The Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) Council, a coalition of 160 Internet companies, met on capitol hill two weeks ago to discuss net neutrality.

The meeting hosted input from BitTorrent and other large network operators. Members of the coalition came down against any kind of regulation of their networks.

According to an article on FreePress.net, members are saying that BitTorrent and video downloads are beginning to consume a lot of bandwidth, and that the network operators need not be burdened by regulation when they manage their networks.

From the press release on the FTTH Council’s website:

“There is a continuing need to monitor and manage the networks to ensure available bandwidth for all subscribers,” said John Andrews, President of US Sonet [a major network operator]. “Network management is crucial and necessary for the success of new broadband applications and services. And, changing network threats require constantly changing network management practices.”

Network operators know better how to manage their network than politicians do. However customers get mad when they buy an Internet connection and can’t use it the way they expect.

Customer protection through simplicity. This is what network neutrality has to be about. Right now I pay for a 5 megabit Internet connection, and I can use that connection as much as I want whenever I want. Special exceptions to these rules will cause confusion and frustration. The Internet is complicated enough as it is.

via freepress.net

The Chicago Tribune published an article this weekend about the impact that the Internet can have on the lives of people who are trying to make ends meet. The article mentions the WiMax rollout in Chicago, and the Lt. Governor of Illinois’ recently introduced ordinance to provide 15,000 low-cost laptops to Chicago Public School kids.

But the article is really about how the Internet gives people access to a whole new world. From the article:

Michael Bailey, who helps provide computer training for Chicago Housing Authority
residents, said that once people develop computer skills “they start to see that they can succeed. When they have the motivation, you begin to see lifestyle changes.”

The article quotes one woman who has a computer but cannot afford Internet service. She has a paying job, but other things are more important. But it started me thinking, for those who have a modest income, for whom a high-speed Internet connection might just be a little too expensive, could Internet access actually pay for itself?

With a little motivation, the Internet opens up a boat load of opportunity. Just getting the tools to apply to one job a day, or using online resources to education oneself, Internet access could result in a higher paying job. For those with time, who are willing to put some effort, everything a person would need to make money from the Internet is freely available online.

Is the Internet worth springing for, even if it might put a family outside their means? How long would it take for Internet access in a household to pay for itself?

A report was released this week by the Center for Rural Pennsylvania about the state broadband access in Pennsylvania’s less populated areas. With data collected in 2005 and 2006, the project looks at how healthcare, local government, education and business in rural Pennsylvania are using high-speed Internet.

Some quotes from the report about local governments with websites:

Among the counties analyzed, Internet use for transactional purposes varied considerably. It appears, for example, that being close to an urban county makes a difference in the quality of Internet interaction possible in counties.

And if if you didn’t see that coming, here is another quote:

In analyzing the quality of e-government services among municipal governments (including boroughs, townships and cities), the most striking finding was how little local governments in rural Pennsylvania use the Internet at all, as measured by the availability of a website. The exception, a county with a strong tourism economy, had a high-level Internet presence.

The report says that the Internet was most noted for it’s “transactional use” and far less for it’s “transformative use.” The document breaks these two uses down. Transactional use of the Internet replaces the need to travel for face-to-face interaction and makes finding information easier. Transformative use means applications: creating products and services that are only possible with the Internet and information technology.

As far as getting more people connected, the report makes this comment:

Proactive governments are critical to the successful uptake of broadband technologies. Government is often a key enabling factor in the availability and use of broadband, primarily through legislative action that creates opportunities and, in some cases, constructs constraints through mandates, which dictate that technology and services be provided.

I’m interested to see the recognition of the “transformative use” of the Internet. How can the Internet transform rural America?

A recent survey from marketing firm Parks Associates has found that around one in every five American house-holds have never used email or any other Internet service. So potentially one in five Americans have never used email.

The survey interviewed heads-of-households and found that of those that had never used email, around half were 65 or older and around half had a high-school level education. It also says that around 20 million households do not have Internet access.

Heads-of-household tend to be the oldest people in the house, the release about the study doesn’t say, but I wonder if they asked about kids in the household. Kids make much more use of the Internet than adults do, and the Internet is available in libraries in most places.

