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The Benefits of Universally-Available Broadband are Enormous

America is on the verge of vast new broadband-driven digital transformation that promises to make life more livable, businesses more productive, jobs more plentiful, and the Internet more accessible. for:

• Families
• Consumers
• Rural Americans
• The economy
• People with disabilities
• Seniors
• Homeland Security
• Public Safety
• Government
• Telecommuters

For families. Broadband is changing the way families learn, communicate, play and prepare for their future. Critically important information about health care, scholarships, colleges, jobs, and community life such as driver’s licenses or registering to vote is increasingly
on the Internet, and sometimes only on the Internet.

• Parents can keep on top of their child's homework and be in contact with their teacher.
• Children in the most isolated inner-city neighborhood or rural region can have access the same universe of knowledge as a child in the most affluent suburb -- transforming the way teachers teach and students learn.
• Many online academic enrichment services use video, animation, sound, and interaction to help children learn, to excite them about a topic, and to reinforce concepts learned in class. Broadband is increasingly necessary to view multimedia Web sites. Some services even offer real-time tutoring by connecting students to a live tutor through a video and audio feed. Early research also indicates that such technology can have a strong impact on improving academic performance, particularly among children with lower grades.
• A growing number of immigrants in the United States are staying in touch through videoconferencing technology developed for use in the corporate world. Entrepreneurs from California to New Jersey are connecting relatives using high-quality cameras and fast broadband Internet links, helping them to maintain family ties at a cost of $40 for half an hour. The service connects offices placed near consulates or wire transfer agencies in Latino neighborhoods in the United States with an ever-expanding network of offices across Mexico, Central America and South America.
• Students can complete a university degree online

For consumers. The Internet is already transforming the way we live, work, and play. 31 billion emails are now sent each day. More than 12.4 million Americans telecommute full-time, and already more than 14 million Americans have placed a telephone call over the Internet. But the best is yet ahead. With broadband:

• All Americans, no matter where they live, can be no more than a keystroke or a mouse click away from the jobs and opportunities that broadband both creates and supports
• Doctors in urban areas can diagnose patients in rural areas or consult with experts from around the globe.
• Employees from around the world can collaborate on projects in real time or gain new “on-demand” skills as they need them.
• Citizens can register their cars, buy fishing licenses and pay parking tickets on-line, saving both time and money.
• People can play a greater role in democracy as blogger, online activist, or movie creator.
• Consumers can benefit from competition in more cost efficient voice and video services â€" lowering costs but increasing choices.
• Computer professionals can often repair their client's software glitches virtually.
• Seniors can take advantage of new remote health monitoring technologies and independent living.
• Children can take language or piano lessons from experts around the globe with the help of voice and video software
• A shop owner with a good idea and an Internet connection can become a corner store in the global economy.
• And anyone with a computer can become a reporter, broadcaster, movie producer, or musician.

For Rural Americans. Nowhere is broadband opportunity as profound as it is in rural America. In too many rural communities, because jobs have migrated to urban areas, high school graduates often feel they have only two choices - go away, or go nowhere. Broadband can:

• enable consumers to bridge the distance between urban and rural America
• allow rural businesses to reach new markets
• deliver new economic opportunities, allowing rural economies to become an engine for higher paying information age jobs
• reconnect distant families

Already big businesses are utilizing broadband to “insource” jobs to rural America rather than “outsourcing” jobs abroad. Further expansion of broadband access to rural markets may help shrink the urban rural wage gap by allowing highly paid workers to move to more remote areas, and rural Americans to access higher paying urban jobs.(1) Broadband can also deliver new online learning and job opportunities that enhance modern rural life. The future should not be to deny rural American’s access to these new transformative technologies, but to ensure that rural Americans can take full advantage of their benefits.

For the economy. Ubiquitously available broadband could unleash:

• an estimated $500 billion in economic growth
• create more than 1.2 million high-wage jobs
• restore America’s global competitiveness
• boost business productivity â€" which is essential to raising standards of living for all families in America
• allow small businesses to reach global markets

For people with disabilities. Broadband is an especially promising technology for the 54 million Americans with disabilities -- able to provide breakthrough new benefits not possible in today’s legacy phone network. As all Americans increasingly depend on e-mail and the Internet to work and communicate, it becomes even more important to ensure that people with disabilities are not left out of the digital revolution. Broadband-enabled technology...

• is simply a more inclusive technology than the universal service-supported voice telephone network
• gives Americans with disabilities the opportunity to improve personal communication and leave inaccessible voice telephony behind
• for people with disabilities, is not just something nice to have, it is a critical communications link and equalizer with the rest of the population.

