Universal Internet Access is Efficient and a Competitive Necessity.
At a time when the United States is falling further and further behind a growing list of more connnected countries, the necessity of jumpstarting our global competitiveness is growing. Within a global service economy, countries with a competitive advantage in their broadband speeds and pricing will benefit, while laggards will find themselves disadvantaged. Those who point to the marginal improvements in broadband speeds and pricing within the United States over the past half-decade ignore the fact that our gains have been far less relative to numerous industrialized economies. Thus, over time, we are finding ourselves on the wrong side of a growing international digital divide.
A nation-wide investment in free Internet access is exactly the type of intervention we need to propel the United States into a more competive position. In much the same way that the interstate highway system created efficiencies that spurred the US economy in myriad ways, in the digital age, a nation-wide information superhighway would have an enormous beneficial impact on countless facets of our economy.
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The only one's benefitting by our internet needs are the choice "few" who are getting extremely rich with our increased need for the internet. The control factor is another issue. I believe the government should provide the internet access free since everyone needs it, thus controlling the large companies who have to much control over our viewed internet visited sites as well as non-competitive selections of internet providers. The biggest wins?? The government needs to step up to the plate. It's too expensive in a recession of huge internet needs for everyone. They would benefit all around.
New America Foundation asserts that "the United States is falling further and further behind a growing list of more connected countries". This is subjective. In fact, the FCC asserted in 2006 that America was doing exceptionally well given our population density ( http://arstechnica.com/news.ars /post/20060404-6516.html). Indeed, looking at the latest OECD numbers ( http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/21/35/39574709.xls ) once can tell that the US still leads when adjusting for population density. Leaders such as Denmark, Netherlands, Switzerland, Iceland, Luxembourg, and Belgium can cover 90% of their population with a single WiMax tower. Hardly a fair comparison. Even larger countries such as Germany, UK and Canada have much denser populations.
In any case, the debate question is on internet access and in fact 99.9% of the US population has Internet access because they have telephone service. Broadband access is not necessary to gain the benefits of communication. Or one can take a trip to their local library which is in fact free and does in fact have a computer and broadband access.
Affordability? $9.95 per month for netzero is still pretty darned cheap. Cheaper than your local phone service, cell phone, gasoline, morning coffee, etc.
Are there people who live in the country and can't get broadband access? Yes, I'm one of them but you don't see me saying that my fellow taxpayers should subsidize me. If it was that important I'd move into the city.
Just don't move to a city that Comcast has an exclusive on. I have a feeling that with the white space initiative going on, that companies like Comcast actually refuse to upgrade their services, and squeeze as much as possible now, out of their "protected" populations.