Software Vault: The Gold Collection/Software Vault - The Gold Collection (American Databankers) (1993).ISO/cdr12/tele_acc.zip/VISION.TXT

Text File | 1993-06-03 | 39KB | 632 lines

                 ALLIANCE FOR PUBLIC TECHNOLOGY

       901 15th Street NW * Suite 230 * Washington, DC * 20005-2301 * [phone]
















                     CONNECTING EACH TO ALL:
                  A TELECOMMUNICATIONS PLATFORM
                     FOR THE INFORMATION AGE


















        Copyright 1993 by Alliance for Public Technology
                       All Rights Reserved                     CONNECTING EACH TO ALL:
                 A TELECOMMUNICATIONS PLATFORM
                     FOR THE INFORMATION AGE



Introduction

The Alliance for Public Technology (APT) is a coalition of individuals and more than forty
nonprofit groups with thousands of members.  We believe that our nation cannot reap the
full benefits from advances in telecommunications technology unless everyone has full access
to a switched broadband network that provides information and services as well as
entertainment.  The more people on the network, the greater the demand for innovative
services that can be marketed both here and abroad.  Economies of scope can benefit all
citizens, regardless of race, age, economic status, functional limitation or location.  By
connecting each one to all the others, we strengthen the fabric of society.  At the same time,
we promote economic development and help people to strengthen their individual identities.

This document updates and expands a 1990 APT paper entitled, "An Information Age
Agenda: The Telecommunications Services Platform."  Since 1990, telecommunications
technology and policy have changed considerably.  The cost of fiber optic cable, a central
component of modern networks, has dropped to almost that of copper cable.  Rapid
advances in applications software, miniaturization, signal processing, video compression,
mobile communication, and other telecommunications capabilities, such as fiber rings in
major cities, as well as the new broadband transmission services provided by cable television
operators have brought some aspects of our vision closer to reality and have made new
opportunities possible.

At the same time, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has taken steps to
reduce federal regulation in the telecommunications arena, including opening up more of
the telecommunications transmission spectrum to the private sector, reducing restrictions
on ownership of radio and television stations in a single market, and authorizing Bell
Operating Companies to offer video dialtone.  The National Telecommunications and
Information Administration (NTIA) has released a major report on U.S.
telecommunications infrastructure, emphasizing its importance to today's economic, social,
and political landscape and calling for more deregulation of telecommunications markets.
The federal courts have lifted the restriction that prevented the Bell Operating Companies
from providing information services.  Congress has passed a law to set up the powerful
National Research and Education Network (NREN), and it has overridden President Bush's
veto of legislation regulating cable television.

APT's updated vision still focuses on the need for a "telecommunications platform" that
provides universal access to a wide variety of information services.  The types of services
that should be supported, however, are no longer limited to "narrowband" voice and data.
Two-way interactive multi-media applications (including integrated voice, data, and video)
are proving successful in trials across the nation.  It is time to begin considering how these
opportunities will be made available to everyone who needs and wants them.  We therefore
call for upgrading the public telephone network to a Broadband Telecommunications
Platform that supports two-way interactive multi-media applications.  Other nations are
already on the way to this goal.  Japan, for example, has launched an extremely ambitious
fiber-to-the-home program that could make it the world's telecommunications leader by the
early part of the 21st Century.

Information is the currency of democracy.  APT believes it is the essential component in
strengthening the domestic economy and increasing equality of opportunity in the
Information Age.  APT supports public policies that will speed the day when everyone has
access to a Broadband Telecommunications Platform and the informative and entertaining
services it would be able to support.  Universal access to the network and its services will:

      Empower individuals to obtain information and entertainment when
       they want it and in a form useful to them.

      Empower information providers, who will be able to offer diverse
       innovative services to everyone on the network.

      Empower our nation, making it competitive in global markets against
       nations that have already adopted policies leading to national
       broadband networks.


