriers to entry and equal footing for content, regardless of the provider's size.
Having ubiquitous broadband helps America achieve many of its goals: providing equality to its citizens, creating open and free markets in which to do business, and encouraging a new generation to lead the world in knowledge and application, among others. And frankly, granting the private sector virtual monopolies has been a dismal failure. We need to radically rethink how to achieve our goals.
We used to graduate engineers at the highest rate of all industrial countries - but since engineering jobs got outsoruced to India, communist china and other cheapo labor pools, there's no point in a US student getting an engineering degree anymore. China now graduates 100 engineers for every 1 in the US.
MSM misinformation = loss of democracy & middle-class economic power