Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2006 12:41:38 EDT
From: BBra...@aol.com
Reply-To: Net-G...@yahoogroups.com
To: undisclosed-recipients: ;
Subject: [Net-Gold] Bridge the Digital Divide
Bridge the Digital Divide
<http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=485263>
Bridge the digital divide
By E. FAYE WILLIAMS
Posted: Aug. 18, 2006
Despite spectacular gains in the past decade in
making new technologies available to more Americans,
the so-called digital divide - the racial and ethnic
statistical chasm that separates the digital haves
from the have-nots - persists.
Whether it's access to computers, dial-up Internet
or broadband services, minority communities still seem,
in many ways, to be getting the short end of the
stick.
The statistics speak for themselves. Only a fraction
of minority households subscribe to broadband Internet:
14% for African-Americans and 12.5% for Latinos,
according to the National Poverty Center.
But a key provision of pending telecom legislation
before Congress could help bridge the gap. It's a
proposal known as "interconnection," and if enacted,
it could help ensure that minority communities get
the full panoply of digital services.
Interconnection, in short, creates a common link between
our various telephone networks, enabling their ability
to "talk" with one another. With interconnection, phone
calls travel from one phone carrier to another without a
hitch; without interconnection, calls get dropped right
off the wire.
But interconnection is more than just completing calls:
It's the principle that spurs phone competition, lowering
rates and pushing broadband out to underserved communities.
Indeed, without it, new broadband services like Internet
phone service or Voice over Internet Protocol will be
stopped dead in their tracks.
So where's the rub?
For the most part, the giant telephone monopolies -
AT&T and Verizon, in particular - have bristled at the
idea of creating seamless interconnection rights with
new Internet-based telephone technologies such as VoIP.
In seeking a legal end run on the traditional requirement
of interconnection as it applies to new VoIP services,
the Bells have resorted to semantics - arguing that night
is day and white is black in a maneuver that could snuff
out the very lifeblood of new VoIP technologies.
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The complete article may be read at the URL above.
Bonnie Bracey Sutton
Outreach GLEF.org
http://www.digitaldivide.net/profile/bbracey
My communities
http://www.digitaldivide.net/community/summitforchildren
http://www.digitaldivide.net/community/gendergap
CyberEd Resources : ICT's and Education (owner)
Games and Education (owner)
Science without Frontiers STEM Initiatives K-12 (owner)
http://www.digitaldivide.net/blog/bbracey
Portal Work
http://edreform.net/
Technology Applications for learning in the portal
applications.edreform.net
Technology Applications for Learning
The Technology Applications for Learning Network is a catalog of technology
applications for learning.
http://www.digitaldivide.net/community/STEM
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