TODAY

Jim has just left the military as part of the downsizing.  He and Ulrika, his foreign-born
wife, return to his hometown, only to find that the local factories are not hiring.
Subsequently, Jim takes a job as a short-order cook.  Enrolled in the local public school, his
children find themselves behind in some subjects and ahead in others, reflecting the
different emphasis of their overseas education.  The teacher also notes some behavioral
adjustments and would like to meet with the parents, but Jim cannot leave his new job to
meet with her, and Ulrika's English is not adequate for a parent-teacher conference.  Jim
and Ulrika, unable to make a start in their chosen home and worried about their children,
move to the nearest large city where each take jobs as grocery clerks.

TOMORROW

A few weeks before Jim's demobilization, he starts his job search on the universal
telecommunications device in his home on the overseas military base.  He enters his
preference for living in his old hometown and lists the skills he has acquired during his
military stint.  The job locator service identifies a job in the right area, but it is not one of
the old factory jobs he expected.  Instead, it is a job in a new credit card processing center
that has located in his rural area where housing is cheap and the necessary
telecommunications are available.  Unfortunately, the job requires certification in repair of
certain electronic components -- certification that Jim lacks.  He immediately enrolls in a
job training program, getting lessons over his universal telecommunications device.  He
takes practice tests, reviewing portions he does not understand with a live tutor he can see
and talk to from thousands of miles away.  Finally, he takes the "written" portion of the
certification exam.  He gets the job and he and his family move.

Ulrika, Jim's wife, whose native language is not English, studies at home while the children
are in school.  The kids, finding that they are well ahead in math because of their European
educations, are able to study advanced math taught by a teacher in the large city fifty miles
away.  They work to overcome their relative disadvantage in English literature by taking an
electronic tutorial during study halls when they have time.  Worried about the children's
reluctance to participate in the less structured school activities, the teacher arranges a video
conference with Jim and Ulrika during the school day, "meeting" him at his job and her at
home.  All three agree to work together to speed the adjustment to the new school and
friends.

TODAY

Ann and Jim are struggling to find an attractive living situation for Jim's father, Walter, who
is 78.  Walter adamantly refuses to consider moving into a nursing home, but a few recent
mishaps in Walter's apartment have convinced Ann and Jim that Walter needs closer care.
Ann, Jim, and Walter talk about the choices.  Ann and Jim talk to their friends about this
problem and vow that they will start attending the local "Eldercare Options" meetings held
once a month at the community center, but they find it difficult to make the evening
meetings.  They compile an informal list of retirement communities and nursing homes,
relying on friends and information sent by their local social service agency.  Then they call
each home, asking about location, services, and prices.  They struggle with "telephone tag"
and a few hard-sell sales representatives, and finally compile a list of four places that seem
to meet Walter's needs. They juggle their schedules to set up visits.  Meanwhile, Walter
talks with some friends in his apartment building who steel his resolve about not going into
a nursing home by telling him horror stories of regimented schedules, nosy nurses, and
exorbitant prices.  When Ann and Jim tell Walter about their visits, he is furious, accusing
them of trying to "bury me before I'm dead."  Ann and Jim leave, feeling both frustrated
and guilty.

TOMORROW

After Ann and Jim have talked with Walter about his situation, Jim goes to his study and
turns on his terminal device -- a TV screen with a little camera attached.  Browsing the
index of services, he finds three sources of information about housing opportunities for
older citizens.  One, supported by a senior citizens' community center, includes maps of
locations, lists of services, and current prices and availability.  There are even videos for
several of the institutions, which provide a "walking tour" through their facilities.  Curious,
Jim looks at several videos.  He forwards the information and videos about two of the
institutions to Walter's video-mail account so that he can look at them later.  In his
apartment, Walter logs on and retrieves Jim's message.  He learns that one center is a
member of a network of eldercare centers that hold nightly "video meetings" on topics from
fishing to financial planning; residents can attend from their rooms or with others in the
center's video conferencing room.  Walter joins one of the center's computer conferences
as a guest.  He is surprised to find that the participants talk about a wide range of topics,
and they don't look or sound "old."   Walter "meets" with the directors of two of the centers
on screen.  He finds out that both centers offer in-home care services; and that their
health-monitoring facilities are connected directly to a local hospital.  Walter also gets
information about how to pay for home care and asks the centers to send him additional
information on both topics.  He also consults an on-line independent health costs
information service.  When Ann, Jim and Walter get together again, Walter explains the
cost-saving alternative of home health-monitoring and home care services, and all agree that
a move to a center offering home health monitoring services is best.

