View from AmericaInternet Access is a right, not a privilege

Published : 1 April 2010, 07:14 PM
Updated : 1 April 2010, 07:14 PM

The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) in the United States has recently issued a broadband blueprint for the nation that can be summed up in three words: "100 Squared Initiative."

It means, "Get 100 megabits per second Internet service to 100 million households, at affordable rates, by 2020."

The key words are "affordable rates" because the technology is within reach. Lack of competition among providers has, however, kept broadband access to the Internet beyond the reach of the average American. Today, Americans can choose from only two providers, the phone or the cable company. There is, thus, no incentive for providers to offer faster or cheaper lines.

More important than the nuts and bolts of implementation, however, is the reason why the US has embarked on the "100 squared Initiative." It is the recognition that fast, easy and universal access to the Internet is the key to innovation in technology, education and business and the gateway to enlightened governance, entrepreneurship, freedom and democracy in the 21st century.

Toward that end, Barack Obama's administration wants to make the United States the best connected nation on earth.

To place the issue in context, first consider some key definitions and statistics.

Bandwidth is the capacity to move information (e.g., audio, video, text, data) through a channel. For digital information, bandwidth is defined by data speed or rate, expressed in bits per second (bps). A dialup connection can offer speeds up to 56 Kbps (56,000 bits of digital data per second). You can read email and do some basic browsing but it is hopelessly inadequate to tap into today's read-write Web. A DSL connection can offer speeds anywhere from 144 Kbps to 52 Mbps (million bits per second). A T1 connection running on fiber optic typically has a speed of 1.5 Mbps while a T3 connection can go as high as 44 Mbps.

However, these are only theoretical upper limits. With many users online who could be downloading MP3 and video files simultaneously, for instance, a single shared T1 line (or even a T3 line) can see its average speed fall to dialup speed or less. Besides, the advertised rates reflect download speeds only. The upload speed (when you want to post a video on YouTube, for instance) can be as low as one-tenth the download speed.

You can see why 100 Mbps, which is 10 times faster than what is currently considered high-speed Internet, is such a desirable goal. Just as the electric grid a hundred years ago connected almost all of the United States and gave rise to innovations in appliances, besides improving the living standard of people, so the fast Internet grid can give rise to innovations in applications, those killer Internet programmes that can simplify and enrich our lives, from pervasive telemedicine, online learning and empowerment of women to green technology, government service and job creation.

In fact, the impetus for the FCC plan came from the Obama administration's concern that the US was falling behind in the development of such online applications compared with other countries with faster speeds at lower rates.

The FCC plan also calls for schools, hospitals and other community institutions to have broadband lines of 1 gigabit (1 thousand million bits) per second, and for the country to have the world's fastest and most extensive wireless Internet service too.

The current reality is that the United States lags behind many developed nations in broadband. The average connection speed in the United States today is around 4 megabits per second, as compared to 51 megabits in France, for instance. While many Americans have access to high-speed broadband and wireless services in offices and institutions, the cost factor prevents them from subscribing to these services at their residences.

In South Korea, France, Finland, Sweden, Japan and other countries with competitive markets, for about $30 a month you can buy high-speed Internet service bundled with digital high-definition television, unlimited long distance and international calling to 70 countries and wireless Internet connectivity for laptops and smartphones such as Apple's iPhone and Google's Nexus. In the US, the price for comparable services are five to seven times as high, the most among advanced economies. Lack of competition allows big wire-line companies to charge obscenely high fees to carry the signals of mobile providers over their wires.

A major focus of the FCC's broadband plan is the development of powerful wireless broadband 4G (Fourth Generation) networks that are expected to be 10 times faster than the current 3G (Third Generation) 1.4 Mbps networks.

To achieve this, over the next decade the FCC is determined to reallocate 500 megahertz of spectrum now used by TV stations, government and others to wireless Internet that suffers from the most critical bandwidth shortages. Allocating more frequencies will foster faster wireless, invite competition with wired broadband service and lower prices. Particularly for difficult to reach rural areas, this solution will be superior to, and less expensive than, digging trenches and laying cables.

