Subject: Re: Markle initiative for universal e-mail
Sam Simon (sam@simon.net)
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 01:55:02 -0400
Message-Id: <008c01bd69c5$5d30e080$510605c6@sam1.idi.net> From: "Sam Simon" <sam@simon.net> To: <roundtable@cni.org> Subject: Re: Markle initiative for universal e-mail Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 01:55:02 -0400
On Thu, Apr 16, 1998, Coralee Whitcomb <CWHITCOM@bentley.edu> wrote:
>
> In response to Mary's concern:
>
> I think Mary's concerns are very valid if we make the assumption that
> all personal computing should be done in one's living room. I, too,
> believe that this is an unrealistice objective for the near term and
> we may well lose the access war and create a permanent information
> underclass if we don't find another way.
>
> Fortunately, there is a very healthy movement of community networking
> centers growing throughout the country. Typically, these are centers
> with several computers who open their door to the public for some
> number of hours in the week. More and more schools and libraries
> are also offering public access to the Internet.
>
> I run such a center, Virtually Wired, in downtown Boston. We have 20
> computers online, we're open 47 hours a week, and we're staffed with
> primarily homeless and disabled volunteers. Eveyday the computers are
> filled with homeless, elderly, disabled, unemployed - you name it.
> In addition to access we can provide lots of human help. We have an
> incredible staff of tech volunteers - all homeless.
>
>
> Most community technology centers start life with a big grant from
> somewhere. All intend to become self-sustaining in 2 years. Virtually
> Wired has never received a big grant so we have survived very meagerly
> on revenue. Our attempts to get funding have found a very skeptical
> funding community. Without buy-in from a big well-known entity, it is
> difficult to prove credibility. The concept is new and most of the
> practitioners are so overwhelmed in making them work, they have no time
> to share best practices, much less to study and evaluate. Nevertheless,
> we all know that we are doing what it takes to close the information gap
> in our little corner of the world.
>
> This long winded post is meant to support the Markle work on email. If
> a well-respected organization like Markle can prove to the world that
> basic access to the Internet is crucial, community technology centers
> get a huge boost in credibility as necessary resources for every
> community. It's going to be a long time before we practitioners can
> put our efforts into effective advocacy on our behalf.
I think Mary's point is, in part, that if we have to rely on community
centers for access to high speed connectivity for most people, we will
have lost the war.
The goal of universal e-mail is, I agree, an outdated concept. It is,
for all practical purpsoes nerly here.
What we need to focus on is the next generation of communiation, high
speed, interactive video/audio/grphics over easy to use and affordable
home devices.
In the mid to late 80's some of us were arguing for more ubiquitous
e-mail...it seemed, at that time, that we just needed to integrate that
capability into the core telephone network, so that eveyrone who had a
phone would have an e-mail address. The French did something like that
with Minitel. We didn't. Instead, pushed for a policy that segregated
the monopoly phone company from underlying advanced service deployment
over their networks in order to foster competition.
In a competitive market, competition goes where the money is, and
consequenlty we have seen a typical trickle down deployment of
technology.
Our challenge is how to get technology, not e-mail, to the neighberhoods
so that all homes have access to the next generation. Interestingly, we
were willing to limit deployment of cable television in Manhattan until
it was also deployed in the bronx. We don't seem to have the same
appitite for regualtion to the same for advanced telecommunication
services.
Why not require copetitors to serve residential and low income
neighberhoods if they go into business sections? The fact is, many of
the lowest income areas are often adjacent to downtown structures that
are provided with competitivbe high speed services.
Sam
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Samuel A. Simon President,Issue Dynamics, Inc.
sam@simon.net http://idi.net/
202-408-0960 http://idi.net/staff/simon/simon.html
901 15th St. NW Suite 230
Washington, DC 20005
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