The Alliance Vision:  Universal Broadband Services


The "tomorrow" scenarios on the previous pages describe how some people will be able to
communicate within the next fifteen years.  We want to make sure that these
communication opportunities are available to all people who want them, in their homes, and
at reasonable prices.  We expect that the transition from current technologies, services, and
usage patterns to our "tomorrow" scenario will last well into the first decade of the 21st
Century, but we believe that today's events are shaping the course of that transition.
Actions can be taken today that will help ensure that our "tomorrow" scenarios are not
limited to the affluent.

The Alliance believes that it is now time to adopt a national goal:  a universal Broadband
Telecommunications Platform.  By "broadband," we mean a network that is capable of
carrying multiple channels of switched interactive multi-media communications (voice, data,
and video).  In order to connect each individual to everyone else, and to diverse sources of
information, entertainment and services, the network must have four physical characteristics
in addition to its broad bandwidth:

           digital switching
           interoperability
           security and reliability
           usability

It must be available universally on a common carriage basis, and it must provide privacy and
intellectual property protections.  In this section, we describe these characteristics in more
detail.  Following that, we discuss policy and regulatory options.

A.  Functional Features of the Broadband Platform

1.  Universal Service

Probably the most important characteristic of the Broadband Telecommunications Platform
is that it should be universally available to all citizens in their homes, public schools, and
health care centers.  The concept of "universal service," first developed under the
Communications Act of 1934, should no longer be limited to Plain Old Telephone Service,
the term that's used to describe voice telephony, but should be extended to new
communication capabilities.

One of the important features of a Broadband Telecommunications Platform is that its
benefits increase when more people are connected to it.  Universality of service is more
than an issue of equity; it also makes good economic sense.  Imagine a telephone system
that only connects customers to twenty or thirty homes or businesses:  users would not be
willing to pay much for that service.  The value of the public telephone network lies in its
ability to connect each user to millions of other people in the world, including many whom
they don't know.  In the future, the value of integrated and interactive multi-media services
will depend upon all citizens, businesses, and organizations having these capabilities.

Universality is especially important if our many public and private service agencies are to
take maximum advantage of new information technologies.  A motor vehicles department
or local school system can justify the transition to electronic communication if each can
reasonably expect to reach all their constituents.  The Broadband Telecommunications
Platform is a formula for stretching public dollars and creating more efficient services.

2.  Common Carriage

As common carriers, telephone companies are obligated to make their service offerings
available to any customer willing to pay the going rates; they are not allowed to
discriminate.  Common carriage has two important implications in an era of advanced
telecommunications.  On the one hand, owners and operators of the public switched
network should continue to be obliged to serve all customers.  On the other hand, network
operators should also be obligated to make the platform available to any service provider.
If society is to assure that the benefits of the Information Age are available to all citizens
as customers and as service providers, then it is important to have a public network with a
common carrier obligation.

3.  Privacy and Intellectual Property Protections

As we take advantage of the efficiencies of centralized databases, remote searches, and new
"publishing" opportunities, we need to be certain that the legal infrastructure is in place to
protect privacy rights and sort out questions of ownership of electronic data and images.
We  need to raise society's level of sophistication about the implications of the Information
Age in terms of our personal liberties and responsibilities.

B.  Physical Characteristics of the Platform

1.  Broadband

Bandwidth refers to the range of signal frequencies that can be carried by a communications
channel.  One way of characterizing this capacity is to measure the number of digital signals
in bits per second that a conduit can carry.  These are generally characterized as
"narrowband" (less than 128 kilobits per second); "wideband" (up to about 45 million bits
per second); "broadband" (over approximately 50 million bits per second).

Today, "broadband" is commonly used to mean the bandwidth necessary to carry one or
more uncompressed television-quality video signals, although improvements in transmission
and signal processing are constantly increasing the amount of information that can be sent
through a given-size conduit.  While it is possible that compression may enable a full motion
video to be transmitted one-way over copper wire, we expect that the need for two-way
visual high-bandwidth applications will increase.  We believe that seeking a broadband
network now will be far more cost effective in the long run than operating on
undocumented assumptions that narrowband communication will meet the foreseeable needs
of the public.