The FCC plan can be instructive for Bangladesh as a source of ideas for implementing the "Digital Bangladesh by 2021" plan that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina unveiled in her pre-election pledge in 2008. The scale and the scope are different but the vision is the same: harness the power of the Internet – the great equaliser — for innovation and for economic and educational advances for all.

However, articulating a vision is only the first step. To transform vision into reality requires leadership, enlightened governance, good management, competence and technological know-how. To know where the path leads must also mean to be able to go there.

Currently, the Bangladesh government is struggling to meet the far more basic requirement of electricity for its people. Prolonged and unpredictable load shedding is a nightmarish daily occurrence.

Lack of resource is, of course, a major factor for the shortage. Demand at about 6000 MW for the country outstrips supply at around 4500 MW, especially during peak season from mid-March to mid-October.

But human factors are equally to blame. Rampant corruption, abysmal law and order situation and nepotism — filling critical positions with party hacks instead of competent and techno-savvy professionals — are dragging the country down on all fronts.

Since independence, no government has had the self-assurance and the far-sightedness to put national interest above party interest. This has undermined the enormous potential of the country to such an extent that Bangladesh continues to lurch from one crisis to another, breeding despair and anger. More and more, unearned wealth is flowing to a few while the middle class continues to shrink, the classic prelude to anarchy.

If this report is to be believed – http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8568681.stm – Bangladesh is among the least connected nations in the world. In fact, at 0.3%, it is ahead only of Burma at 0.2%. Even if the report is off, say, by a factor of 10, the outlook is still bleak. The truth is that for the majority of the population for whom life is a daily existential struggle, the Internet is a luxury they cannot afford or find any use for. Yet it is now universally recognized that internet literacy is as basic as reading and writing for a nation to progress in today's world.

For the elites in Dhaka and Chittagong, Facebook and YouTube may offer entertainment (interrupted by frequent load shedding, of course) but for those whose lives can be transformed – small business owners who can use Twitter to keep their clients ("followers") informed of products and services, for example, or for students who can get their education online through robust wireless networks – the read-write Web is still a dream.

Entrepreneurial Bangladeshis are trying to make the best of what is available, particularly with the mobile network that covers 92% of the country. In cyber cafes in villages, farmers can look up prices of crops and avoid exploitation by middlemen. Video-conferencing and telemedicine have enabled poor people from rural areas receive diagnosis from doctors and specialists in urban centers, an impossibility until now.

This is similar to services in the US where mobile health delivery via laptops, smartphones and other portable devices is becoming common. Portable devices allow physicians to access lab results, images and drug data from anywhere in the country. They also allow patients to monitor vital signs such as glucose levels and blood pressure and transmit that data to physicians or clinics. Of the many iPhone healthcare applications, for instance, there is one that connects to a glucose monitor to transmit data to a patient's physician. Two-way, high-speed videoconferencing has allowed hospitals to send patients home and monitor their conditions remotely, thus reducing the cost of hospital stays.

High-speed Internet has joined telephone service and electricity as essential tools of modern life. (In fact, with VoIP and similar services, high-speed Internet is likely to replace traditional phone service as the primary means of communication in our times.) A smart grid that marries the electric grid to computers, microprocessors and the Internet will spur rapid advances in telemedicine, education, carbon reduction and energy efficiency. One can confidently say that the Web-enabled smart grid will become the communication highway of the 21st century.

For Bangladesh, the implications are enormous. In view of population pressure and shortages in gas, water and electricity, either accelerate the availability and adoption of the Internet and information technology, or risk catastrophe. But the government must address the shortcomings in the nation's basic infrastructure immediately, for history has shown that independence without infrastructure degenerates into decadent dependence. Surely we owe it to the martyrs whose blood has brought the nation into being to avoid such a fate.