Subject: CA plan for free Internet access
Curt Priest (cpriest@juno.com)
Date: Thu, 09 Apr 1998 12:06:13 EDT
To: ROUNDTABLE@CNI.ORG Subject: CA plan for free Internet access Message-Id: <19980409.120511.4247.7.cpriest@juno.com> From: cpriest@juno.com (Curt Priest) Date: Thu, 09 Apr 1998 12:06:13 EDT
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1998 02:29:59 -0700 (PDT)
From: Joe Shea <joeshea@netcom.com>
To: Universal@netcom.com
Subject: "For Californians, A Freeway to the Future"
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
AN AMERICAN REPORTER EDITORIAL
FOR CALIFORNIANS, A FREEWAY TO THE FUTURE
by Joe Shea
American Reporter Editor-in-Chief
For every great idea, there's a thousand that got away. Universal
and free Internet access for Californians is one that should not be
allowed to make its escape. The American Reporter is spearheading an
effort to put such a measure on the California ballot.
The mechanics of universal access are pretty simple. The state
would purchase access from Internet Service Providers (ISPs) whose
principal offices are in California, and provide it to anyone who wants
it. The service would be paid for with a new tax on alcoholic beverage
sales ranging from one quarter to onc-half cent per gallon of beer, wine
or distilled spirits. Service would be delivered by existing Internet
Service Providers (ISPs) to homes or businesses.
What is not so simple is to divine the future of the Internet and
its impact on the State of California. For that, we ought to turn to a
couple of prognosticators who seem to have a pretty good handle on
what's coming next. Jerry Yang, the founder of Yahoo, spoke at Spring
Internet World in Los Angeles recently, and said that Internet commerce
will jump from $1 billion last year to $100 billion by the year 2000.
Another prediction, this one from Bill Gates, is that Internet commerce
in 1998 will top $8 billion, and top $300 billion by 2002. For
retailers, programmers, office building owners, computer manufacturers,
educators and ISPs, among others, that news may be welcome, but it's
also frightening.
The jet-propelled growth envisioned by these two men and tens of
millions of investors -- who have driven Yahoo stock, for instance to a
32,000:1 price-to-earnings ratio -- will mean enormous changes for
society.
Take office buildings, for instance: chances are, much of the
retail sales volume contemplated in a $300 nillion figure means tens of
thousands of businesses that now sell from a storefornt will no longer
do so. Tens of millions of people who don't own computers now will be
buying them. The variety of software sought by individuals and
businesses will multiply exponentially, and so will the need for
computer programmers; the nature of learning will change, with a rapid
growth of online education classes and classroom use of World Wide Web
and Internet-based resources.
Collaboration on diagnosis in medicine, for instance, will be
enabled by high-speed modems to quickly relay X-Rays and other
diagnostic tools that can then be opened on the screens of sender and
receiver, and anyone networked with them, to allow much more input than
would normally be available within a hospital's walls. The same is true
for architectural or aviation blueprints, telecommunications grids, and
any collaborative effort from football plays to event planning that can
benefit from the presence of many eyes and minds working together to
solve a problem.
California has rescued its economy after the post-Soviet
consolidation of the defense industry by assiduously concentrating
economic development efforts on the new industry that has grown up
around computers, the Internet and the World Wide Web. Now it can
enable another long era of growth by underwriting the one element that
is an absolute necessity for that growth to occur: the Internet access
that can do for this state what freeways and free college educations did
in earlier eras, and at a far smaller cost. Universal Internet access
will firmly establish our state as the leader in a new medium of
communication, and go a long way towards inspiring young people to learn
the new skills that are so badly-needed now that Congress is planning to
permit 60,000 or more programmers from other nations to fill high-paying
white-collar jobs here.
Plans are underway to create a ballot proposition this state's
voters can adopt next year if they want to share in the dream of a
prosperous state that stays ahead of its competitors by building better
highways to the future for all of us. We urge every Californian to lend
their support.
-30-
* * *
Joe Shea | 1812 N. Ivar, No. 5
Editor-in-Chief | Hollywood, CA 90028-5026
The American Reporter | (213)467-0616
http://www.american-reporter.com/ | joeshea@netcom.com
"The first daily newspaper with original content to start on the
Internet."
-- Adam Gaffin, Internet World (Sept., 1995)
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