State Efforts to Expand Broadband Access |
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Issued by the NGA Center for Best Practices, this brief focuses on promoting broadband access and promotion across the United States. Broadband communication is radically transforming the way in which Americans use the Internet by providing the ability to access voice, video, and data through a single network. However, challenges remain in ensuring universal access to broadband service, as providers do not reach every person across the country. From the standpoint of economic viability, it is very costly to build the infrastructure that connects remote rural areas to broadband service, and this challenge has led to a disparity between urban (73 percent) versus rural (55 percent) broadband adoption rates.
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Digital Justice: Progress Towards Digital Inclusion in Minnesota |
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This report, Digital Justice: Progress towards Digital Inclusion in Minnesota, was produced by the Institute on Race & Poverty (IRP) with the support of the MSNet Fund in Minneapolis. The goal of the project is to assess, on several institutional levels, how well Minnesota is bridging the gap for those with the least access to high technology.
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Bring IT Home |
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In the 21st Century, technology and the economy are inexorably linked. In today’s fast-paced world, access to and familiarity with the Internet is critical to economic and educational success, and high-speed Internet connections make users much more likely to utilize the wealth of online information and resources. Though the gap is closing, higher-income Americans are still significantly more
likely than lower-income Americans to have in home, high-speed connections, and to integrate the Internet into their daily lives, such that lower-income Americans without technological access and skills find themselves at an economic disadvantage.
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Measuring Broadband: Improving Communications Policymaking Through Better Data Collection |
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Imperfect or absent data are are rarely mentioned in policy discussions. Yet the communications
policy debate in the United States today is inseparable from debates about the data used to make claims about policy propositions. President Bush articulated in 2004 a goal to have universal and
affordable broadband available in the United States by 2007. The way data are collected by
government agencies cannot answer questions about whether that goal has been met or not.
International organizations – using the imperfect data – report that the United States’ ranking in
per capita broadband adoption is lower today than it was a few years ago. Written by Kenneth Flamm, Amy Friedlander, John Horrigan, and William Lehr, this paper argues that the country cannot properly gauge its own progress or know how dire America’s international standing is without good data about broadband adoption, deployment, price, and quality.
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Why We Don't Know Enough About Broadband In The US |
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Written by John Horrigan, this report discusses how half of all Americans now have broadband at home, according to the Pew Internet Project's
September 2007 survey, marking the first time that as many as 50% of respondents say they
have high-speed internet connections at home. This milestone in broadband adoption occurs at
a time of close scrutiny of the data gathered by government agencies on broadband deployment.
This backgrounder puts the rate of home broadband adoption in historical context before
discussing in detail the issues surrounding broadband data collection and current legislation that seeks to make improvements.
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Power Up: The Campaign for Digital Inclusion |
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Written by Maria Wynne and Lane Cooper, this white paper explores how digital inclusion will offer social and economic opportunities for municipalities. It has been roughly a decade since the term “Digital Divide” was first introduced into national public policy discourse as an issue that materially affects the social, cultural, and economic well-being of the United States. The Digital Divide denotes the gap between information technology haves and have-nots. In those early years of the information age, experts in both the public and private sectors questioned the impact of this divide on society—what would happen to those left out of digital life—the “have-nots”?
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Wireless Minneapolis Community Benefits Agreement |
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Beginning in November 2005, community members met regularly at open roundtable meetings sponsored by the Community Computer Access Network and the Alliance for Metropolitan Stability. The focus was “Closing the Digital Divide”: recommending a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) to be negotiated by the City of Minneapolis with the Wireless Minneapolis Vendor so that all residents, communities and neighborhoods of
Minneapolis will receive equal benefit from this public-private partnership. These meetings
resulted in a vision that CBA resources be dedicated to initiatives in Minneapolis that will address the Digital Divide. This was presented by the Digital Inclusion Coalition in June of 2006.
