We must deploy the Internet now

By Harry C. Alford
NNPA Columnist

Two weeks ago, a predominantly white advocacy group known as Free Press held a summit titled “Changing Media” at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.

A central theme of this event was pushing net neutrality regulation as a priority for the new administration. Net neutrality, which is not a commonly understood phrase, seeks to create new government mandates to regulate the Internet by limiting the ability of broadband companies to manage their networks to prevent congestion and ultimately provide a safer, secure, and reliable connection to consumers.

While net neutrality is not a new argument, the timing and veracity of the Free Press event was something of a shock. Should we not be focused on broadband deployment at this moment in time?

The passing of the 2009 stimulus bills marked an unprecedented opportunity for this country to build new infrastructure and institutions, the construction of which will create jobs immediately with more sustainable jobs in the near future as modern systems and technologies create a platform for the future of our country.

One of those technologies of the future is broadband. Expanding access to broadband technologies and services in unserved and lowincome areas will spark the creation of new service providers, new innovations, and new applications that will lower costs and economically, politically, and socially empower traditionally disadvantaged populations. Broadband has the ability to spur economic growth, and provide solutions to critical social challenges, like education and healthcare.

Across the U.S. so many of our underprivileged community schools are without basic computer labs—setting these students at a vast disadvantage. The expansion of broadband will help bridge the “Digital Divide” and level the playing field by providing affordable access to information technologies as well as fixing the educational imbalances in digital literacy.

This Broadband Bridge will help promote job creation by providing the necessary skills and tools to compete in our constantly growing e-society.

Similarly, as this country prepares to deal with the growing number of Americans who are without healthcare, broadband should be at the forefront of solutions. Universal broadband will provide the infrastructure for an interoperable system of electronic health care records and remote monitoring tools to drive down costs and reduce medical errors for millions of Americans.

A single, common set of medical history and data ensures all health care professionals have the latest and most accurate information about their patients, and has the potential to save the country $165 billion annually in healthcare costs.

Telemedicine must be made available now! And yet, a call for new net neutrality regulation could hinder the very progress the Obama administration is hoping to realize with their investment in broadband by raising the cost of building out networks and creating uncertainty for prospective bidders.

The truth is, today in the U.S., we have an open Internet and an institution—the FCC—to monitor potential openness violations and therefore protect consumers. What we do not have in this country is full deployment to unserved and underserved communities.

The sad reality is that these communities are disproportionately rural, poor, and/or minority communities, who need reliable Internet connections not 100 megabytes of unpredictable bandwidth. In many ways net neutrality is luxury for those who have access to and can afford the Rolls Royce of broadband services.

Instead, this country should focus on 1) ensuring that all citizens have access to basic broadband service with speeds being driven upward overtime as demand increases, 2) digital literacy programs, 3) access to online education and healthcare resources, and 4) online security and safety for users.

Universal broadband is too important to our country to let deployment get bogged down with debates about policy issues that cannot be resolved immediately and will only slow the deployment of new broadband technology.

We must focus on the task at hand: deployment of stimulus funds in an efficient and transparent manner. Our country needs broadband and we need to get it to consumers quickly and effectively.

The National Black Chamber of Commerce Inc. is hosting Broadband Summits around the nation on a monthly basis. We had a very successful initial summit in Chattanooga, Tenn., on May 8. The next one will be in Chicago on June 12 followed by Washington, D.C., on July 23 and Tuskegee, Ala., on Aug. 14.

From there we go to Miami, Raleigh, N.C., Shreveport, La., and so on. We want to ensure that we get our portion of these $8.4 billion in Stimulus Bill grants that are targeted for underserved and unserved communities.

The time to make a better America is now and we can’t let messages that are intended to knock us off our course and prevent us from making progress stay in our way. Yes we can!

Alford is the co-founder and president and CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce Inc. For more information, visit www.nationalbcc.org or e-mail halford@nationalbcc.org.

This is part of the June 10, 2009 online edition of Frost Illustrated.

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