>From the web page
http://people3.hofstra.edu/hu/faculty/frank_bowe/broadband.html

Broadband and People with Disabilities
By Dr. Frank Bowe


I am convinced that broadband technologies will revolutionize
the daily lives, education, and work of Americans with
disabilities. Because these technologies are relatively unknown
by most people, this page explains them briefly. In a nutshell,
broadband communications is digital R11; which means it gives us
information in the ways we want to receive it.

To benefit, people need to have a PC plus a connection to the
internet.  A new study (March, 2000) reveals that just 15% of
working-age (16-64) adults with disabilities have
internet-connected PCs (Kaye, S. "Computer and Internet Use
Among People with Disabilities."  San Francisco, CA: Disability
Statistics Center, UCSF).  That is just 1 in every 7.  The vast
bulk of these people have slow, dial-up modems that operate over
slow twisted-pair copper wires.  In other words, they cannot now
get broadband.  This is an issue because:

Broadband would allow me (a person who is deaf) to see people
while I chat with them: we could sign to each other. Broadband
quickly brings entire books in synthesizer-readable format to
people who are blind or have dyslexia. Broadband "transports"
people over vast distances, so they may "commute" to college
courses R11; seeing and hearing the professor, receiving
handouts, et cetera, as if in the classroom.

What is Broadband?
Broadband is high-speed, high-capacity communications
technologies that transmit messages as digital 0's and 1's. It
can carry voice, data and video at the same time -- over one
line.  With broadband service to the home, one (1) phone line
could give you as many as four virtual phone lines (each having
its own ring, its own voice mail, and its own caller ID), one or
two high-speed data connections for the internet, plus virtually
unlimited local and long distance voice telephone service.

Broadband transmits information 100 times faster than do today's
56k modems.  That makes a tremendous difference.  A 56K modem is
a comically thin straw through which to send video.  A broadband
connection, by contrast, sends and receives video with aplomb.

Broadband services may be provided over telephone lines or over
TV cable via cable modems. Expected in the near future are
wireless and satellite-based broadband services. Some electrical
utility companies are even exploring how they may offer
broadband services. For the next couple years, however,
broadband will usually be available through the two wires
serving the home:  the telephone line and the TV cable.

You have probably seen television commercials by Qwest, a
broadband video provider. In the commercial, we watch as a man
checks into a fleabag motel that offers minimal accommodations
(an uncomfortable bed, one towel, etc.). But when he asks about
in-room movies, the clerk responds: Any movie ever made, any
time you want it, in any language you wish!  While that
overstates the reality today, it does illustrate the power of
broadband.

Cable modems can handle information at 300,000 bits per second
(v. 56,000 for PC-based modems).  That looks very good -- until,
that is, other people in your neighborhood also subscribe to
cable-based broadband services.  Then your cable modem transmits
data far more slowly. Another problems is that many cable
providers become annoyed if you hog bandwidth.  (If you have
this service, read your contract carefully; it probably
prohibits you from running a web-based business from your home,
for exactly this reason.)  As someone who is deaf, and who wants
to use ASL for two-way video telephone calls, I would, of
course, hog bandwidth.  It's not that I'm running a business --
it is, rather, that I am communicating in a way that is
accessible to me, via video.  So cable isn't my first choice.

Phone-based broadband requires something called Digital
Subscriber Line (DSL).  What DSL does is to speed up
transmission of video, data, and voice over ordinary copper
phone wires.  Those wires are what the last mile to the home
consists of, in virtually every home in America. Copper wires
(also called twisted-pair wires) were never designed to carry
data.  That's why your web pages load so slowly.  And it was
never, ever intended to carry video.  That's why video images
appear blurred and very, very jerky.  DSL speeds all this up so
that web pages load instantly and video images are sharp and
smooth.  In fact, in Canada, BCE (formerly Bell Canada) and
Nortel Networks are beginning to offer VDSL -- very fast DSL.
(Frankly, I can't wait!)

How Many Americans Have Broadband Today?
As of Spring 2000, according to one estimate, 95% of Americans
did not enjoy broadband service to the home. Another estimate:
just ten percent (10%) of American counties were even equipped
for broadband communications, whether via phone lines or via
cable.

To find out if YOUR neighborhood is DSL-ready, log onto:
http://www.dslreports.com/ or http://www.dslforum.com/ .  These
sites allow you to enter your address, ZIP code, etc., and find
out if local phone offices are close enough geographically to
provide DSL service to your home.

Last January, the FCC estimated that just 375,000 American
families were purchasing broadband service, although more
enjoyed the option of doing so. Taken together, perhaps two
million Americans (in a nation of 270 million) have broadband
service to the home today. That is less than 1%.

