U.S. Digital Deficiency Jeopardizes 'Super Power' Status

Children born in America this year will be the first true Digital Natives of the Information Age. They will grow up in a time when all of their telecommunications tools: video, voice and data are based completely upon digital technology. It is an interesting historical footnote, to be sure. But it made me wonder: What will their rights be as Digital Citizens of the United States? Does our public policy contemplate a future constrained by the agendas of big business or will it position America to truly prosper in the global information economy?

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?

It is time to start a public policy debate on this issue. What are our rights as Digital Citizens of the United States? Are we entitled to high-speed wireless on par with other countries? Should we have the right to use the public airwaves to create private mesh networks? Will we get to use the "white space" in the television spectrum to create truly public, unlicensed applications? Will we, as a nation, have a public policy that allows America to compete with other digital superpowers or, will we become a country of digital have-nots, unable to compete in a larger world?

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 [e-mail]

Follow Shelly Palmer on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@shelly_palmer

Comments

[bobo209]

SUPER POWER??REALLY??BASED ON WHAT??WE HAVE MORE NUKES??WOWEEE IN THE NAME OF JESUS OF TEXAS AMEN.
Now that either could win the big race, Obama and Clinton fudge and hedge about withdrawing troops immediately from Iraq. Barack "will keep some troops in Iraq to protect our embassy and diplomats; if al Qaeda attempts to build a base within Iraq, he will keep troops in Iraq or elsewhere in the region to carry out targeted strikes on al Qaeda." BarackObama.comm)

After Iraqi elections on December 15, Ms. Clinton said, "We have to tell this new government we are not going to be there forever, we are going to be withdrawing our young men and women and we expect you to start moving towards stability." But, she added, "immediate withdrawal from Iraq would be a big mistake." Votehillary.orgg)

Such statements make me and many millions around the world feel a sense of growing dread. Why can't an empire withdraw? Ike did from Korea in 1953 and I guess that's it.

The empire's officials seem unable to admit the truth about the US' place in the world--at least in public. The economy sinks into deeper recession while Bush and Congress piss away billions each week on un-winnable wars in Afghanistan and Iran. To create further anxiety, Bush and Cheney periodically threaten war against Iran and occasionally Syria as well.

[Purple Girl]

WE get the Slow Versions so they can keep Up On their Monitoring.
Same with the ' Lost connection' Problems.
I only recently stopped referring to it as the 'glorified Typewriter' but may go back considering the number of times my Comments are Diverted. Actually have been Eniterly Kicke doff the Web while on HuffPo, now Truth dig.....but I can spend hours lost in Research without a hitch. What BS, thsi Gov't is as Oppressive as the Chinese or any other Totalitarian Regime.

[azrix]

Any who has been providing the government with illegal "wiretaps" on all American's? Why AT&T and Verizon of course! Sounds like tit for tat to me. The question is why the NSA wants so much info. But you're not doing anything wrong, so what do you have to worry about right? Because the right of habeas corpus, and the just as important right to trial by jury (where the law is on trial, not just the defendant and don't let any judge or lawyer tell you otherwise) are such sacred rights in America?

This brings up some more interesting technical questions. How much bandwidth is taken up by our government spying on us? How much bandwidth do those Carnivore/TIA machines gobbling up everything use?

[kardwell]

And the services on the East and West coast routinely crash. In the past 3 months, the Verizon system in my town has failed 6, maybe 7 times and we're offline for several hours, if not days. My colleagues and friends frequently comment "This never happens in X" (Japan, Germany, France, etc.)

[rlc41]

We have a huge third world digital country right within our borders. It's anyone who doesn't live on the east coast or in California. I think it is not very affectionately called, among other things, "Fly Over Country". This last month Verizon offered DSL in this area. Which is a step up from dial which was the only other option besides satellite. Now us little stupid folks in fly over land should be happy to pay $40 bucks a month for 20 year old technology? That forty bucks is for DSL only, no bundling here. Oh and that is just the bait cost after you sign a year contract. So not only is it 20 years old it's much more expensive!

[Geovan]

This is another sad result of Reagan/NeoCon economics. Basic services have always been implemented and grown with government support, but since dear Ronnie, the "government is bad" mantra has become a steering point in our national consciousness. Singapore and South Korea decided 10 years ago to make broadband connections an important infrastructure service, much like we decided on rural electrification in the 30's and super-highway development in the 50's. We were told to put our faith in the free markets. But markets were never free, and with neo-con Congressional rule under Clinton, and more so with Bush, regulatory enforcement has dramatically favored the larger and richer corporations which has only stifled 'efficiencies' in our delusional free market approach to provide basic infrastructure services.

[Uselessboy]

Keeping information from the people is essential _at any cost._

The people in charge don't give a rat's ass about the United States.

