Daylife/AP Photo by Paul Sakuma
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Now that President Obama has signed the $787 billion economic stimulus package into law, the real hard work begins: using that money to create jobs. If spent wisely, this package has a chance at fundamentally reforming the U.S. health-care system, making our economy energy efficient and providing Americans with the training and skills required to succeed in a 21st century global marketplace.
But the country can’t accomplish these goals unless it has the infrastructure to support them. That’s why the funding for broadband was so vital. Broadband is the ticket for entry to participate in the world economy. It is a fundamental technology upon which other things are built. It enables collaboration, innovation and operational excellence, and positions the U.S. to compete on a global basis.
The impact of broadband has been similar to that of the national highway system in the 1950s. Until then, our nation’s roads were slow and the quality was unpredictable, which hindered commerce and travel. The modern highway system made our country accessible and in the process, created new industries — transforming our economy and by extension, our society…
Increasing our broadband speeds to 100 Mbps from the current U.S. median of 2.3 Mbps will have a transformative effect on our economy and our society. High-speed networking enables new human collaboration at a profound level, and such collaboration will radically change the way we think.
The inevitable comparison with South Korea is made.
The chuckle for me is that Korea’s broadband development was kicked off by an American consultant hired by their government almost a decade ago. Alvin Toffler [.pdf].
Wasn’t Chambers the guy who saved Wang from BK?
NOT!
Any one thing can’t define a healthy commerce. Broadband won’t help get in any way to get fresh broccoli from texas to Alaska or rice from India to Saskatchewan.
Accessible and timely information might speed up some areas of the economy but it hardly defines it or even controls it. Broadband… the accelerated evolution of ideas shared on a huge scale in a short time… the fruition of which is mainly the development of products for consumption… is the reason we are in this mess. Show me a model where broadband will save us from our greedy, self important selves, and then I’ll believe 100 Mbps will do little more than provide better movie viewing to the “give a damn” impaired.
If the Obama administration really wanted to do something that would make a big difference, they’d eliminate software patents.
As it stands, that USA-specific cancer hurts our IT competitiveness and encourages outsourcing.
Why do you republicans continue to pretend to know the significance that information technology has on the economy?
This is is way over your head guys. Please leave this to professionals. We are not in the agriculture business anymore and hardly in the industrial revolution.
Really, just think about what to worship or the infinite ways not to have sex.
There are no businesses that can’t get broadband.
So this has to be about consumers or employees getting broadband.
Consumers use broadband to watch movies and play games; they already watch movies and play games.
Employees that telecommute or work remotely don’t live in distant rural areas, they live in suburbs.
And people who live in distant rural areas can afford the $100/mo for satellite broadband.
Where is this problem?
So why is the left always pushing for tariffs and railing against free trade?
# 25 Hmeyers said, “Where is this problem?”
Omama has implemented a new legislative policy. Don’t ask, don’t tell.
So, don’t ask.
I remember reading a study recently that showed that of the people who don’t have broadband, a majority have access to it but simply don’t want it. So, confiscating money from one segment of the population to give it to another segment of the population seems not only wrong on its face, but also ineffective. Give people broadband who don’t want it, and what are they likely to do with it? I’ll let you answer that for itself.
Nevertheless, I’m sure that this confiscation of wealth would be “good for the economy.” Just like ensuring that everyone has a 4-year college education regardless of cost or willingness to pay would be a “good thing for the economy.” As would ensuring that everyone has “affordable” transportation would be “a good thing for the economy.” And “affordable, accessible” healthcare. Oh, and let’s not forget entertainment–if people don’t get good leisure time, they’re not as product at work, so let’s have government take some _more_ money from some folks who have it, and give it to folks who don’t.
Come to mention it, a good breakfast, lunch, and dinner is also vital to a productive workforce, and so parents, here’s your new government-mandated weekly menu. If you can’t afford the ingredients, no matter–government will… yep, you guessed it. And if the government runs out of people to take money from, why, it’ll just borrow or print some more. It can do that forever, right? I mean, it’s been doing it for years already.
Now that I think about it, really, government would be better at making all of these decisions for us. So, let’s just skip the middleman and let government take right over. Because, you know, “High-speed networking enables new human collaboration at a profound level, and such collaboration will radically change the way we think.” And only government can make that happen for us.
# 16 Paddy-O said, on March 5th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
# 14 roland said, “Bottomline, communication is a right for each person.”
Really? Where did you read that?
Actually it is in the US Constitution. All rights not specifically granted TO the Federal Government are maintained by the states or the people.
So in reality the dirt farmer in the middle of nowhere does have a right to have high-speed Internet. But, they also have a right to pay for it and suck my money out of my wallet.
So let the libtards buy their own damn Internet connection.
Oh yeah, if it is in the libtard way of thinking that we have to have high-speed Internet to get American goods offered around the world if on the other side of your mouth you are saying all our product manufacturing has gone overseas.
Make up your little minds.
I hope they hire me (fiber splicer) after they destroy the communications industry.
Actually, they’ll just cut a check to the bells, who will just piss it away like they did the last time we gave them a pile of money for building out Internet infrastructure.
I don’t see how people are objecting to this effort. There are tons of things that would be possible with more widespread broadband.
Just for example, I am into online gaming, both development and playing, and we are hitting a wall with whats possible with current broadband limits. Going from 1.5mb to 100mb opens up a ton of possibilities in gaming alone.
I can only agree that much money, if used reasonably and prudently, could change the world in a positive way.
You think the people running things are reasonable and prudent?8^)
Yeah, right, and if frogs had wings they wouldn’t bump their butts so much either.
In all of this discussion, I still haven’t heard just how broadband is supposed to stimulate the economy.
The article says “High-speed networking enables new human collaboration at a profound level, and such collaboration will radically change the way we think.”
The only collaboration I can think of is gaming and maybe porn…
Notice every article about Korea’s broadband included on-line gaming? I guess that’s collaboration. Korea’s economy is still struggling, though.
The Cisco vision is that the network is the platform on which everything (unified communications, unified computing, software, video, etc) runs. This vision only works if high speed connections exist, so it figures he would want extra investments in broadband networking.