Only Connect - Should Broadband Access Be a Right?

Finland makes broadband access a right, $7 billion US stimulus for rural broadband improvements

by Joshua-Michéle Ross | @jmichele | comments: 11

This week gave us two reasons to reconsider the state of broadband connectivity in the US. First, Finland has announced that it will guarantee broadband access as a right for all its citizens:

Second, Yochai Benkler and the Berkman Center released a study of broadband Internet transitions and policy. A global review of how connected various countries are - and the policies that have performed well to stimulate connectivity, both in-home and mobile. While the U.S. has over 7 billion in stimulus dollars going toward improvements in rural broadband, money isn't the same as policy, and it is hard to dispute that we have fallen behind:

On those few measures where we have reasonably relevant historical data, it appears that the United States opened the first decade of the 21st centuries in the top quintile in penetration and prices, and has been surpassed by other countries over the course of the decade.

Benkler makes it clear that government policy has played a role in our decline. The U.S. began lagging as soon as the FCC abandoned it's position of "open access" and allowed telecom companies to lock down networks. (see page 12 of the report).

As our economy continues to lose mass in favor of information-based goods (U.S. exports lost 50% of their physical weight per dollar from 1993 to 1999*) and we continue to see the decoupling of workforce from workplace, connectivity is a critical factor in economic exchange and competitive advantage. Countries that build wide, fast networks to the last mile will have a huge leg up.

If government works best when it creates the conditions that allow citizens the maximum opportunity to succeed, two things seem clear. First, broadband access is a key piece of infrastructure and a necessary condition to many new jobs and opportunities. Second, our policies should steer back towards open access to support that right. Benkler is pretty clear that countries running half a generation ahead of the US (Japan, Korea etc.) are doing so as a result of open access policies. Achieving these ends does not necessarily require the government to own (or pay for) the solution. As Benkler notes on page 13 "there are models of high performing countries, like France, that invested almost nothing directly, and instead relied almost exclusively on fostering a competitive environment."

On a personal note, I divide my time between the US and France and I can tell you, my French broadband (in a rural, medieval village mind you) crushes any corporate workplace connection in the US. What do you think? Should broadband access be considered a right? Is "universal connectivity" just too big a job? And what should government's policy-making role be in all of this?

Anatomy of "Connect"

by David Recordon | @daveman692 | comments: 5

I'm here at Webstock in New Zealand working on my talk for tomorrow (Open, Social Web) and one of the things I've been thinking about is all of the different "Connect" applications and products that have recently sprung into existence. I mean, we have Facebook Connect, Google Friend Connect, MySpace (thankfully not "Connect") ID, TypePad Connect, RPX and I'm sure the list goes on. I'm trying to break down all of these products - ignoring the underlying open or proprietary technologies that make them tick - toward a straw man definition of a "Connect" application:

1. Profile: Everything having to do with identity, account management and profile information ranging from sign in to sign out on the site I'm connecting with.
2. Relationships: Think social graph. Answers the question of who do I know on the site I've connected with and how I can invite others.
3. Content: Stuff. All of my posts, photos, bookmarks, video, links, etc that I've created on the site I've connected with.
4. Activity: Poked, bought, shared, posted, watched, loved, etc. All of the actions that things like the Activity Streams project are starting to take on.

In my mind, the Goals of all of these "Connect" applications are focused on helping people discover new content, people they already know as well as new people with similar interests. They also all help to reduce some of the major pain points when it comes to decentralization of social networks; signing up for a new account, eliminating the manual process of filling out your profile, uploading a photo and going through that madness of "re-friending" your friends time and time again. While all of these features aren't new, how this style of application combines them all certainly seems to be. If 2008 was the year of social application platforms (Facebook Platform and OpenSocial), perhaps 2009 will be all about "Connect" - whatever that means.

(I've put together an example of this using Facebook Connect and Citysearch as it seems to be the most complete example that I can find.)