[realitytrumpsbull]

Blar blar blar....give me 50 people that graduated with a high 'b' average in the 1980's before the schools got kindered and gentlered, and I'll show you some data-processing-capable people, probably the same general caliber of educated people that helped BUILD the computer you're using today, in one way or another. In terms of bit-rate, 256kbps put to honest use in the context of a work environment is MORE useful than 5 Gbps used for screwing around. For that matter, the typewritten page folded and placed in an envelope may not be as fast as e-mail, but still 'carries the mail' just fine. Faster /= better, so to speak. Computers also just make mistakes faster if the operator is poorly trained. Digital divide? In many respects, an IBM Selectric III STILL does a superior job of 'word processing', don't even have to hit 'print' when you're done typing, just pull the page completely out of the machine, and it's ready to throw in the 'in' box across the hall. Don't have to worry about a network connection, either.

It's still a word processor, the problem is still the nut behind the wheel...

[miles120]

Well, I could talk about how my HP scientific calculator was good enough for performing ANOVAs, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to use one today. It used to take me hours to complete the analysis on small data sets, and that assumed no mistakes. Then I could type my results on my Olivetti typewriter. The finished product was smeared, covered with typing correction fluid and took about 24 hours to complete.

It's simply not credible to overlook the benefits of public networks and faster computing. After all, this exchange relies upon them.

[bushido216]

South Korea and Singapore are both much smaller than the United States. They can provide 100 mbps connections because their demand for the bandwidth is so low and their ability to provide it is proportionally much better. America’s clientele is orders of magnitude larger than that of South Korea or Singapore, and we cannot practically provide that much bandwidth.

Also, practically speaking the difference between 1.5 and 100 mbps is just seconds of load time for anything that isn’t bank data. There is no emergency here. The United States moves trillions of terabytes daily. Most of our needs do not require a 100 mbps transfer speed. The ability to move data also depends on the bandwidth of the recipient. Unless we’re doing most of our business with South Korea and Singapore, any upgrade on our part would be meaningless.

As well, businesses and universities retain T1 or greater connections for their transactions. They are quite capable of meeting the needs of data flow. An average American is not moving anywhere near six gigs a minute (100 mbps), and any extra bandwidth would be largely wasted. Americans can wait an extra three seconds for YouTube.

I agree that our technology should always be kept up-to-date. However, this is not an area of immediate concern. There are way more pressing issues that are deserving of our attention, and much better places to put our money than allowing the “average American” to download their blogs a half-second faster.

[rlc41]

I'm an average American who would be happy to do a transaction with my credit union faster than five minutes. That's about what it takes with the Verizon dial-up connection that has been the only game in town till recently. Supposably breaking up and deregulating the telecommunication was supose to cause great things. In a large part of the country it has meant deregulated monopolies.

[bushido216]

rlc41,

What the article is talking about and what you are talking about are two wholly different phenomena. I agree with you that no one should be forced into using a dial-up phone line to connect to the internet. However, that is very irrelevant to our conversation thus far. We're talking about the difference between broadband connections and specifically how they apply to the ability of governments and institutions to relay data back and forth. I don't mean to dismiss you but I feel that your post is very much missing the point.

[Justtellthetruth]

What, are you the president of AT&T? Greater bandwidth would allow UNDREAMED OF applications that would blow away youtube, so your argument falls flat on its face. The currnent system grows at a snails pace to maximize profit( gouged from consumers after every tiny, incremental uptick in service )for the big telecoms while robbing the US of desperately needed economic growth realized through massivley increased avenues of digital service and commerce.

We should be leading the world in these matters, and we are actually a digital 3rd world.

[bushido216]

I can tell that you didn't really read anything I wrote. You're basing our 3rd world status on the notion that a few Singaporeans are downloading faster than we are. The effective difference is minimal.

Also, I think defining our terms would be very useful. The author just talks about "information flow". Are we talking about important information? Governmental, business, education? Or are we talking about youtube? Our ability to retain our premier position in global information flow is tied to our ability to transfer data that actually matters. How fast or slow youtube loads isn't going to make a difference in our ability to do that.

Faster bandwidth for youtube, gaming, or other non-business related functions is a LUXURY item. It isn't necessary, nor is it going to effect our ability to do business. This is sort of like calling the United States a 3rd world country because 90% of homes in the Bahamas have air conditioners but only 65% of homes in the United States do. You're comparing two things that are inherently different.

Nuance and subtlety my friend; they exist everywhere.

[shamanbart]

The bandwidth question is inconsequential when discussing only normal internet data (web, email, IM). There are bigger questions -- universal availability, cost and competition -- that come into play when considering all transmitted data.

Universal availability should be a primary goal -- getting rural areas connection speeds at 2 mbps or more. This will give them good access as compared to people in metro areas. However to the big media corps, this isn't cost effective.

Cost -- $ 45 for only 6 mbps internet is very high. A great segment of the population seems unwilling to pay that -- rightfully so. The overcharging for these services is almost criminal.