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A Laptop In Every Backpack |
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It is the core premise of this paper that the emergence of a single global communications network, composed of Internet, mobile, SMS, cable and satellite technology, is rapidly tying the world's people together, in one of the seminal events of the early 21st century. Increasingly, the world's commerce, finance, communications, media and information are flowing through this network. Half of the world's 6 billion people are now connected to this network, many through powerful and inexpensive mobile phones. Each year more of the world's people become connected to the network, its bandwidth increases, and its use becomes more integrated into all that we do.
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Framing a National Broadband Policy |
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It is difficult to pick up a business or technology magazine without reading that the United States is falling behind other nations in broadband telecommunications. The real question is not whether the United States is falling behind— it is, as will be demonstrated—but whether the country should have a national broadband policy in response and, if so, what it should look like.
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Innovating for Inclusion |
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It is a major measure of progress that today we see an increasing emphasis on the topic of Digital Inclusion as opposed to dwelling on the issues of the Digital Divide. It represents a major shift in the discussion about how bridges can be built among those who have access to the core knowledge and resources that are critical to success in a global information society, and those who don’t. The purpose of this guide is to advance the rapidly evolving debate about what to do when undertaking a Digital Inclusion initiative by providing you, the reader, with an overarching strategic framework for how to do it.
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The 2007 State New Economy Index: Benchmarking Economic Transformation in the States |
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In a report sponsored by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, ITIF employs 26 indicators to assess the extent to which the 50 state economies are structured according to the tenets of the New Economy. The changing economic landscape requires state economies to be innovative, globally-linked, entrepreneurial and dynamic, with an educated workforce and all sectors embracing the use of information technology. The report, which updates and expands on the 2002 State New Economy Index, ranks the states accordingly. The five states ranking the highest in 2007 are, in order of rank, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Maryland, Washington, and California. With these measures as a frame of reference, the report then outlines the next generation of innovative state-level public policies needed to meet the challenges of the New Economy and boost incomes of all Americans.
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The Effects of Broadband Deployment on Output and Employment: A Cross-sectional Analysis of U.S. Data |
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High-speed internet access has developed rapidly in the last decade and is increasingly viewed as essential infrastructure for our global information economy. For example, as recently as mid-2000 there were only 4.1 million broadband lines in the United States and only 3.2 million of these were residential lines. Thus, in mid-2000 less than one household in thirty could access the internet at a download speed of 200 kbps or greater. Six years later, the number of broadband lines, excluding mobile wireless connections, had soared to more than 53.5 million, 49 million of which were in residences. Residential penetration had therefore risen to nearly 50 percent by the middle of last year. (If mobile wireless connections are included, total U.S. broadband lines had risen to more than 64.6 million lines.)
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A NATION OF LABORATORIES |
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Broadband policy debate in Washington is fierce but frustratingly unproductive. Seeking to jumpstart the federal policy process, the Alliance for Public Technology (APT) undertook a research
project to identify state broadband policies and programs as potential models. Having always viewed the states as incubators for innovative broadband policies, the Alliance looked across the
nation at the experiments undertaken by the states, particularly those tailored to address geographic, economic, and demographic obstacles. Various approaches were discovered, some in the traditional form of regulation, others in more creative attempts to overcome deployment barriers. The results of this extensive research underscore the need for a national broadband policy.
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The Case for a National Broadband Policy |
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This paper makes the case for proactive public policy support of broadband telecommunications. It first examines whether the United States has fallen behind in broadband. It then discusses four reasons why leaving it to the market alone is likely to lead to slower deployment and take-up of broadband, especially next generation, high-speed broadband: 1) network externalities; 2) “prosumer”
investment externalities; 3) competitiveness externalities; and 4) regional externalities.
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A National Blueprint for Technology and the Public Good |
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A confluence of events both at home and abroad
provides America with a unique opportunity to
reshape the country’s technological landscape and set forth an ambitious agenda that will use technology for the greater public good. In order to jumpstart the creation of a national opportunity agenda that promotes the use of technology for the public good, One Economy Corporation puts forward this blueprint that lays out achievable goals and policy ideas the federal government and the nation ought to vigorously pursue. This blueprint focuses on three strategic areas of technology that will enable the United States to
prosper in the 21st century.