This anticipated increase in demand for interactive video points to the implementation of
fiber optic cable as a major component of a broadband network, with wireless and other
wired technologies supplementing it.  The cost of fiber has now dropped to the point where
it is generally used for new construction.  Along with the wireless technologies, its cost will
continue to fall, so that widespread deployment of fiber optic cable will become
economically feasible.

While the interexchange carriers' networks are almost one hundred percent fiber, the local
telephone companies' fiber networks currently predominate in the trunk and feeder portion
of the network.  Local telephone companies are planning upgrades, however.  Cable
television companies are also investing in fiber, again mostly in the trunk and feeder portion
of the network.  While coaxial cable (which makes up most of cable companies' networks)
is capable of carrying a full-motion video signal, almost all of these systems were designed
as one-way services.  Cable companies are currently experimenting with ways to upgrade
their systems to provide limited interactive capabilities, such as "pay-per-view" video
entertainment.

2.  Digital Switching

Switched networks allow users to establish communications with other users when desired.
Once established, these connections can be switched mechanically.  Telephone operators
used to frantically plug and unplug wires on a switchboard.  Digital switches can now
perform this task electronically, with more speed and accuracy.

Only digital switching is capable of handling data at the high-bandwidth rates that
interactive full-screen video services would require.  Almost all switches in the interexchange
networks are already digital; the percentages of digital lines of the local telcos range from
37% to 86%.1  High speed switches and their accompanying software are now coming on
stream commercially.  At the same time, laboratories are working to perfect "optical
switching," a technology that operates directly on the digital light pulses that flow through
fiber, rather than converting them to electronic signals first.

3.  Interoperability

A third technical characteristic of the Broadband Telecommunications Platform is that it
must be capable of handling messages from a variety of equipment and in a variety of
formats. This is generally called "interoperability." With the explosion of competition in the
telecommunications industry and the plethora of new telecommunications applications, we
can expect that users will continue to deploy a wide variety of public and private networks.
They will need to do this "transparently."  The transparency of the plain old telephone
network was a key to its usefulness--a caller could pick up the phone, dial a number, and
expect to talk to any person hooked up to the network without knowing just how the
connection was made.  This transparency will be much more difficult to achieve in today's
multi-media, multi-vendor world. Yet the value of the platform will lie in the user's ability
to connect with any other person without worrying about what kind of equipment, software,
or network is being used.

4.  Security and Reliability

As telecommunications services support more and more of our everyday activities, the
security and reliability of the telecommunications infrastructure becomes essential.  The
Broadband Telecommunications Platform must incorporate adequate mechanisms for
protecting users against theft, interception, or tampering with the electronic messages
transmitted over the network.  Developing plans for responding to emergencies that could
affect the reliability and viability of the network will require a great deal of coordination
among public and private network administrators and equipment manufacturers.  It will be
necessary to design networks that incorporate redundancy in order to protect the whole
network from the failure of any of its parts.

5.  Usability

The growing percentage of older Americans as a proportion of the population and the
passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act has opened our eyes to the wide  range of
sensory, cognitive, and motor requirements of our citizens.  We can no longer talk about
"the handicapped" as if they were a small, definable portion of society with specific,
highly-specialized needs.  "They" are us--people who have difficulty seeing or hearing or
remembering or walking.  We now recognize that the problem is we can not get over the
curb, whether it is because we are in a wheelchair or because we're pushing two children
in a stroller.

The Alliance believes that the services of the Broadband Telecommunications Platform must
be designed with all users in mind.  Telephone systems already provide means for the
hearing-impaired to use the telephone.  Today, this is typically accomplished through an
operator who types messages conveyed by the hearing party.  Similarly, when text-based
services are made available, service providers will have to make arrangements for them to
be
delivered audibly for the visually-impaired.

Services which are designed to be accessible in several different ways from the outset offer
a choice of interfaces for all customers, not just those with "disabilities."  In this way, the
public telecommunications network will become the electronic "curb cut" of the Information
Age and will eliminate the need for a third party to translate or mediate difficult equipment.

