Page 143 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

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In contrast, others contend that in a society that relies on information for its
lifeblood, communication technology has become a necessity for equal oppor-
tunity and social inclusion. In this view, communication should be considered
less like income (where capitalist societies tolerate stark inequalities) and more
like education or voting—a fundamental component of a basic standard of liv-
ing and citizenship. For example, increasingly people are likely to receive their
telephone, television, radio, and Internet service via a single broadband con-
nection. Free or low-cost broadband service for the poor has been hailed as a
crucial tool for education, a potential economic engine for reviving low-income
communities, a means for receiving better medical care and emergency services,
increasingly necessary for applying for government services and engaging in ef-
fective political participation, and the main medium for twenty-first-century
news and entertainment. Therefore, some view broadband as a basic public need
comparable to utilities such as roads, water, and electricity.

roLE oF govErnmEnT

Even if the digital divide is a problem, can government solve it efficiently and
effectively? Skeptics accuse programs such as the U.S. e-rate program, which
introduced new fees on telephone subscribers’ bills and used the money to help
fund Internet service in public schools, libraries, and clinics, of being waste-
ful and unnecessary. Some private efforts to connect low-income villages and
neighborhoods around the world have been well-intended failures because
they neglected to do more than provide computers and modems to people who
had no training or money to maintain the equipment. Some have argued that
government should not burden the telecommunications industry by requiring
it to offer service in unprofitable areas. Telecommunications companies have
strongly objected to competition from municipal broadband projects, in which
cities build their own high-speed networks in part to offer cheaper service to
residents.
However, others see public regulation and investment as necessary for ex-
panding access to information. They note that high-speed Internet service is
most widely available in countries where governments have taken a greater role
in requiring private providers to deploy service to all areas or helped subsidize
the building of broadband networks. The U.S. government did little to sup-
port broadband deployment in its early years and broadband was therefore less
widely available and slower than in many other wealthy countries. Supporters of
public involvement in Internet provision argue that telecommunications com-
panies have failed to offer affordable service and have refused to extend their
networks to serve unprofitable communities. The federal government’s stance
was different during the advent of the telephone industry in the late 1800s, when
the same problems arose. Regulations compelled telephone companies, many of
which held monopoly control over their markets, to serve all communities and
to charge lower rates to rural, low-income, and household subscribers so that
everyone could be connected via the new medium. Some cities built their own
telephone networks to achieve these ends. The voices of those who supported