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Implementation of the Americans with Disabilities Act: Challenges, Best Practices, and New Opportunities for Success |
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The National Council on Disability (NCD) is charged with gathering information about the
implementation, effectiveness, and impact of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This report reflects the experiences and ideas of ADA stakeholders from around the country, including small and large businesses, employers, judges and legal professionals, governmental entities, and individuals with disabilities, concerning ADA implementation. Through this extensive stakeholder input, NCD learned of the many strategies for ADA implementation that have been successful, as well
as obstacles that are preventing ADA implementation.
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DIGITAL PROSPERITY: Understanding the Economic Benefits of the Information Technology Revolution |
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There have been surprisingly few attempts to catalogue what is known about the economic impact of information and communications technology (IT). In a new report, ITIF does just that, examining the impact of IT in five key areas: 1) productivity; 2) employment; 3) more efficient markets; 4) higher quality goods and services; and 5) innovation and new products and services. The report finds that the integration of IT into virtually all aspects of the economy and society is creating a digitally-enabled economy that is responsible for generating the lion’s share of economic growth and prosperity, both here and abroad, including in developing nations. Importantly, the “IT engine” does not appear likely to run out of gas anytime soon and should power robust growth for at least the next decade, provided that policy makers take the right steps. Toward that end the report lays out five key public policy principles for driving digital prosperity: 1) give the digital economy its due; 2) actively encourage digital innovation and transformation of economic sectors; 3) use the tax code to spur IT investment; 4) encourage universal digital literacy and adoption; and 5) do no harm.
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Achieving Universal Broadband: Policies for Stimulating Deployment and Demand |
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Released at APT's 2007 Policy Forum, this report identifies the critical need for universal broadband, examines gaps in current policies and recommends a number of reforms that would promote the ubiquitous deployment of and access to high speed networks and services.
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Benchmarking Digital Inclusion |
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At the world summit on the Information Society, every national government in the world committed itself "to build a people-centred, inclusive, and development-oriented Information Society". This White Paper is intended to help them measure their progress towards this goal, and to identify sources of international government best practice to help them succeed
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Bridging the Digital Divide for Hard-to-Reach Groups |
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IBM Center for The Business of Government
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Implementation of the Americans with Disabilities Act: Challenges, Best Practices, and New Opportunities for Success |
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This report reflects the experiences and ideas of ADA stakeholders from around the country, including small and large businesses, employers, judges and legal professionals, governmental entities, and individuals with disabilities, concerning ADA implementation. Through this extensive stakeholder input, NCD learned of the many strategies for ADA implementation that have been successful, as well as obstacles that are preventing ADA implementation.
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Achieving Digital Inclusion |
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This is the first in a series of White Papers aimed at helping senior decision makers in Government, industry and international organisations
to accelerate the social and economic benefits that flow from engaging people and businesses in the digital economy.
Each in the series will review different tools which governments are using to build a digitally-inclusive society, providing a
set of practical tools to help policy makers successfully apply global best practices within the unique circumstances of their own
country.
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The W2i Framework for Digital Inclusion Metrics: A W2i Report |
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The W2i Framework for Digital Inclusion Metrics is based on the findings of the Digital Inclusion Roundtable at the W2i Digital Cities Convention; in particular, the meetings in Philadelphia (December 2006) and Tempe, Arizona (February 2007). It provides a flexible set of parameters for municipalities evaluating digital-inclusion initiatives.
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The Wireless Internet and Municipal Government |
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How does a city’s leadership build consensus among the many municipal stakeholders and establishlocal broadband wireless policies? What municipal needs can such policies help fulfill? How do municipal governments fund such efforts? Are public-private partnerships a suitable path? What can municipalities expect from such policies? This report answers these questions providing added background information.
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The Digital Inclusion Roundtable at the W2i Digital Cities Convention: Year One in Review |
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Based on the proceedings from Los Angeles, Taipei, London, Philadelphia, and Tempe, Arizona. The Digital Inclusion Roundtable was conceived by the Wireless Internet Institute (W2i) in early 2006 and launched at the 7th W2i Digital Cities Convention in Los Angeles, May 25-26, 2006. This paper provides an overview of the first year of activities.
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