Competition -- until media monopolies are broken up, or their lobbying efforts are thwarted, we won't see true competition. If we would, we'd see several providers of bundled digital services -- TV, internet, phone, etc. through fiber at 2 gbps. I think Verizon may be trying to get this infrastructure in place, but could lack the ability to bundle TV.

The attempt of cities to get into the wireless internet game is occuring sporadically. The attempt in my town failed due to poor engineering.

All in all -- the feudal system of various uninteroperable cable, satellite, wired, wireless, TV, internet, phone providers -- all created by unregulated, unmanaged media corps -- has resulted in a mismash of poor, expensive choices. I would be in favor of gov't putting in the infrastructure for fiber and wireless and making carriers adhere to a

[TruthSpeaker]

As an IT person, this has long puzzled me. Of all the fiber optic cable in the U.S. less than 1% is "lit", of that 1% less than 5% is used! In addition,networks like Williams' and Level 3 can quickly and inexpensively be exanded by blowing new fibers down their pipelines and condiut bundles respectively. Bandwidth should be a buyer's market - the supply vastly out paces the demand. In Japan, my son and daughter-inlaw pay $50/month for a 150 Mbps symetrical connection! Here in the U.S. we suffer from corporate incrementalism. "They" just give us improvements in tiny dribs and drabs, and charge a lot more for it. Even though the average user won't suddenly become a bandwidth hog and will in fact just get their work done faster. The cable companies in particular could dial up the speed to 100 Mbps at little or no cost to them. I pay $179/month for 10 Mbps down/2 Mbps up, which translates into around 8/1.5 in practice. Soon WiMax will help level the playing field with up to 80 Mbps symetrical starting at around $60/month. Will Sprint see the wisdom and advantage of opening the spiggot wide open at that price point or will they get greedy? They would absolutely kill the DSL and Cable carriers. My cable company is trying to lock me into a new long term contract, instead of month to month - they see the writing on the wall.

[c1ee]

Hope Obama takes this into account in his Presidency. He has lots of friends at Google i heard. Google haven't gone evil yet, so i think that's a good thing.

[Nix]

Really?
Well this sounds EVIL to me and very Bushish.

From: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/03/google_eavesdropping_software/

The first thing that came out of our mouths when we heard that Google is working on a system that listens to what's on your TV playing in the background, and then serves you relevant adverts, was "that's cool, but dangerous".

The idea appeared in Technology Review citing Peter Norvig, director of research at Google, who says these ideas will show up eventually in real Google products - sooner rather than later.

The idea is to use the existing PC microphone to listen to whatever is heard in the background, be it music, your phone going off or the TV turned down. The PC then identifies it, using fingerprinting, and then shows you relevant content, whether that's adverts or search results, or a chat room on the subject.

And, of course, we wouldn’t put it past Google to store that information away, along with the search terms it keeps that you've used, and the web pages you have visited, to help it create a personalised profile that feeds you just the right kind of adverts/content. And given that it is trying to develop alternative approaches to TV advertising, it could go the extra step and help send "content relevant" advertising to your TV as well.

[asasan]

We are already a second-rate power, on our way to being a destitute banana republic, with a dictator and no individual freedoms, except for a very corrupt oligarchy of the wealthy. My stepson went around the world on his honeymoon. When he came home, he said, "Dad, we don't lead in anything anymore.". He is right. We are "DED", dead, and just don't know it yet. In less than 20 years, we will be scorned for our stupid pretensions of grandeur and power. We will be begging for financial help, while a generation starves.

[ShawnMichel]

Amen to this. Amen. It's sad the sheeple of this country refuse to see or do anything about the truth you tell.

[MadeinAmericaProud]

asasan you say."In less the 20 years, we will be scorned... We will be begging for financial help,.."

Our stimulus package is borrowed money from communist china, our war is being paid by communist china with interest to be paid back your great great great grand children. In other words that less than 20 years are here in 2008.

[Jason357]

The difference is that Koreans use the Internet to learn and Americans play games and watch porno...don't need 100 Mbps for porno.

[rlc41]

Speaking from experience, slo-mo porn on a dial up connection is rather disgusting. It also gets boring real fast.

[MrJoyboy]

The powers that be in this country are afraid of the general public having unlimited high-speed access to information. People might learn how those powers keep their power at the expense of the rest of us.

[jteschke]

It's another measure of decline. Just check the currency values versus per capita income and, especially when one adds in the differences in the health care provision systems between here and elsewhere that this has become a backwater and the trend will become more pronounced. It's going to become a major issue at some unknown point not very far in the future, may be before November. The Soviet Union also had a big army and plenty of nukes.

[RumiSouth]

I have often wondered: if America had a broadband loan program modeled on Rural Electrification, how many dial-up customers would be left in the US?

But Rural Electrification is perhaps the most efficient and successful government program in the history of the world -- just 6% of farms in the Tennessee Valley had electricity in 1930, with 96% of them electrified by 1940 -- so maybe the problem is that such a program would work TOO WELL. It would destroy the reigning free-market theology of our time.