roundtable: Re: FINS VOL. 2, ISSUE NO. 7

roundtable: Re: FINS VOL. 2, ISSUE NO. 7

Re: FINS VOL. 2, ISSUE NO. 7

Samuel A. Simon (ssimon@idi.net)
Sun, 27 Mar 1994 13:11:43 -0500 (EST) 

Date: Sun, 27 Mar 1994 13:11:43 -0500 (EST)
From: "Samuel A. Simon" <ssimon@idi.net>
Subject: Re: FINS VOL. 2, ISSUE NO. 7
To: roundtable@cni.org
In-Reply-To: <CMM.0.90.2.764726601.eroche@rnd.stern.nyu.edu>
Message-Id: <Pine.3.85.9403271343.A6186-0100000@idi.net>


On Sun, 27 Mar 1994, Ed Roche wrote:
>  
> I've been reading the roundtable discussions for several weeks now 
> and have noticed the bitter turn recently in the messages. A few 
> observations: 1) the video dial tone debate is mixed up with the NII 
> debate, 2) much of the debate centers around the old public versus 
> private enterprise postions which can be applied to anything (highways, 
> port facilties, airports, cable TV systems). In that connection, we all 
> know that private enterprise can not supply equal access to all citizens, 
> even if there is competition, because it can not do it in other more 
> important sections (food supply, access to health services, access to 
> TV, etc.). On the other hand, everyone should have reservations about 
> goverment-delivered services because of the chronic inefficiency which 
> is evidently impossible to fix. So its a tough and difficult choice. 
> 3) some of the debate has turned towards government-mandated set-asides 
> and "public acces" for various "public interest" (e.g. lobby) groups. 
> My only strong position on this is that regardless of the outcome, all 
> public and private schools in the country, including vocational schools, 
> and all hospitals and health systems, and all public and private 
> libraries should be hooked up at the public expense or at least 
> subsidized (at different levels) to ensure the next generation of 
> kids have net-competency.
> 
> Edward M. Roche
> New York
> <eroche@rnd.stern.nyu.edu>


I'm not commenting on the issue of "tenor", but I think there are some 
important lessons from the past that we are not looking at as potential 
models for what seems to be agreed upon common objectives:

1.  Public policy can be used to direct private industry to meet 
universal service obligations.  If we look at the history of telephony, 
a number of policies were specifically aimed at deploying the network. 
For example, telephone companies were allowed to "capitalize" the cost 
of adding new users, showing those costs as investments rather than 
charging the customer the cost to hook them up.  That was changed in the 
1980's as we went to more competitive model, but the idea of allowing 
cheap hook into the network, driven through private industry, worked well 
for the telehone company.  One could look for similar incentives going 
forward.

2.   Public access models have at best mixed results.   The best we 
have, as far as I can see, are cable access channels in some cities, but 
they are not my view of the need.  I think the biggest challenge is to 
get real money to real nonprofits so they have the material to put on 
the network that people will use and need. As we move to a digital 
environment, capacity is not going to be the problem it has been in 
cable or traditional television; what is necessary is good , high 
production content and means of promoting the availabilitiy of that 
materials.

3.  I am totally confused by the argument of "net literacy"  To begin 
with, we still have not defined what the "net" is going to be that is 
the NII.


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