Closing the Cyber-Gap

Despite the economic downturn, there has been a 15 percent increase this past year in the number of Americans who subscribe to broadband.  Nonetheless, while 63 percent of Americans now have broadband Internet connections in their homes, according to a TCF report by John Windhausen Jr., the gap is widening between the rich who have access to broadband and the poor who do not.

What’s more, the United States is lagging behind other developed nations when it comes to broadband quality and availability. The United States’ international ranking in terms of broadband subscribers per 100 people has dropped steadily each year since 1999, when the country ranked 3rd – in 2007, the U.S. came in 22nd place, trailing behind countries such as the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.

While affordable high-speed Internet access ought to be universally accessible in a country as technologically advanced and wealthy as the United States, that clearly is not the case. According to the Pew Research Center, the cost of high speed Internet in the U.S. has increased. In April 2009, the average monthly bill for Internet service was $39 – up from $34.50 in May 2008. This can be attributed in part to the deregulation of the telecommunications marketplace in 1996, which has allowed Internet and phone companies to maintain a duopoly that chokes innovation and competition.

Windhausen argues that broadband is a form of infrastructure that is absolutely essential to this country’s social and economic wellbeing. As traditional modes of media and communication continue to crumble, wireless technologies are increasingly used as tools for up-to-the-minute communication and information gathering. In the past decade or so, citizens the world over have countered the mainstream media by blogging, have engaged in building culture on websites such as You Tube, and have utilized online forums to resist oppressive dictatorships (take the recent uprising on Twitter vis-à-vis election fraud in Iran, for example.)

There is some hope for universally accessible broadband. On June 25 the Senate confirmed that Julius Genachowski, a supporter of net neutrality, will be the new chairman for the Federal Communications Committee. Genachowksi, President Obama’s pick to lead the FCC, is widely viewed as the right leader to implement a plan appointed by Congress to make broadband available to every American household by February 2010, with the help of about $7 billion in stimulus funds.

And Congressman Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) introduced a bill on June 17 called the Broadband Internet Fairness Act which would give the FTC the authority to prohibit satellite, DSL and cable ISPs from introducing tiered pricing (i.e. charging based on bandwith-usage rather than speed of connection.)

While some headway has been made, regulatory measures need to be taken to prohibit price gouging among Internet providers, and the Obama administration ought to quickly move toward improving broadband connections in rural and poverty-stricken areas.

Free Press, a nonpartisan media reform organization, has started a campaign supporting representative Massa’s bill. However, implementing broadband access by need introduces additional complexity.  Brooke Gladstone of WNYC's On The Media explores how the government plans to map broadband coverage areas throughout the country using $350 million in stimulus funds and her podcast is worth a listen.