[governance] Effects of lack of electricity on the digital divide

[Dan Krimm]

At 7:26 PM -0400 7/22/07, Ronda Hauben wrote:

>The problems described remind me of the kinds of problems (though
>different) that the pioneers building the Internet faced, and they figured
>out how to solve them as they were focusing on a scientific approach and
>using the technology they had developed to help them solve the problems.
>...
>So its not that the commercial should not be part of the situation dealing
>with the problem, but putting the solution in their hands is probably not
>going to solve the problems in itself.


I would suggest that there are three domains here, not just two.
Commercial, yes.  Technological (science), yes.  But also *public policy*.
What was solved in the technological origins of the Internet also included
a number of implicit (and perhaps explicit) public policy issues.

For example, the technical architecture of TCP/IP encompasses the public
policy issue of common carriage of information.  It would be up to David
Reed and Vint Cerf to recount how much the public policy issues were an
explicit part of that architectural decision, but even if they weren't
explicitly thinking of the public policy issue of common carriage, their
decision affected that policy, at least for some years (it is seriously
threatened in the US these days, because we lack the interconnection
regulation that sustains structural competition such as in the EU -- we're
actually fighting that fight right now over a patch of wireless spectrum
that is due to be freed up in the pending transition from analog to digital
TV).

In the US, we still fight over the issue of universal geographical coverage
(the policy code word is "red-lining" which has been generally prohibited
for telco service and depending on the municipality may or may not be
allowed for cable TV -- the application to Internet service is unclear so
far, but looming).  This is likely not going to be addressed
technologically or by the market on its own -- the only technological
solution would be to find a way to make provision of service to sparsely
populated areas comparable to the costs of provision to more densely
populated areas, thus allowing market demand to attract profitable
provision of service to all areas.  In the absence of such a technological
breakthrough, coverage of unprofitable regions will ultimately require
public regulation of coverage to avoid "creaming" by commercial service
providers (to maximize profit), or else abject public deployment and
provision of service to otherwise unserved regions of the market.

If these sorts of things are still issues in the US (which they most
certainly are), it's not hard to see why they would be issues elsewhere as
well.  Where markets and architecture fail, and where social norms do not
apply, regulation should still be considered in order to rectify those
failures.  This is one reason why "Internet Governance" is really an
integrated component of "public governance" in general.

Dan

PS -- Furthermore, the long term fate of the global energy crunch will
clearly impact the long term fate of the digital divide around the world.
If we start rationing energy, the wealthy will surely find ways to avoid
having to constrain their own use, while rationing applies
disproportionately to the non-wealthy.  I don't think this issue is at all
geographically constrained in the long run.  Beware the erosion of the
commonwealth, because a divided society is a wasteful, weak and contentious
society.
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