The Future of Broadband
Feature Story by Celeste Berry - 2/13/2002
Jan 31 Washington-- Members of the high-tech industry met today at the New America Foundation to discuss the implementation of a National Broadband Policy designed to connect 100 million homes and businesses to a next generation Internet 50 to 100 times faster than today’s broadband connections. Douglas Van Houweling, President and CEO of Internet 2, the company hoping to provide the network service, spoke of the recent proposal that TechNet and CSPP, two coalitions of high-tech CEOs, had presented to the Bush administration discussing how to facilitate a wired and wireless infrastructure that would be both affordable and accessible to most Americans.The current network that carries DSL and cable broadband to many Americans could not support the faster Internet connections, Van Houweling and the other speakers confirmed. Therefore a brand new infrastructure would have to be installed.
The speakers called on the Bush administration to partially fund the endeavor, stating that only with their help could Internet 2 be made available to all Americans. Karen Kornbluh from The New America Foundation, likened government support for Internet 2 to the Eisenhower administration’s grant to build the federal highway system in the 1950s. Both, she stated, were considered too expensive when first proposed, but were later viewed as necessities. All Americans, Kornbluh said, would benefit from Internet 2-- from businesses that could communicate digitally with other companies around the world, to schoolchildren who could take classes online to augment their studies.
A similar high-speed connection is being used at many universities today. 191 institutes of higher learning have implemented the Internet 2 system on their college campuses, allowing students faster access to information, and professors and researchers greater access to new technology.
The speakers proposed that within four years Americans are going to demand a faster Internet connection, and warned that it could take five years to implement a new infrastructure. So if high-tech companies want to meet the coming demand, the speakers advised them not only to start investing in the new technology themselves, but also to begin pressuring the government to help build the infrastructure, so that advanced Internet connections could become a reality for all.
