Ian & Stuart's Australian Mac: Not for Sale/Another.not.for.sale (Australia).iso/hold me in your arms/ES Cyberama/Al Gore on Global Information

Text File | 1994-06-13 | 26KB | 526 lines

        Remarks prepared for delivery

                 By

           Vice President AL GORE

        International Telecommunications Union

            Monday March 21, 1994




I have come here, 8,000 kilometers from my home, to ask you to help
create a Global Information Infrastructure.  To explain why, I want to
begin by reading you something that I first read in high school, 30
years ago.

"By means of electricity, the world of matter has become a great nerve,
vibrating thousands of miles in a breathless point of time. . . . The
round globe is a vast . . . brain, instinct with intelligence!"

This was not the observation of a physicist -- or a neurologist.
Instead, these visionary words were written in 1851 by Nathaniel
Hawthorne, one of my country's greatest writers, who was inspired by
the development of the telegraph.  Much as Jules Verne foresaw
submarines and moon landings, Hawthorne foresaw what we are now poised
to bring into being.

The ITU was created only 14 years later, in major part for the purpose
of fostering an internationally compatible system of telegraphy.

For almost 150 years, people have aspired to fulfill Hawthorne's
vision--to wrap nerves of communications around the globe, linking all
human knowledge.

In this decade, at this conference, we now have at hand the
technological breakthroughs and economic means to bring all the
communities of the world together.  We now can at last create a
planetary information network that transmits messages and images with
the speed of light from the largest city to the smallest village on
every continent.

I am very proud to have the opportunity to address the first
development conference of the ITU because the President of the United
States and I believe that an essential prerequisite to sustainable
development, for all members of the human family, is the creation of
this network of networks.  To accomplish this purpose, legislators,
regulators, and businesspeople must do this:  build and operate a
Global Information Infrastructure.  This GII will circle the globe with
information superhighways on which all people can travel.

These highways--or, more accurately, networks of distributed
intelligence--will allow us to share information, to connect, and to
communicate as a global community.  From these connections we will
derive robust and sustainable economic progress, strong democracies,
better solutions to global and local environmental challenges, improved
health care, and--ultimately--a greater sense of shared stewardship of
our small planet.

The Global Information Infrastructure will help educate our children
and allow us to exchange ideas in within a community and among
nations.  It will be a means by which families and friends will
transcend the barriers of time and distance.  It will make possible a
global information marketplace, where consumers can buy or sell
products.  I ask you, the delegates to this conference, to set an
ambitious agenda that will help all governments, in their own sovereign
nations and in international cooperation, to build this Global
Information Infrastructure.  For my country's part, I pledge our
vigorous, continued participation in achieving this goal--in the
development sector of the ITU, in other sectors and in plenipotentiary
gatherings of the ITU, and in bilateral discussions held by our
Departments of State and Commerce and our Federal Communications
Commission.

The development of the GII must be a cooperative effort among
governments and peoples.  It cannot be dictated or built by a single
country.  It must be a democratic effort.

And the distributed intelligence of the GII will spread participatory
democracy.

To illustrate why, I'd like to use an example from computer science.
In the past, all computers were huge mainframes with a single
processing unit, solving problems in sequence, one by one, each bit of
information sent back and forth between the CPU and the vast field of
memory surrounding it.  Now, we have massively parallel computers with
hundreds -- or thousands --- of tiny self- contained processors
distributed throughout the memory field, all interconnected, and
together far more powerful and more versatile than even the most
sophisticated single processor, because they each solve a tiny piece of
the problem simultaneously and when all the pieces are assembled, the
problem is solved.

Similarly, the GII will be an assemblage of local, national, and
regional networks, that are not only like parallel computers but in
their most advanced state will in fact be a distributed, parallel
computer.

In a sense, the GII will be a metaphor for democracy itself.
Representative democracy does not work with an all-powerful central
government, arrogating all decisions to itself.  That is why communism
collapsed.

Instead, representative democracy relies on the assumption that the
best way for a nation to make its political decisions is for each
citizen -- the human equivalent of the self-contained processor -- to
have the power to control his or her own life.

To do that, people must have available the information they need.  And
be allowed to express their conclusions in free speech and in votes
that are combined with those of millions of others.  That's what guides
the system as a whole.

