The United States has a plan to wire and provide broadband to all homes in the country by the year 2020.
Many of us would say the plan is a good idea, but we may be in the minority.
A new Pew poll finds that 52% of those asked say that getting broadband to all homes is not important or shouldn’t be undertaken. Only 40% of those questioned say it is a priority for the United States.
“We are in economic hard times and any government spending is a hard sell,” said report author Aaron Smith.
“The recession could be behind this sentiment that other issues are more important. It could also be that many non-users are nervous about a government promoting technology that they don’t use, are unsure of and see as not really offering much of a clear benefit to them,” Mr Smith told BBC News.
The public interest group, Public Knowledge, which has been very vocal in support of the government’s broadband aims said the figures are nothing to worry about.
“I agree a large part of this is down to people saying money should be spent on recovery efforts, basic services or national defence and not something that might be couched or thought of as a luxury,” said the group’s deputy legal director Sherwin Siy.
“But building out broadband contributes to all of these things. During the last century people didn’t recognise the benefits of electrification simply because they had gotten on fine before. It’s the same here.”
The study, which questioned 2,252 American adults, also found that broadband adoption has slowed “dramatically” over the last year. With penetration presently at 66%, researchers noted little has changed from the 63% mark recorded last year.
There was some measure of comfort in the result that 56% of the African-American community now have broadband connections in the home compared to 46% in 2009.
It’s funny, because I’m usually very liberal, and I’m a very plugged-in person, but I can see myself agreeing with those who don’t want the government to spend money here. Think about this: how long will it be before all those phone wires running down every street will be pulled down? Cell phones are the norm now. And while more than simply phone traffic likely travels through those lines, wireless technology is becoming more and more prevalent.
When new homes are built, running telephone lines and cable TV lines to that property should be the concern of the builder and/or the phone company/cable company, not the federal government. Granted, I don’t trust Comcast to do the right thing, ever.
i’d be interested to hear a dissenting opinion.
Taking the counter point. I believe basic infrastructure is the primary point of Gov’t. There are many other programs that could be eliminated to pay for this so it is not a matter of costs per se but a matter of will.
If it were not for rules and Gov’t aid a lot of rural areas would not have recieved electricity, phone or other services. In addition a city dweller is not any more important or special that a country dweller, or at least shold not be under our current beliefs. In fact the inner urban and rural areas suffer the most from lack of support in infrasturcture. I wonder of those surveyede how many either had high speed or at least access to high speed so it did not feel important to them? If you beleive that high speed is the future then how could you not support this?
As someone who has waited 8 years to get 1.5Mbps DSL service I think there needs to be some sort of push to get broadband more wide spread. My house is about 1 mile off the paved road. There’s no cable and there is no fiber. Actually there is no cable/fiber on the paved roads either since we are 6 miles outside a small town of only 4000 people.
The problem out here is there is no incentive for companies like Comcast to run cable. The houses are 1/4 mile apart. Running cable is expensive and the return on investment is simply too low. Most people have satellite for TV and really don’t need cable. Most are probably happy with the dial-up they are using to do email if they even bother with the internet at all.
People (including the hosts of this show) keep talking about the death of physical media. It’s nice to talk about but considering the percentage of people in this country who couldn’t view a streaming hi-def movie if their life depended on it I think physical media has some life left in it. I still buy Bluray discs because I want that quality and it’s not going to happen with a 1.5Mbps connection. I would LOVE to be able to stream 1080p (or even i) video from NetFlix but it’s not going to happen any time soon.
It’s sad that it’s going to take government action to make this happen. Especially since they are bound to completely frack it up. But something needs to happen.
I am sure there were nay sayers when government wanted everyone to have access to mail, education, phones, and electricity.
The fact of the matter is that Government is necessary in these kinds of infrastructure areas at times. Government was needed to push companies to make sure everyone had access to mail, education, electricity, and phone lines. The private sector would NOT invest in infrastructure on their own in rural areas. They would not see it as cost effective.
If you believe that everyone American should be able to get access to education, mail, electricity, phones, and high speed internet, then Government intervention in some way shape or form is necessary
The private sector doen’t give a rat’s ass about the general welfare of the public, only their bottom lines.
Very true AndyMac, physical media will NEVER die unless everyone one has access to high speed internet. But some of the right winger hosts of this show probably do not know that.
Also, both Government and the private sector frack up. I think it is silly and short-sighted to say Government can’t do anything right, it would be lust as crazy to say the private sector can’t do anything right.