Internet Access is a Right, Not a Privilege

By Hasan Zillur Rahim

The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) in the United States has recently issued a broadband blueprint for the nation (http://www.broadband.gov/plan/) that can be summed up in three words: “100 Squared Initiative.”

It means, “Get 100 megabits per second Internet service to 100 million households, at affordable rates, by 2020.”

The key words are “affordable rates” because the technology is within reach. Lack of competition among providers has, however, kept broadband access to the Internet beyond the reach of the average American. Today, Americans can choose from only two providers, the phone or the cable company. There is, thus, no incentive for providers to offer faster or cheaper lines.

More important than the nuts and bolts of implementation, however, is the reason why the United States has embarked on the “100 squared Initiative.” It is the recognition that fast, easy and universal access to the Internet is the key to innovation in technology, education and business and the gateway to enlightened governance, entrepreneurship, freedom and democracy in the 21st century.

Toward that end, Barack Obama’s administration wants to make the United States the best connected nation on earth.

To place the issue in context, first consider some key definitions and statistics.

Bandwidth is the capacity to move information (e.g., audio, video, text, data) through a channel. For digital information, bandwidth is defined by data speed or rate, expressed in bits per second (bps). A dialup connection can offer speeds up to 56 Kbps (56,000 bits of digital data per second). You can read email and do some basic browsing but it is hopelessly inadequate to tap into today’s read-write Web. A DSL connection can offer speeds anywhere from 144 Kbps to 52 Mbps (million bits per second). A T1 connection running on fiber optic typically has a speed of 1.5 Mbps while a T3 connection can go as high as 44 Mbps.

However, these are only theoretical upper limits. With many users online who could be downloading MP3 and video files simultaneously, for instance, a single shared T1 line (or even a T3 line) can see its average speed fall to dialup speed or less. Besides, the advertised rates reflect download speeds only. The upload speed (when you want to post a video on YouTube, for instance) can be as low as one-tenth the download speed.

You can see why 100 Mbps, which is 10 times faster than what is currently considered high-speed Internet, is such a desirable goal. Just as the electric grid a hundred years ago connected almost all of the United States and gave rise to innovations in appliances, besides improving the living standard of people, so the fast Internet grid can give rise to innovations in applications, those software programs that can simplify and enrich our lives, from pervasive telemedicine and online learning to green technology and government service.

In fact, the impetus for the FCC plan came from the Obama administration’s concern that the U.S. was falling behind the development of such online applications compared with other countries with faster speeds at lower rates.

The FCC plan also calls for schools, hospitals and other community institutions to have broadband lines of 1 gigabit (1 thousand million bits) per second, and for the country to have the world’s fastest and most extensive wireless Internet service too.

The current reality is that the United States lags behind many developed nations in broadband. The average connection speed in the United States today is around 4 megabits per second, as compared to 51 megabits in France, for instance. While many Americans have access to high-speed broadband and wireless services in offices and institutions, the cost factor prevents them from subscribing to these services at their residences.

In South Korea, France, Finland, Sweden, Japan and other countries with competitive markets, for about $30 a month you can buy high-speed Internet service bundled with digital high-definition television, unlimited long distance and international calling to 70 countries and wireless Internet connectivity for laptops and smartphones such as Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Nexus. In the U.S., the prices for comparable services are five to seven times as high, the most among advanced economies. Lack of competition allows big wire-line companies to charge high fees to carry the signals of mobile providers over their wires.

A major focus of the FCC’s broadband plan is the development of powerful wireless broadband 4G (Fourth Generation) networks that are expected to be 10 times faster than the current 3G (Third Generation) 1.4 Mbps networks. 

To achieve this, over the next decade the FCC is determined to reallocate 500 megahertz of spectrum now used by TV stations and the government to wireless Internet carriers. With the proliferation of smartphones and similar devices, wireless broadband suffers from the severest bandwidth shortages, resulting in congestion that leads to frequent dropped calls, slow connections and huge bills. Allocating more frequencies will foster faster wireless, invite competition with wired broadband service and lower prices. Particularly for difficult to reach rural areas, this solution will be superior to, and less expensive than, digging trenches and laying cables.

High-speed Internet has joined telephone service and electricity as essential tools of modern life. In fact, with VoIP and similar services, high-speed Internet is likely to replace traditional telephony as the primary means of communication in our times. A smart grid that marries the electric grid to computers, microprocessors and the Internet will spur rapid advances in telemedicine, education, carbon reduction and energy efficiency. The Web-enabled smart grid will become the communication highway of the 21st century.

The FCC plan can be instructive for Muslim countries as a source of ideas for Internet connectivity. The scale and the scope may be different but the goal ought to be the same: harness the power of the Internet – the great equalizer - for innovation and for economic and educational advances for all.

The current reality of Muslim nations is grim. Of the top 10 countries that censor the Web, 6 are Islamic. The digital divide in these countries is also wider than in the rest of the world.

For Muslims, the implications are enormous, since in today’s world, Internet literacy is as vital to progress as the ability to read and write.

Consider health care. In the United States, mobile health delivery via laptops, smartphones and other portable devices is becoming common. Portable devices allow physicians to access lab results, images and drug data from anywhere in the country. They also allow patients to monitor vital signs such as glucose levels and blood pressure and transmit that data to physicians or clinics. Of the many iPhone healthcare applications, for instance, there is one that connects to a glucose monitor to transmit data to a patient’s physician. Two-way, high-speed videoconferencing has allowed hospitals to send patients home and monitor their conditions remotely, thus reducing the cost of hospital stays.

These services can also become the norm in Muslim countries, easing the load on hospitals and physicians while bringing universal health care to citizens.

Likewise, online learning can eradicate illiteracy more effectively than traditional schools because of convenience and reduced cost. This is a particularly compelling solution because many Muslim countries already have a fairly robust wireless network in place. In Bangladesh, for instance, the mobile network covers 92% of the land.

There are plenty of techno-savvy entrepreneurs in Muslim countries, particulalry among the young generation. All they need is impetus and assistance from their respective governments to transform their countries not only into consumers of information and applications but producers as well. What is at stake is nothing less than the ability of Muslims to chart their own course in the 21st century.