This compares to almost one-half of all American homes having
internet connections that use analog, twisted-pair copper wires.
About 1,500,000 Americans log onto the internet for the first
time every month; the vast majority, however, use analog
services.

Do We Really Need Broadband?
Today, we can surf on the internet, send and receive email, send
and receive faxes, and make voice phone calls on analog,
twisted-pair copper phone lines. It is true that we often face
delays (the so-called World Wide Wait) and frequent dropped
calls.  But we can do it.

Not for much longer. Internet traffic is doubling about once
every four months (100 days). The demand for video steadily
increases; already, AOL users send pictures to each other and
teenagers download entire albums and movies. Over the next 3 to
4 years, use of the internet will grow by a factor of five (500
times). The inevitable result: longer delays, more dropped
connections.

Probably the only thing that will save us from that sad fate is
widespread adoption of broadband. The much greater carrying
capacity and far greater speeds of digital networks will make
the difference. Today, broadband is neat, even nice to have.
Within a couple years, it will be essential,  for all of us.

Why is Broadband Important for Americans with Disabilities?
People with disabilities need broadband for all of the above
reasons (obviously). Yet, there is more.

Broadband communications are digital (in 0's and 1's). This
means that, regardless of the form in which they are sent, they
can be retrieved in the way we choose. A deaf person could read
the messages, even those that were originally transmitted as
voice. Someone who is blind or has dyslexia could listen to
them; all incoming communications, whether by voice, fax, or
email, could be spoken aloud. The technical term for this is
protocol conversion.  Whatever protocol was used to send
something, its digital nature makes conversion to another
protocol easy and fast.

In fact, it is not even necessary to use a personal computer to
retrieve and convert the messages. People who are blind already
can pick up a phone and listen to email or a fax. Increasingly,
we will use a range of devices to receive and display broadband
communications.

Broadband also carries video . This means that people who are
deaf or hard-of-hearing can see each other during a phone
conversation. Deaf people could sign to each other. That is
possible today, but with very jerky, poor-quality images. With
broadband, the images are movie-quality.

With broadband, people with severe physical or health
disabilities who cannot travel easily could attend college
classes, seeing and hearing the professor and asking questions
at will,  from the home. This is called distance learning.  They
could telecommute, working from home almost as if they were
physically at the office. People with rare medical conditions
could consult expert physicians who are located hundreds of
miles away; Telemedicine would allow these doctors to see the
patient very clearly and to read high-quality x-rays and CAT
scans with ease.

What Does All This Have to do With the Internet?
The internet is a network of networks. Connected to these
networks are 60 million Web sites (like this one) together
holding more than 900 million Web pages of information, all of
them reachable from any computer on the network. This
information is sent over the internet in packets that are
switched independently (thus the technical term, packet
switching). Think of a novel that has been printed on 1,000
postcards. Under the internet protocol (IP), each postcard is
sent by itself; each has on it the intended address. However,
they do not travel on the same route. Some take one route, some
take another. At the end point, the postcards are reassembled,
in the right order, and presented to us as a seamless novel.

This process works fine on traditional analog wires, that is,
twisted-pair copper wires. But it works much better and much
faster over broadband. How much faster? Analog transmission can
be as fast as 50k Hz downstream (from the Web site to your
computer) and 33k Hz upstream. Digital transmissions can be 100
times faster.

With analog networks, you dial up your internet service provider
(ISP), such as America Online, Mindspring, etc. With digital
broadband networks, no dialing is required.  Your connection is
always on, instantly available to you at the touch of a button.

What is Needed for the Rest of Us to Get Broadband Service to
the Home?
Telecommunications services are as fast as their slowest link.
Although many long-distance and local phone companies are laying
tens of millions of miles of broadband-ready fiber, the last
mile to the home remains, in virtually all cases, analog,
twisted-pair copper. How fast your service is depends upon where
you live, how far that is from a high-speed/high-capacity
internet backbone, and what kinds of local connections you have.
 (These details are available at DSL Reports and DSL Forum; the
URLs were given earlier.)

The challenge we face is to bring broadband to all Americans.
For most of us, that means making the last mile to the home
broadband-ready. It also means increasing overall capacity,
especially in the internet backbone, and speeding the arrival of
wireless and other new broadband technologies.  Fortunately,
there are pending bills in the U.S. House of Representatives and
in the U.S. Senate that would help.

If you are interested in speeding this up, contact me at
[log in to unmask] . IR17;ll be glad to tell you how you can
become involved.

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End of Document


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