Usability" is an evolutionary characteristic that should be continually updated to meet the
needs of users by taking advantage of new technologies.  The goal is to make
communication -- via voice, data, text, video, or multi-media -- as easy and effortless as
possible.  The need for interoperability, discussed above, is relevant here.  With protocol
conversion and translation capabilities built into a central public resource, the Broadband
Telecommunications Platform will help make true "usability" a reality for all customers.


C.  Transition to the Broadband Platform

APT believes that to offer everyone two-way voice, video, and data, the Broadband
Telecommunications Platform must have digital switching capabilities and is likely to rely in
large part on fiber optic cable.  It is obvious that this optimal platform will not appear over-
night.  However, without appropriate public policies, the transition will occur more slowly
and will benefit only a limited number of people, primarily large businesses in urban areas.
This would connect a few users to each other rather than each to all.  In the following
section, we discuss public policy that will ensure that we receive the greatest benefits from
the Broadband Telecommunications Platform.
Current Applications: Limited Multimedia and Broadband Experiments

The California Board of Education has adopted "Science 2000", an innovative, multi-media 7th grade science
curriculum that relies on computer terminals and voice/data/video links instead of textbooks.

Bergen County, New Jersey has contracted for a fiber-based interactive network to connect its 44 secondary schools
with two local community colleges by 1995; 14 schools and the two colleges are currently using the network.

GTE's Cerritos Project is a test-bed that provides video-on-demand and video teleconferencing to schools and
residents in Cerritos, California.  Users can choose from a library of videos and view them almost instantly in their
homes or classrooms.  They can also set up spontaneous full-motion video teleconferences with other users.

The Research in Advanced Communications in Europe's CAR project is working to develop an integrated
broadband network to link automobile manufacturers, design teams, and parts suppliers.  The network will support
voice, video, and high-speed data communications.

The Interactive Cinema Group at MIT's Media Laboratory is developing an interactive digital movie system that
would allow viewers to download videos to their home, request supplementary materials (reviews, information on
the movie, etc.), and even customize the movie by choosing the desired degree of sex and violence and/or one of
several endings to the movie.

In 1991, doctors in Boston used an experimental transmission system to relay high-definition images from Belize,
South America in order to study patients suffering from a skin disease. The pictures were of such high-quality that
the doctors could clearly see the changes in patients' skin as a result of the disease.

In 1992, doctors in Austin, Texas monitored dialysis patients at Giddings State Hospital, 65 miles away.  They used
a video camera to see and talk with their patients; they were even able to see the color of the toes of their diabetes
patients, an indicator of physical well-being.

The nonprofit Hanover Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making in New Hampshire has developed video
programs to help patients choose treatment for four common ailments: benign prostate disease, low back pain, high
blood pressure and early stage breast cancer.  The interactive videos tell viewers about the risks and benefits of
different treatments.  Surgery rates fell sharply for patients with benign prostate enlargement who used these tapes.

Since 1991, members of a large HMO in Burlington, Massachusetts have had access to a healthcare information
and consultative system via a terminal.  The system enables them to get recommendations for steps to take with
respect to specific symptoms that they are experiencingand also to get information about general health conditions
of concern to them.  In this way,they can communicate with their health care center and avoid "telephone tag" with
doctors.

Martin Marietta has linked its Electronic Systems Division via a fiber optic broadband network, using voice, data
and video communication to facilitate telecommuting for a portion of its off-site employees.  The system allows
workers to work from remote sites at least part of the week.

Making It Happen: Public Policy for the Broadband Telecommunications Network

APT believes in the efficiencies and benefits of competition.  We also believe that
regulation will be essential to ensure that competition and universal service are compatible
goals.  Competition is most beneficial when it takes place inside a framework that defines
the Broadband Telecommunications Platform as the natural evolution of universal service.
To achieve that goal will require amending the Communications Act of 1934 to extend its
definition of universal service to all forms of communication: voice, data, image graphics,
and full-motion video.

A regulatory framework that promotes the Broadband Telecommunications Platform will
have to differ from the present framework in another important way: it will have to
eliminate the differences among the various communications media.  Because universal service
applied only to wired telephony in 1934, it was more strictly regulated than the broadcast
medium, radio.  When television became available commercially, it was treated like radio.
Today, television, radio and cable TV remain lightly regulated.  At the same time, print
media is virtually unregulated.

