One of the most interesting issues these days is the right to Internet access. You might have thought ‘Net access wasn’t a “right,” but you’d be wrong.
Some folks are concerned about the “digital divide,” which refers to the growing negative impact of being offline. Poor people who lack access to basic communications infrastructure are increasingly shut out of today’s digital economy, unable to compete for jobs and educations.
Other folks are concerned about ‘Net access for government officials during emergencies. Efforts are underway to retrofit the Internet to provide what’s known as Government Emergency Telecommunications Services (GETS). GETS is effectively the telephonic equipment of police lights and sirens. Government officials equipped with special cards and PINs can request and obtain pre-emptive service on the existing telephonic network, ensuring that their calls make it through.
I’m not opposed to either idea in principle (and for the record, I support motherhood and apple pie, too). But beware the law of unintended consequences: While solving one problem, you unwittingly might create a worse one.
Attempts to rectify prior generations’ “digital divide” included creating a monopoly U.S. Postal Service in the 1800s and a regulated telephone service in the 1900s. The efforts indisputably worked. Both the USPS and regulated telcos deliver low-cost, reliable service to customers in remote locations who could not otherwise afford it.
The catch is the consequences. As a result of being regulated, both the USPS and regulated telcos have been slow to innovate, kept back from investing in modernizing technologies for decades. It took competition and deregulation to jump-start the industries, which ironically has re-introduced disparities (not everyone can afford broadband or FedEx). Anyone who wants to address the digital divide by mandating subsidized Internet access might want to review a little history first.
What about GETS? The rationale behind it is to use existing commercial infrastructure rather than construct an expensive proprietary infrastructure to do the same thing. In theory, this makes perfect sense – why should the government re-invent the wheel at taxpayers’ expense when current infrastructure can do just as well? The problem is that the infrastructure can’t, and the government already did.
Ironically, ensuring universal emergency service over the Internet is exceedingly difficult. While the ‘Net might stay up during an emergency, there’s no guarantee that any individual connection will survive. Retrofitting the ‘Net to provide GETS is likely to prove difficult and frighteningly expensive.
And possibly unnecessary. A few years back, the government helped subsidize one of the most expensive and reliable networks in the world – or off it. Remember the Iridium satellite system? It’s still there. It’s an excellent way to ensure voice and data communications make it through.
The bottom line is allaying the “digital divide” and ensuring reliable emergency service are worthy goals. But it matters a great deal how those goals are achieved.
