I enjoy reading Tom Friedman’s columns for the New York Times. Most of the time, I agree with him. Why? He often takes a futurist’s point of view – looking ahead to where we are going; not where we’ve been. Consequently, his thoughts are out of the box, and he tends to see the larger picture and thereby connects the dots related to an issue in creative ways that make sense, in the long run. (At least for me.)
Take yesterday’s headline, for example: Who will be greenest, fastest and smartest? In the final paragraphs he mentions that the country with the smartest technologies will lead the way. (RE India and China as possible challengers for leadership in the 21st Century.) In his punch line he writes, “We’ve got the innovators, we’ve got the venture capitalists. If only we had the government that would create the right market conditions and then get out of the way.” Hmmm, that’s food for thought.
I know Tom doesn’t read my Weblogs, but if he saw Our Cyberplace #32 – Community TeleStructure Initiatives,” he just might write a future column devoted to our nation’s broadband concerns and use as a headline, Faster, cheaper and sooner. If we don’t do something PDQ, our national ranking in the world drop even further. This concern over the availability of sufficient broadband connectivity to serve the needs of all sectors of a community (Education, Government, Business, Health Care, and Nonprofit Community Benefit Organizations) isn’t a recent challenge. As early as 1989, a public policy advocacy group, the Computer Systems Policy Project (CSPP), now called the “Tech CEO Council,” was founded to focus on issues such as export controls, international trade, Internet taxation, encryption and electronic commerce. This blogger became acquainted with their mission while reading their publication, Living in the Networked World Report (2000).
http://www.techceocouncil.org/documents/Living_in_the_Networked_World.pdf
and Readiness Guide,2000.
http://www.techceocouncil.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=228&Itemid=160
The CSPP’s called for policy makers to move aggressively and encourage governments to put “public information on the Internet in a searchable format, allowing for greater public oversight, accountability, and participation.” That report included a self-assessment scale that communities could use in order to determine their readiness to live, work, learn and play in a networked world “where everyone and everything is connected at all times.” (BTW, our local PetalumaNet participated in workshops at both the county and the city level that used this instrument. In 2000, our North Bay CyberCity Consortium at Sonoma State University had as its theme, Building a TeleCommUnity for the 21st Century.)
CSPP followed in 2002 with, yet, another publication, “A Vision for the 21st Century Wired & Wireless Broadband – Building the Foundation of the Networked World.”
http://www.techceocouncil.org/documents/networkedworld.pdf
More recently, at the state level, another “Self-Assessment Guide for Communities” was created by CENIC- Corporation for Education network Initiatives in California) and publicized by the question: On the road to a Gigabit Broadband – Are we there yet?”
http://www.cenic.org/guide (2005)
In yesterday’s blog, we reported that Don Means and his Community TeleStructure Initiative is trying to breathe new life into the need for policies that will enable business models to be created that hopefully will provide higher levels of service soon, that will be faster and cheaper than now. Whether or not current policy debates at both the state and federal levels will have a significant impact remains to be seen. Stay tuned.
Update: This just in … headline … SF Chronicle … “House panel OKs rules on high-speed Net provider priority fees” … On Thursday, the House Judiciary Committee approved, in a 20-13 vote, a bill that would “bar high-speed Internet providers from charging Web content companies for priority access to their networks.” There is also a bill approved by the House Energy and commerce Committee last month. It isn’t over yet. Stay tuned.