In 1993, the differences among these communications media are more apparent than real.
 Newspapers are delivered by satellite (like a broadcast) to presses in remote cities.  Like
telephone, local access television signals are delivered entirely by microwave, satellites and
wire.  All these signals are or can be digital.  For example, as high definition television
(HDTV) becomes available, more and more video signals will be digital.  Thus the
distinctions among the media are outmoded.  A regulatory framework for the 21st century
will focus on ensuring public access to all kinds of services no matter what form they take.
 To accomplish this goal, it will be necessary to look at the service being regulated, rather than
at the company or technology.

If the opportunities of interactive multi-media are available only to those who can build or
rent private networks, then the value of the public network will decline as the innovative
leaders divert their telecommunications dollars into private network investments.  The
public network will become a low-tech network of last resort.  In contrast, if these
innovators remain on the public network, they will demand services that will benefit all
users, large and small.  What is more, they will be willing to pay for these services even
when they are new and relatively expensive, because they will be able to reap the benefits
of them most quickly.  This approach assists large users because it provides easy access, cuts
costs and assures system compatibility.

Finally, upgrading the public telephone network to a Broadband Telecommunications
Platform will help ensure the widespread use needed to encourage the growth of new
information applications.  If private networks can not "talk to each other" and can not reach
users who are not on a private network, then the development of sophisticated information
services will be slowed.  Interoperability, a characteristic of a public switched network, can
be achieved by developing standards and translation capabilities.

A regulatory framework to support development of the Broadband Telecommunications
Platform must:

 assure universal service for two-way interactive video services
 assure interoperability of public and private networks
 safeguard privacy and intellectual property
 encourage planning for security and reliability
 promote fair competition
 promote affordable services
 break out of the current regulatory approach that distinguishes among providers
  based on old technologies
 encourage innovation in services and technologies
 establish guidelines for levels of performance and reliability

Developing this regulatory framework will take more than tinkering with the existing rules.
It will require new thinking based on current technological advances.  The overall goal will
be to develop the Broadband Telecommunications Platform as the new form of universal
service.  A national task force on telecommunications policy would make an excellent forum
for developing such a comprehensive view.  But the task force must not delay in offering
the results of its deliberations, as many decisions are now being made that could limit the
actions open to policymakers.

Paying for the Broadband Telecommunications Platform

Some experts disagree about the financial viability of building a broadband network in the
United States.  However, the Alliance agrees with those experts who believe that the
platform offers enough benefits to make it an attractive investment.2  Among the benefits
are:

 reduced cost of delivering health, education, and other government services
 improved quality of these same services
 improved access to jobs and job training for all Americans, especially the
  economically disadvantaged
 improved access to social and economic activities of all kinds for those with
  disabilities and those who cannot read or speak English well


 reduced pollution as people substitute the network for motor transport
 increased innovation in the kinds of information services that will be in great demand
  for world trade

These benefits are best realized through a shared public network.  For example, it would
be difficult to charge customers for the benefits of cleaner air from other telecommuters'
reduced driving.  Because they cannot charge for these kinds of desirable outcomes, network
operators have less incentive to invest in a public network than is justified by the total social
benefits.  Public policy must be devised to provide such incentives.  In return, network
owners and operators must be obligated to provide low-cost access to the network for all.

Focusing on old figures and untenable assumptions about a fiber optic network, critics of
the Alliance's position argue that consumers do not want or need advanced
telecommunications services and should not have to pay for the investment in the network
through higher rates for basic service.  The critics estimate the cost to convert the present
public switched network to fiber at $3,100 per subscriber, a net present value of a little over
$40/month, assuming a ten-year payback at twelve percent.

We agree that this is an unreasonable cost if all consumers would have at the end is Plain
Old Telephone Service provided by fiber instead of copper wire.  We also agree that
continued regulatory oversight is necessary to ensure that appropriately low rates are
available for minimal usage.  Universal service has always rested on subsidization; that is,
using money to help out those who can not pay full rates or those who live in places that
are especially costly to serve.  The need for subsidization will continue when universal
service comprises advanced information services.

