At an event in the U.S. Capitol today hosted by the Internet Innovation Alliance (IIA), Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, Inc., a group of leaders in the technology community, led by IIA co-chairs Bruce Mehlman and David Sutphen, discussed findings in a survey performed by former Obama Campaign pollster Cornell Belcher. The survey, conducted among 900 respondents in the African American and Hispanic communities, focused on broadband access, adoption and affordability.

Consistent with findings often referenced in the Pew Internet & American Life Project , Belcher’s study shows that cost and access are not the primary barriers – if barriers at all – to consumers in the African American and Hispanic communities choosing whether or not they adopt high-speed Internet service. Instead, once again we see the term “relevance” enter the equation, meaning there are people who are not making the connection between the Internet and an enhanced quality of life. Access to health care, education resources, the ability to stay connected with family, and entertainment are just a few of the things brought to us over broadband. In short, some in the African American and Hispanic communities – and beyond – still don’t see the Internet as a “game-changer.”

Navarrow Wright, President of Maximum Leverage Solutions, has become a leading voice on these and other broadband and technology issues. Wright attributes his professional success to not only embracing the Internet, but his ability and desire to understand and use it as a platform where he could showcase his talents. Wright, who recently called into question the need for a debate on Net neutrality, said that the government’s broadband policy needs to focus primarily on helping people understand the real value that the Internet has to their lives. Be sure to check out our interview with Navarro below.

These were themes echoed by other panelists, including Sylvia Aguilera, Executive Director of the Hispanic Technology and Telecommunications Partnership. Ms. Aguilera said specifically that broadband policy needs to focus on closing the digital divide, bringing employment opportunities to minority communities and tying broadband deployment to aggressive adoption programs.

The conversation then turned to the noise around the current Net neutrality debate, which has been amplified via the FCC’s open Internet proceeding. The panelists seemed frustrated at the attention Net neutrality is getting – as well as the resources and time being dedicated to that debate which they feel would be better-suited on more pressing issues, like educating consumers on the importance and relevance of high-speed Internet.

Wright said there are no concrete reasons the Net neutrality supporters can point too that justify placing new regulations on the Internet. Further, he asked how the government could create rules for everyone on the Internet when we still have so much work to do to get more people online. Ms. Aguilera picked up on that point saying that Net neutrality will not help close the digital divide. She said the time being spent on discussing the Net neutrality issue is taking away from collaborating on more pressing broadband issues facing the Hispanic community.

In a very healthy, candid discussion on challenges minority communities face when it comes to adopting broadband, one thing was clear – Net neutrality isn’t the answer. And worse, it detracts from a more pressing dialogue that needs to focus on the education of those who are not embracing the many promises that come with having a high-speed Internet connection.

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The American Consumer Institute hosted an event on Capitol Hill today to release their latest study, “The Internet Ecosystem: Employment Impacts of National Broadband Policy.” The study offers a third path to addressing today’s economic challenges.  Instead of looking to traditional fiscal and monetary solutions, the author, Dr. Larry Darby, suggests identifying the sectors, like technology, that are creating jobs and avoid adding additional regulatory burdens that might interfere with them.

Dr. Darby, along with co-authors Steve Posciask and Dr. Joseph Fuhr, demonstrates in the study the dramatic impact Net neutrality regulations would have on network investment.  “And you don’t get jobs without investment,” Dr. Darby said.  He urged the room of Hill staff to consider not only the past failures of other government-run Internet networks, but to think about the long term economic opportunities with companies that consistently reinvest their capital.  Nowhere is this more relevant than in this most recent study where empirical data shows how much investment broadband providers commit to America’s communications infrastructure.

You can watch the event in its entirety below.  Click here to download a copy of the report.

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On Wednesday, January 20, 2009 Third Way hosted an event titled, “Help Wanted: New Ideas for American Jobs.” The event featured members of Congress including House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (MD-5), Rep. Joe Courtney (CT-2), Rep. Frank Kratovil (MD-1), Rep. Dan Maffei (NY-25), and Rep. John Boccieri (OH-16). The conversation was focused on creating jobs and promoting recovery and featured conversations on ways that the federal government can support recovery by spurring domestic manufacturing, entrepreneurship, small business, clean energy development, and other activities. Click below to watch archived footage of the event.

