Is Broadband For All Really Going To Work?

We need it. No discussion there. The new 21st Century digital infrastructure should be built on super fast broadband networks, likely to be fiber optics.

Broadband, in whatever form, is what we need to spur the economy and consolidate our information society. All around the world pretty much consensus on this one. National governments are looking into national broadband networks, strategies, stimulus plans and policies, with new vigour and an immediate sense of urgency. So far so good.

Big questions are now; How and Who (the What is a bit a religious one, to my taste, so skipped for another post or platform)?

Apart from these obvious questions, there are other ones which are on the long term equally as big: How do we increase adoption, particularly for the less fortunate? Do we really think that people who are struggling to make a living, want to spend 50 USD per month, or more, for a high speed broadband connection - Bridging The Social Broadband Gap? And if so, do these people and families have appropriate personal computers available? And if they have a fast connection and even faster pc, do they have the skills to make the most of it? - Well, I agree with you, it will come in time, however, this reasoning is a bit about putting the carriage before the horse, as we say in The Netherlands.

Our children are willing and capable of adopting very quickly, but, in our ageing society, there is a growing group who are not over-enthousiastic about using pc's and internet. In this digital context it starts with the age of 40 and beyond, with a huge gap in comparison to the Net generation. We need to learn a new way of thinking and getting around things, as our kids are particularly 'switched' different and better equipped and developed to meet the challenge - read 'Grown Up Digital' by Don Tapscott.

And there are also the 'uneducated' who have no experience and skills to assimilate quickly to the new standards of our 21st Century society: the so-called digital illiterate, even in the inner city.

Pic from dailywireless.org

And of course there are the geography underprivileged: the underserved in rural areas. What about them?

So, all these rather obvious challenges we need to face simultanously, with building open, pervasive, community broadband networks as a good start. Again, who is going to pay for this, to whom and to what effect - e.g. time to implement? - Information Technology And Innovation Foundation presented a US report on Jan 7th 2009 which contains interesting answers to these questions. Source: Ars Technica

I am afraid that the gorillas will benefit most of the current developments: "Tax breaks for companies that increase Internet speed or create new networks are likely to go to existing large players". Source: BusinessWeek (7 Jan 2009)

And that is not a good thing ... Well, good for the specific industry, not good for society at large as we envisage it.