The GII will not only be a metaphor for a functioning democracy, it
will in fact promote the functioning of democracy by greatly enhancing
the participation of citizens in decision-making.  And it will greatly
promote the ability of nations to cooperate with each other.  I see an
new Athenian Age of democracy forged in the fora the GII will create.

The GII will be the key to economic growth for national and
international economies.  For us in the United States, the information
infrastructure already is to the U.S. economy of the 1990s what
transport infrastructure was to the economy of the mid-20th century.
The integration of computing and information networks into the economy
makes U.S. manufacturing companies more productive, more competitive,
and more adaptive to changing conditions and it will do the same for
the economies of other nations.

These same technologies are also enabling the service sectors of the
U.S.  economy to grow, to increase their scale and productivity and
expand their range of product offerings and ability to respond to
customer demands.

Approximately 60% of all U.S. workers are "knowledge workers" -- people
whose jobs depend on the information they generate and receive over our
information infrastructure.  As we create new jobs, 8 out of 10 are in
information-intensive sectors of our economy.  And these new jobs are
well-paying jobs for financial analysts, computer programmers, and
other educated workers.

The global economy also will be driven by the growth of the Information
Age.  Hundreds of billions of dollars can be added to world growth if
we commit to the GII.  I fervently hope this conference will take full
advantage of this potential for economic growth, and not deny any
country or community its right to participate in this growth.

As the GII spreads, more and more people realize that information is a
treasure that must be shared to be valuable.  When two people
communicate, they each can be enriched--and unlike traditional
resources, the more you share, the more you have.  As Thomas Jefferson
said, "He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself
without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives
light without darkening me."

Now we all realize that, even as we meet here, the Global Information
Infrastructure is being built, although many countries have yet to see
any benefits.

Digital telecommunications technology, fiber optics, and new
high-capacity satellite systems are transforming telecommunications.
And all over the world, under the seas and along the roads, pipelines,
and railroads, companies are laying fiber optic cable that carries
thousands of telephone calls per second over a single strand of glass.

These developments are greatly reducing the cost of building the GII.
In the past, it could take years to build a network.  Linking a single
country's major cities might require laying thousands of kilometers of
expensive wires.  Today, a single satellite and a few dozen ground
stations can be installed in a few months -- at much lower cost.

The economics of networks have changed so radically that the operation
of a competitive, private market can build much of the GII.  This is
dependent, however, upon sensible regulation.

Within the national boundaries of the U.S. we aspire to build our
information highways according to a set of principles that I outlined
in January in California.  The National Information Infrastructure, as
we call it, will be built and maintained by the private sector.  It
will consist of hundreds of different networks, run by different
companies and using different technologies, all connected together in a
giant "network of networks," providing telephone and interactive
digital video to almost every American.

Our plan is based on five principles: First, encourage private
investment; Second, promote competition; Third, create a flexible
regulatory framework that can keep pace with rapid technological and
market changes; Fourth, provide open access to the network for all
information providers; and Fifth, ensure universal service.

Are these principles unique to the United States?  Hardly.  Many are
accepted international principles endorsed by many of you.  I believe
these principles can inform and aid the development of the Global
Information Infrastructure and urge this Conference to incorporate
them, as appropriate, into the Buenos Aires Declaration, which will be
drafted this week.

Let me elaborate briefly on these principles.

First, we propose that private investment and competition be the
foundation for development of the GII.   In the U.S., we are in the
process of opening our communications markets to all domestic private
participants.

In recent years, many countries, particularly here in Latin America,
have opted to privatize their state-owned telephone companies in order
to obtain the benefits and incentives that drive competitive private
enterprises, including innovation, increased investment, efficiency and
responsiveness to market needs.

Adopting policies that allow increased private sector participation in
the telecommunications sector has provided an enormous spur to
telecommunications development in dozens of countries, including
Argentina, Venezuela, Chile, and Mexico.  I urge you to follow their
lead.

But privatization is not enough.  Competition is needed as well.  In
the past, it did make sense to have telecommunications monopolies.

In many cases, the technology and the economies of scale meant it was
inefficient to build more than one network.  In other cases--Finland,
Canada, and the U.S., for example--national networks were built in the
early part of this century by hundreds of small, independent phone
companies and cooperatives.

Today, there are many more technology options than in the past and it
is not only possible, but desirable, to have different companies
running competing--but interconnected--networks, because competition is
the best way to make the telecommunications sector more efficient, more
innovative--and more profitable as consumers make more calls and prices
decline.