That same day, the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies released a report showing that Job seekers who use the Internet are more likely to keep actively looking for jobs and less likely to drop out of the labor pool than those without Internet access, as reported in Hillicon Valley.

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NextGenWeb recently interviewed Dr. William Lehr, an economist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). We discussed the federal government’s mandate to produce a national broadband strategy next year and also broached the issue of Net neutrality. Dr. Lehr shared his views on the FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) and also the effects additional regulations would have on economic growth, investment and a provider’s ability to appropriately manage their networks. We discussed this and more with Dr. Lehr – you can listen to this podcast by clicking here.

Also today Dr. Lehr released a study commissioned by Broadband for America entitled “Mobile Broadband and Implications for Broadband Competition and Adoption” which concludes that the impact of mobile broadband is pro-competitive.

Key conclusions of the study include:

• Mobile services in the U.S. are currently “robustly competitive.”
• “The overall impact of mobile broadband will be strongly pro-competitive.”
• Mobile and fixed broadband services to remain “distinct and complementary services, rather than as close service substitutes in most user/usage contexts.”
• By “enabling the convergence of mobile communication services and the broadband Internet, mobile broadband can enable the creation of markets for wholly new services (e.g., mobile health, location-aware multimedia, and machine-to-machine communications), as well as enhancing the value of existing broadband services by allowing them to go mobile.”
• “The rapid pace of progress in broadband-related investment in infrastructure, services, content, and applications; and innovation all along the value chain (from services to content to applications to end-user devices) should give us pause before we consider new regulatory obligations on broadband providers.”

You can view the entire study below.

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Richard Bennett, ITIF Research Fellow

The Internet has achieved its remarkable success because of the ingenuity and determination of the community of network engineers, operators, and innovators combined with the light touch of its regulators. These dynamics became apparent once again in a recent analysis I conducted of the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009 introduced by Congressman Ed Markey. As long as innovation and new service offerings continue to emerge so quickly, we have to be skeptical of overly-prescriptive new regulations. There’s no reason to choose this point in the Internet’s life to suddenly burden it with cumbersome new regulations. If we do, we risk disrupting this success and falling victim to unintended consequences.

In my analysis, I point to the large community of stakeholders, already robust regulatory systems, FCC authority and the facilities-based competition we have in the US as reasons why the “Markey Bill has a steep hill to climb, four years after its conception to establish its legitimacy.” My concluding point should leave you with the recognition that less in this case, is more, “The (FCC) Commission is due to deliver the National Broadband Plan in February, and if it feels the need for more direction from Congress regarding network management practices, it will surely ask.” Let’s let the Internet community continue the collaboration that has made the Internet what it is today.

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NextGenWeb is excited to share some very telling and important findings from a new study by Jonathan Orszag, Mark Dutz and Robert Willig that document a dramatic leap in the benefits enjoyed by Americans who use broadband. The study is titled “The Substantial Consumer Benefits of Broadband Connectivity for U.S. Households,” and was released this week by the Internet Innovation Alliance.

Key findings:

• Net consumer benefits from home broadband use soared to $32 billion a year—up from $20 billion in 2005. This rapid rise reflects expanding benefits in education, health care, employment, news, entertainment and civic affairs. More households now see high-speed Internet as a necessity.

• Continuing investment in more robust, high-speed networks would provide an additional $6 billion in annual consumer benefits.

• Significant broadband adoption gaps exist among different households. For example, 82% of Asian-American households have broadband, while only 57% of African-American households have it. Similarly, 84% of Gen Y households (ages 18-24) have broadband, while only 43% of senior-led households (65+) can say the same.

• Among those who are connected to broadband at home, households value broadband similarly across race. However, the same is not true across generations, with younger households valuing broadband significantly more than older households (45+).

…More powerful evidence of the rapidly growing value that broadband brings into our lives—and fresh insights that help us better understand the challenge of promoting broadband’s benefits to all Americans.

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Great news on the broadband front today: A new study finds that over two-thirds of U.S. households now subscribe to broadband. According to Leichtman Research Group (LRG), this is a steep increase from five years ago when only one-fifth of households subscribed. With all of the benefits broadband brings into our lives, it should come as no surprise that more Americans are making the choice to get connected.