However, we think the critics err in two ways: 1) their cost estimates are too high, and 2)
they ignore the extraordinary benefits people will receive in return for higher rates.  The
cost estimates are too high because they do not take into account the declining cost of
technology. They also fail to consider that much of the investment in advanced
infrastructure would have been made in any case.  In effect, they count some of the
investment twice.

More important, we do not agree that low volume users do not need or want these services.
A quick look at our today/tomorrow scenarios and the list of applications now being tested
will show that they benefit all citizens regardless or race, economic status, functional
limitation or location, so long as they are easy to use and widely accessible.  Public
investment in the broadband network should be judged in the same way as all other
investments:  not on the basis of current costs but on the basis of the benefit-cost ratio; that
is, whether present and future benefits exceed current costs.  We have shown that the
benefits of a Broadband Telecommunications Platform are enormous and accrue to everyone
-- businesses, individuals and the nation as a whole in the form of economic development
and global competitiveness.  With appropriate public oversight, these benefits can and
should be available to everyone for
affordable rates.
Conclusion

The Alliance for Public Technology is committed to the widest possible access to the most
advanced telecommunications services at reasonable rates.  These rates would be subsidized,
if necessary, for people who cannot otherwise afford them or for regions where the cost of
service would be unusually high.  Rapid changes in technology have only confirmed our
original premise: that every consumer in our nation could be connected to every other
consumer in a way that allows easy exchange of voice, data, and video signals.  The
challenge we face lies in mobilizing public will to ensure that the Broadband
Telecommunications Platform achieves its promise to carry the nation forward into the 21st
Century with a strong economy and a strong people.

The next step is to engage in dialogue about the relative merits of this, and alternative,
visions.  APT's mission is to get the public involved in learning about telecommunications
opportunities and participating in policy debates. We have initiated public debate,  but we
still need to invest in information and education campaigns.  Our members, as
representatives of various consumer interest groups, are in a good position to carry out such
education.  We hope that this paper will provoke debate and raise people's understanding
of the opportunities telecommunications can offer, as well as the extensive planning and
preparation that will be necessary to realize those opportunities.

We have presented a vision for the future of the public switched network that operates as
a Broadband Telecommunications Platform, supporting interactive multi-media services to
the nation's homes and businesses.  We have also outlined some of the characteristics that
we believe the network should have.  We offer this vision for the consideration of
telecommunications decisionmakers and other public interest groups like ourselves, so that
future telecommunications policies will be made with the interests of all consumers in mind.


There is broad national agreement that the United States' position in the global economy
in the 21st Century depends upon the creation of an advanced national telecommunications
infrastructure.  We want to make sure that this new infrastructure is both equitable and
accessible for all of our country's citizens.  By connecting each to all, we promote economic
development, strengthen the individual and benefit all members of society.


Endnotes



1  Ray Smith, "Cautious--Not Complacent," Telephone Engineer and Management 96(2),
1992, 36.

2  See, for example, Anita Taff, "U.S. Fiber Network Could Be a Boon for Users," Network
World 9(9), 1992, 19-20 and Bruce Egan, Information Superhighways:  The Economics of
Advanced Public Communication Networks. Boston:  Artech House, 1991, p. 118.




References for Applications (page 9)


(New Jersey)  Alan Daley, "Broadband Networks: Bringing the Information Age to Schools."
Tech Trends 36(2), 1991, 13-17.

(Cerritos)  "Broadband Tests Expand to Cerritos," Ed (6)4, 1992, 5.

(Europe)  Kerry Morgan, "The Integrated Communications Requirements in the
Automotive Industry and RACE Project CAR,"  Computer Networks and ISDN Systems
21(4), 1991, 321-322.

(MIT)  Carol Hildebrand, "Movie Technology Puts and End to Bad Endings,"
Computerworld 26(20), 1992, 28.

(Boston)  Andrew Purvis, "Healing by Wire," Time 139(20), 68.

(Martin Marietta)  Tom Smith, et. al., "Fifth Annual User Excellence Awards: The Rest of
the Best," Network World 6(50), 1989, 47-49.