Via TechBlog and PC World

A report released May 1 by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation shows the U.S. is trailing most other advanced nations in providing high-speed Internet to its people. We’ve known for a while that the U.S. is falling behind, but the report makes the claim that bad policy is only a quarter to blame for this failing.

The report mentions South Korea, where a high population density makes broadband roll out more practical, compared to the U.S. where people live in single-family homes spread out in suburbs.

The report makes 11 policy recommendations based on their findings. Aside from the typical tax incentives to companies and consumers making it cheaper to deploy and adopt broadband, the report recommends extending government programs to help pay for wider deployment.

Some of the more interesting recommendations echo ideas that were discussed in my Digital New Deal post. Directly from the report:

• Promote the widespread use of a national, user-generated, Internet-based broadband mapping system that would track location, speed, and price of broadband.
• Fund a revitalized Technology Opportunities Program, with a particular focus on the development of nationally scalable Web-based projects that address particular social needs, including law enforcement, health care, education, and access for persons with disabilities.
• Support new applications, including putting more public content online, improving e-government, and supporting telework, telemedicine, and online learning programs.

It’s an interesting way to try to drive broadband adoption: force important government and social services online and use it as a reason to push the issue.

If technology is growing and changing at exponential rates how do people keep up with all the skills? Kids are great at intuitively picking these computer skills, its the adults that need the education.

This opinion piece at the Financial Times argues that continuing adult education is becoming so much more important with the fast-paced changes in the economy. The author, Michael Schrage, makes some poignant observations that go far in making his case. The population is aging. People are healthier and live longer. Older workers are in need of investment.

Schrage goes on to discuss how the Internet and global communications should make this continuing education thing a snap. All kinds of free media is available online, including high quality educational resources, podcasts, and lectures.

The San Francisco Chronicle has an interesting op-ed up on their website about a Digital New Deal. With a recession and a lot of young people coming of age having used the Internet for most of their lives, the author, Helen De Michiel, argues that the government should start an online public works program. The program would put savvy young ‘millennials’ to work building a public commons, kind of a super-social networking site, commercial-free and open to all.

This sounds like an interesting idea, especially with an impending recession that some have said will much worse than what we’ve seen in a while.

There is a response to the article at PBS’s Mediashift Idea Lab that brings up the most important issues of a kind of Digital New Deal, stuff that was not addressed in first article: broadband penetration and willingness of people to participate.

I think the priority of a Digital New Deal should lie in doing something about these issues. Like the effort to provide electricity and telephone service to rural areas in the ’30s and ’40s, we need a serious push to wire rural areas and neglected parts of urban areas for Internet access. Connected Nation, Inc.,, and not-for-profit that promotes broadband adoption and computer literacy, released a report that said that increasing broadband availability would add an extra $134 billion to the economy every year. That’s economic stimulus.

I think once this is done, we can discuss the possibility starting an online digital public works project. There is much that could be done with the Internet to improve our society and government, but we can’t leave people behind because they can’t get or afford access to it.

A recent paper and survey from researchers at Cornell and the University of Toronto puts some interesting data on the digital divide issue. Through a survey of more than 18,000 Americans, the researchers found that people on the lower end of the income spectrum spend more time on the Internet. Graphing the data reveals and interesting correlation.

The researchers give a few possible explanations for the findings. That for people in lower income groups the use of the Internet was more valuable than other activities, the Internet has more value for these groups, these groups had more time to spend on the Internet, or these groups see more value in using the Internet.

This compelling data should support the argument for those pushing governments to provide more funding to connect low income people, and in fact the authors of the paper suggest this:

The results show that predicted usage among low-income individuals would be high, even higher than their [higher income] counterparts … In particular, these findings suggest that a subsidy for internet use would not be wasted. Individuals who have not yet adopted (and who are primarily low-income) would use the internet intensely if given access.

The data collected by the study is a few years old, from 2001, but the researchers affirm that their inferences from the data are still valid, saying the same pricing structures exist, keeping the same lower income groups out.

found via PhysOrg