We should use this news to propel our progress. More than 92% of the country has access to broadband service today. President Obama and Congress are committing federal resources to help close the remaining gap. Now, more needs to be done to get all Americans on the broadbandwagon. That means addressing the fact that 1 in 5 U.S. households still have no computer in the home (makes it hard to have broadband!). It means more community-based efforts to promote digital literacy, so no American is left on the digital sidelines. And it means helping more folks understand the economic, health and other quality-of-life benefits that broadband can deliver.

Two out of three households down. One out of three households to go. We are well on our way to connecting the nation.

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Stephen Ezell, one of the authors of ITIF’s new report, “The Need for Speed: The Importance of Next-Generation Broadband Networks,” encouraged the audience to imagine what a connected family’s life in five years from now would look like. This is difficult since so many of the possible applications we will be using in five years are yet to even be discovered. So even doing the visualization experiment only considering innovations that already exist, the necessity for increased high speed capacity becomes very clear. The vision described includes a father using telepresence for work, a mother streaming video of her choice, and children using distance learning applications for their homework, all simultaneously from home.

In order to make this futuristic vision a reality, next generation broadband is necessary. The report highlights four transformative functionalities that next generation broadband would enable:

1) Dramatically faster file transfer speeds
2) Transmission of streaming video
3) High quality, real-time collaboration (telecommute/telepresence)
4) Ability to run a multiplicity of bandwidth heavy applications simultaneously

Ezell called for a paradigm shift, recalling the transformation that occurred when society went from dial-up to broadband. He urged the audience to consider how much technology has changed now that we are in an always-on environment and all of the new applications that has enabled, including VoIP, podcasting, and even getting directions online. And now consider what a next generation network would be capable of enabling. It will take imagination, but also investment in speed.

A full copy of the report is available here.
Watch the video of the release event here.

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Recently, the New York Times Bits Blog found that the U.S. is actually number one in connectivity, based on two recent broadband studies.

The first study, created by Professor Leonard Waverman of the London Business School, encourages readers to consider a new measurement standard for broadband called  €˜bandwidth wealth’. The concept is explored in this Connectivity Scorecard and measures, as the NYT explains, “the extent that consumers, businesses and government put communications technology to economically productive use.”

Secondly, the author, Saul Hansell, examines recent research by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, to debunk the myth that Americans are actually starving for broadband access. The study notes that even in rural parts of our country, less than 15% of Americans say they do not have broadband because service is not available.

Both points of research, the U.S.’s effective use of broadband and the illumination of a broader spectrum of issues relating to broadband adoption, are key themes that NextGenWeb will continue to explore. The thread of comments and the flurry of responding blog postings had diverse reactions to the author’s conclusion that the U.S. is #1. However, Stacey Higginbotham, blogging for GigaOm, makes a great point that I want to highlight. And that point is that we need to look ahead and not get complacent in our investments.

So, when the federal government is spending $7.2 billion for broadband deployments, or Verizon is investing $23 billion in next generation networks, it’s more valuable to look ahead at what people need to be able to do with broadband networks  €” items such as telepresence, streaming media or ubiquitous access to high speed connections when on the go  €” than to issue a triumphant call to inaction on the broadband front.

As effective uses of broadband increasingly require additional bandwidth, we need to be prepared for that demand. Research criteria will vary, but the U.S. should continue to strive for all definitions of #1 in broadband.

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Clinical Information Technologies and Inpatient Outcomes: A Multiple Hospital Study
By Ruben Amarasingham, MD, MBA; Laura Plantinga, ScM; Marie Diener-West, PhD; Darrell J. Gaskin, PhD; Neil R. Powe, MD, MPH, MBA
Archives of Internal Medicine
Volume 169, Number 2, January 26, 2009

• A 10-point increase in the automation of notes and records was associated with a 15% decrease in the adjusted odds of fatal hospitalizations

• Clinical information technologies hold great promise as a tool to improve hospital medicine. We found that, for certain conditions, greater automation of a hospital’s information system may be associated with reductions in mortality, complications, and costs, suggesting that information technologies that are properly designed and executed around clinical workflows could meet that promise.

Click here to read the full study: www.ama-assn.org

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