>From the nation, 1/6/97
Total Access
It's hard to imagine much good coming out of the Telecommunications
Act of 1996, which brought us the V-chip, censorship of the Internet
and more media conglomeration. But buried deep in the law is a
provision expanding "universal service" for the first time in sixty
years. Universal service insures that all Americans have access to
telecommunications at reasonable rates. Thanks to this New Deal-era
principle, telephones can today be found in 98 percent of households
with incomes over $30,000 and 87 percent of those with incomes below
$10,000.
These numbers are pretty impressive, but people who live without a
phone are more than inconvenienced. They face health and safety
risks, isolation and economic disadvantage. Since we increasingly
receive information and services by phone (often with a computer),
first-rate universal service is more important than ever. Without
it, the vagaries of deregulation could take a toll on low-income and
nonprofit users.
Fortunately, lawmakers are getting the message. On November 7 a
panel of federal and state regulators recommended broad rules to
implement the new universal service mandate; these recommendations
will form the basis of a final ruling by the F.C.C. in May. The
panel called for all Americans to have access to state-of-the-art
touch-tone phone service, including 911 and long distance. It also
proposed that low-income users be protected from disconnection due
to inability to pay long-distance charges (the most common reason
for local cutoffs) and that direct subsidies to poor people be
expanded. In 1994, 4.4 million households received $123 million
worth of aid on their phone bills, and connection charges were
partially paid for 840,000 households, at a cost of $19 million.
Following President Clinton's campaign promise to hook up the
nation's schools and libraries to the Internet, the panel
recommended that these institutions, depending on their means, get
20 to 90 percent discounts on telecom services, Internet access and
wiring. Currently, only 9 percent of classrooms, labs and libraries
in public schools are connected to the Net, and the proportion is
half that for schools with poorer students. While the proposed
subsidy is less than the President asked for, public-interest
advocates like Jeffrey Chester of the Center for Media Education
believe it's "a terrific first step toward electronic equity."
Still, it's unclear whether the panel's proposed budget of $2.25
billion annually -- the cost of a B-2 Stealth bomber -- will do the
job. To begin with, it doesn't include costs of hardware and teacher
training. Taking these expenses into account, a study by the
consulting firm McKinsey & Company estimated that giving every
public classroom access to the Internet by 2005, with a computer for
every five students, would require a one-time outlay of $47 billion,
plus $14 billion annually for operations and maintenance. Even the
most modest plan -- putting a computer lab with twenty-five wired
PCs in every school by 2000 -- would cost about $11 billion plus $4
billion annually, according to the study. This seems like a lot of
money, particularly when we have schools plagued by crumbling walls,
overcrowded classes and overworked teachers, for whom technology
surely will not be a panacea. But actually, the first model
considered by McKinsey would cost less than 4 percent of total
public-school spending and the second would cost only 1.5 percent of
total spending, compared with the 1.3 percent now spent on
technology.
The panel was less certain about communications support for rural
health care providers. This subsidy could be important because of
the growth of "telemedicine," which allows patients anywhere to
benefit from the top-notch health services usually available only in
big cities. The regulators suggested that rural health care
providers should receive some discounts but hesitated on details
because of the potentially steep cost of carrying high-quality
video, audio and data out to the sticks. Clearly, this is an
info-highway investment worth public dollars.
Who will pay for the new universal service? Traditionally,
government has relied on mandatory contributions from telephone
companies; providers of "enhanced services" such as the Internet
have been exempt. The panel recommended that all carriers who
provide interstate telecommunications services be obligated to
contribute. Internet providers will likely argue that they just
don't do this. But it makes sense to require contributions roughly
proportional to revenue from all who make money in the field.
Corporations that control a resource as basic as the means of
communication should be required to help make it available to all.
The F.C.C. is seeking public comment on the panel's recommendations
(see [1]www.fcc.gov for details). With the prospect of a yawning gap
between the info rich and data poor, it's worth taking a stand on
these issues of basic access. Ultimately the most important -- and
vexing -- question may be, Access to what? As corporate America
deluges the Net with slick infotainment and narrowly targeted sales
pitches, the next challenge will be to insure that there's something
out there in cyberspace worth connecting to.
ANDREW L. SHAPIRO
_______________________________________________________________
[2]Andrew L. Shapiro, a Nation contributing editor, is a fellow at
The Twentieth Century Fund.
Copyright (c) 1996, The Nation Company, L.P. All rights reserved.
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