roundtable: Re: Comments appreciated

roundtable: Re: Comments appreciated

Re: Comments appreciated

Rob Kling (kling@ics.uci.edu)
Wed, 30 Mar 1994 11:51:13 -0800 

To: roundtable@cni.org
Subject: Re: Comments appreciated 
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 16 Mar 1994 00:23:46 EST."
             <199403152033.MAA03212@igc.apc.org> 
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 1994 11:51:13 -0800
From: Rob Kling <kling@ics.uci.edu>
Message-Id:  <9403301151.aa16942@q2.ics.uci.edu>


This is the abstract of a talk I'm giving at UC Bkly and on the mbone..

/R
===============


                           Who's Gonna Get It?:
             The Meanings and Conditions of Universal Access
                     to Computer Networks Within the
                   National Information Infrastructures.

                                 Rob Kling
              Department of Information & Computer Science
                   University of California -- Irvine
                          Irvine, CA 92717, USA
                  kling@ics.uci.edu   ||   714-856-5955


"The NII" is an exciting buzzword for a complex amalgam of
telecommunications  networks which provide telephone, cable
TV, and computerized-data networks. The Clinton/Gore
conception of NII assumes the convergence of media since
their "Agendas for Action" seamlessly blend services which are
now distinct because of their technological characteristics,
their regulatory environments, key stakeholders, market
structures, and their social properties (including usage by the
public). Computer nets add the sizzle to telecommunications
infrastructures that would otherwise be composed of telephone
and cable TV. Vice President Al Gore has argued that "the
Internet," with its diverse service mix and bilateral
communications,  will serve as a model for a new integrated
NII. In addition, the Clinton/Gore administration and
numerous public interest groups have argued that "universal
service" will be a key feature of the NII. Unfortunately, the
meanings of  "universal service," and the social and economic
conditions for supporting universal service have not received
effective attention in the public NII policy discussions.

Universal access has been a longstanding policy value for
telephone access and use in the U.S. In practice, the cost of
stringing phone lines to a city or town, and from there to
homes and workplaces were a substantial fraction of telephone
infrastructure costs. The cost of telephone equipment, and the
skills to use it, have been relatively affordable when a phone
line was brought to a building's wall. Computer-based
networks require substantially more expensive "complementary
equipment resources," skills, and service fees for people to use
them effectively. Assuring  "universal access" to the computer
nets within the NII requires that many people an groups are
able to afford relatively expensive equipment and to possess
complex skills. Without effective support , visions of wiring up
classrooms, libraries, and homes to an NII  can be an
expensive policy sham. This talk will examine the social and
technological preconditions for effective access to computer-
based networks within the NII.

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