Yet for Americans with disabilities to be able to benefit from new technologies, policymakers must 1) ensure the continued vitality of existing relay services, and 2) ensure that disabled Americans, who are too often living in poverty, also have access to broadband enabled benefits at home.

For seniors. Policies designed to accelerate the use of broadband could save seniors more than $800 billion by reducing health care costs.(2) These benefits are as substantial as what the federal government is likely to spend on homeland security over the next 25 years, and under the right set of policies, could exceed what the United States currently spends annually for health care for all its citizens. A New Millennium Research Council analysis finds that accelerated broadband deployment could:

• lower medical costs
• lower costs of institutionalized living
• generate additional output by more seniors and individuals with disabilities in the labor force.

For Homeland Security. In a study of the communications failures on September 11, 2001, the National Academies of Science found that the Internet held up better than other communications technologies on that fateful day. On 9/11, 95% of cell phone calls at 11 a.m. failed to get through, the central office for the phone system cut off 300,000 landline phones, television stations were knocked off the air, and police and Fire Department radios failed. In contrast, only 2% of Internet addresses remained off-line for an extended period. 9/11 demonstrated the Internet’s overall resilience to attacks thru its flexibility, and adaptability. But 5 years after 9/11, America has not done enough to advance the broadband Internet technologies that can help avoid future communications failures.

• In a post-9/11, post-Katrina communications environment, ubiquitous broadband is a national security imperative.
• Designed by Defense Department to withstand a nuclear attack, the Internet has some inherent advantages over traditional communications systems in an emergency: a decentralized broadband network with multiple paths between any two points and the Internet’s packet communication protocol-enhanced network capabilities eliminate many single points of failure, and enables the network to automatically and efficiently work around failures.

For Public Safety. Katrina, another catastrophic communications failure, highlighted once again how fragile and woefully outdated the emergency communications system in this country has become. During Katrina, 38 Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPS) failed preventing 911 calls from being answered -- which public safety leaders say could have been avoided if they had switched to IP based voice and data communication.(3)

• Connecting public safety answering points to broadband, like we’ve connected schools and libraries, is the new post-Katrina communications imperative.

For Government. Universal broadband could also have important advantages for the government itself, allowing government workers to communicate in more geographically-dispersed locations in an emergency. In the event of a major 9/11-type attack on Washington, offices could be inaccessible but employees will still need to communicate.

• Federal workers using broadband enabled phones could immediately work from home or other broadband enabled location -â€" improving continuity of government.

Many government agencies are already making the switch to broadband enabled voice services, but without broadband at home, workers can’t connect.

For Telecommuters. Broadband access is essential for enabling more Americans to occasionally work from home â€" delivering dramatic benefits:

• If everyone who could took full advantage of telecommuting, the reduction in miles driven would save $3.9 billion a year in fuel and the time savings would be equal to 470,000 jobs(4) -- reducing our dependence on foreign oil, traffic congestion, and greenhouse gas emissions at the same time.
• 79% of all office workers agree that allowing employees to work remotely improves their work-life balance.(5)
• People who normally commute 30 minutes each way to and from work can reduce their commute by 125 hours annually over a 50-week year â€" the equivalent to giving them more than three weeks of additional time with family and friends every year.
• The White House flu pandemic plan suggests every business have a plan in place to allow employees to work from home. However, one in four Americans say they likely would lose their job or business if they had to stay at home for seven to 10 days in a severe flu pandemic, according to a new survey.(6) Broadband is an essential ingredient in allowing people to stay connected to work and work from home.

Notes

1. Song, Moohoun, Peter F Orazem and Rajesh Sing. Broadband Access, Telecommuting and the Urban-Rural Digital Divide Iowa State University. March 1 2006 (http://www.seta.iastate.edu/abstracts/files/5.pdf) Return to text

2. Litan, Robert E. Great Expectations: Potential Economic Benefits To The Nation From Accelerated Broadband Deployment To Older Americans And Americans With Disabilities New Millennium Research Council. December 2005. (http://www.newmillenniumresearch.org/archive/Litan_FINAL_120805.pdf) Return to text

3. Reardon, Marguerite. "911 dials IP technology" ZDNet. January 13, 2006 (http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-6026770.html) Return to text

4. Rockbridge Associates Inc. 2005/2006 National Technology Readiness Survey University of Maryland. July 12, 2006 (http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/ntrs/NTRS-2005-06.pdf)Return to text

5. Avaya 2005 Global Research Report: Working to Communicate Better in Business January 2005 (http://whitepapers.techrepublic.com.com/whitepaper.aspx?&kw=Avaya+2005+G...))Return to text

6. Hoskinson, Charles. “One in Four Say They’d Lose Job or Business if They Had to Stay Home in a Pandemic” October 27, 2006 Return to text