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Internet access vital to economy
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“Hey Ryan, is your Internet working? Mine just cut out, again!”
Hearing a version of this from one of my roommates is practically a weekly occurrence. This frequently takes place when I have a giant paper due the next day. Almost as frustrating is when my side of the building loses Internet on a Friday, guaranteeing the repair person won’t be able to come until the following Monday. The customer service representative could not care less how integral the Internet is to the life of the 21st-century college student.
I’m not the only one frustrated with the ludicrously high rates and poor quality of the service of our local cable monopoly, Charter Communications. Charter was ranked as the worst Internet service provider in 2007 by PC World magazine. Madison needs a strong competitor with Charter as badly as it needs faster snow removal and fewer public appearances by Kevin Barrett. I would gladly jump at the opportunity to take advantage of the magic of free market capitalism, switch my provider, and watch Charter shrivel up and die.
But the continuing existence of Charter is only a symptom of a larger problem. The United States lacks a comprehensive broadband strategy. We are lagging behind the rest of the world in terms of access, speed and reliability. This is especially pertinent at a time when the country may be entering into an economic recession. Our digital divide is likely to have a dire effect on economic growth in the future if it is not remedied by an aggressive effort to provide universal broadband access.
The Internet is increasingly the engine that drives our economy. Internet sales totaled more than $259 billion in 2006, an increase of 18 percent from the previous year. It connects people to each other in countless social networks. A recent Zogby poll found that the Internet is the primary source of information about the 2008 presidential race for 48 percent of Americans, and candidates are increasingly raising their money online. The Internet is essential for public safety, allowing emergency responders to pinpoint problems instantly and coordinate relief efforts.
Given all the wonders of the Internet, shouldn’t the United States make it a priority to ensure all its citizens have access to this great equalizer? Tragically, the United States lags behind many countries on a number of crucial indicators of digital capacity.
The United States is currently ranked 16th in the world in terms of high-speed Internet subscribers. The percentage of GDP spent on telecommunications equipment is also relatively low. Due to our poor digital infrastructure, consumers get far less speed per dollar they spend. While Americans pay on average about $40-50 per month for a cable connection that delivers 3-5 millions of bits of data per second (mbps), Japanese pay only about $22 per month for an average speed of 26 mbps.
The digital divide within the United States is largely a function of income. Sixty-two percent of households with incomes over $100,000 subscribe to broadband, while only 11 percent of households with incomes below $30,000 subscribe.
In addition to cost, many parts of the United States, especially rural areas, simply do not have broadband Internet access available. Dial-up access is quickly becoming obsolete as the Internet becomes dominated by video-based multimedia that simply takes too long to load with such a slow connection.
Clearly this digital divide is crying out for federal investment in telecommunications infrastructure. Although the United States is clearly a much larger country than Japan with more low population density areas, there are ways to get around the geography problem. In fact, 36 percent of rural Americans lack Internet access of any kind. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that high-speed Internet is increasingly being beamed down to rural areas via weather balloons. One balloon can serve an area that would have required 40 cell towers.
The digital divide also hits close to home. Wisconsin ranks a dismal 34th in average Internet connection speed among the states. Even larger towns tend to be dominated by only one or two Internet service providers. How can we expect people to start businesses that rely on the Internet in Madison, Wis. if they can’t expect affordable and reliable internet access?
The state government should prioritize investment in broadband access as a way to restructure the state’s economy, especially in light of the continuing loss of manufacturing jobs. This will encourage startup companies to begin competing with entrenched monopolies like Charter.
The jobs of the future and our nation’s global competitiveness require a national strategy that assures universal broadband access. No one can afford to stay offline these days, and we don’t need to be stuck paying so much for such poor service.
Ryan Greenfield (rgreenfield@badgerherald.com) is a junior majoring in political science and economics.
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Why don’t you try TDSMetrocom or AT&T?
We have Charter available where I live but what I’ve found is that when everyone in the neighborhood is home from work and school the cable internet is as slow or slower than my low end att/yahoo DSL which I get for less than half the price.
The U.S. needs to wake up and realize what the lack of a National policy of a low cost high speed internet access for all Americans will do to our Country. We are falling further and further behind the rest of the World. Our economy, education, healthcare, civic participation and much more are at stake. There needs to be action now.
California (where I live), the birthplace of high tech ranks 36th in the Nation in download speeds with a median of 1,520kbps and 40th in upload speeds with a paltry 321kbps. This according to 9,227 speeds tests (the most of any State) taken by users on the Communications Workers Of America’s website http://www.speedmatters.org/pages/state.html
We need incentives for the buildout of a high speed network that all will have access to. We must also have goals and timelines set. We need to ensure that consumer and worker protection are in place, and that we have an open internet.
These are some of the things the CWA is working on with their project, Speed Matters. Check out the website for more information at www.speedmatters.org
This should have been titled, “Internet access vital to porn viewing”
Luckily, I have dsl ; )
-Toast
How much does porn account for our economy?
What Mr. Greenfield says is very true. However, the reason why certain internet providers and the potentials for triple play are allowed to provide poor quality is that in a lot of the areas in question, there is no competition from the Verizons or AT&Ts. To ask the government to step in and possibly mandate quality of service is admirable but judging by the past few years of the FCC making rules and then having them broken by the ILECs, just because they wear down the feds, is an indication of the control that the FCC has over the situation. They have very little. Blanket rules that as long as they do not greatly affect the “Bells” or any other previously established telco from the AT&T monopoly are acceptable to those mentioned but as soon as th profitability of these companies is threatened, the rules go out the window. The carrot dangling in front of the general population will be higher data rates. We’re already seeing it with Verizon offering 14 Mb/s over their 3 to 4 Mb/s initial installation of a PON but, of course, for more money. I’m hoping that as soon as everyone in the country finds out how much Japan is paying for triple play services at the posted data rate, that people in this country get really angry and demand a better price and coverage. But as I said, it will probably take “competition” to knock the price down, as it did with the demopolization of the phone companies. the major providers had better watch it, or I wouldn’t be surprised if the Japanese import their technology over here, once again, undercut the ILECs and install services strongly desired by everyone.