That is why allowing other companies to compete with AT&T, once the
world's largest telephone monopoly, was so useful for the United
States.  Over the last ten years, it has cut the cost of a
long-distance telephone call in the U.S. more than 50%.

To promote competition and investment in global telecommunications, we
need to adopt cost-based collection and accounting rates.  Doing so
will accelerate development of the GII.

International standards to ensure interconnection and interoperability
are needed as well.  National networks must connect effectively with
each other to make real the simple vision of linking schools,
hospitals, businesses, and homes to a Global Information
Infrastructure.

Hand in hand with the need for private investment and competition is
the necessity of appropriate and flexible regulations developed by an
authoritative regulatory body.

In order for the private sector to invest and for initiatives opening a
market to competition to be successful, it is necessary to create a
regulatory environment that fosters and protects competition and
private sector investments, while at the same time protecting
consumers' interests.

Without the protection of an independent regulator, a potential private
investor would be hesitant to provide service in competition with the
incumbent provider for fear that the incumbent's market power would not
be adequately controlled.

Decisions and the basis for making them must also be made public so
that consumers and potential competitors are assured that their
interests are being protected.

This is why in the U.S., we have delegated significant regulatory
powers to an independent agency, the Federal Communications
Commission.  This expert body is well-equipped to make difficult
technical decisions and to monitor, in conjunction with the National
Telecommunications and Information Administration and the Department of
Justice, changing market conditions.  We commend this approach to you.

We need a flexible, effective system for resolution of international
issues, too-- one that can keep up with the ever-accelerating pace of
technological change.

I understand that the ITU has just gone through a major reorganization
designed to increase its effectiveness.  This will enable the ITU,
under the able leadership of Mr. Tarjanne, to streamline its operations
and redirect resources to where they are needed most.  This will ensure
that the ITU can adapt to future and unimaginable technologies.

Our fourth principle is open access.  By this I mean that telephone and
video network owners should charge non-discriminatory prices for access
to their networks.  This principle will guarantee every user of the GII
can use thousands of different sources of information--video
programming, electronic newspapers, computer bulletin boards--from
every country, in every language.

With new technologies like direct broadcast satellites, a few networks
will no longer be able to control your access to information--as long
as government policies permit new entrants into the information
marketplace.

Countries and companies will not be able to compete in the global
economy if they cannot get access to up-to-date information, if they
cannot communicate instantly with customers around the globe.  Ready
access to information is also essential for training the skilled
workforce needed for high-tech industries.

The countries that flourish in the twenty-first century will be those
that have telecommunications policies and copyright laws that provide
their citizens access to a wide choice of information services.
Protecting intellectual property is absolutely essential.

The final and most important principle is to ensure universal service
so that the Global Information Infrastructure is available to all
members of our societies.  Our goal is a kind of global conversation,
in which everyone who wants can have his or her say.

We must ensure that whatever steps we take to expand our worldwide
telecommunications infrastructure, we keep that goal in mind.

Although the details of universal service will vary from country to
country and from service to service, several aspects of universal
service apply everywhere.  Access clearly includes making service
available at affordable prices to persons at all income levels.  It
also includes making high quality service available regardless of
geographic location or other restrictions such as disability.

Constellations of hundreds of satellites in low earth orbit may soon
provide telephone or data services to any point on the globe.  Such
systems could make universal service both practical and affordable.

An equally important part of universal access is teaching consumers how
to use communications effectively.  That means developing easy-to-use
applications for a variety of contexts, and teaching people how to use
them.  The most sophisticated and cost-efficient networks will be
completely useless if users are unable to understand how to access and
take full advantage of their offerings.

Another dimension of universal service is the recognition that
marketplace economics should not be the sole determinant of the reach
of the information infrastructure.

The President and I have called for positive government action in the
United States to extend the NII to every classroom, library, hospital,
and clinic in the U.S.  by the end of the century.

I want to urge that this conference include in its agenda for action
the commitment to determine how every school and library in every
country can be connected to the Internet, the world's largest computer
network, in order to create a Global Digital Library.  Each library
could maintain a server containing books and journals in electronic
form, along with indexes to help users find other materials.  As more
and more information is stored electronically, this global library
would become more and more useful.

It would allow millions of students, scholars and businesspeople to
find the information they need whether it be in Albania or Ecuador.

Private investment ... competition ... flexibility ... open access ...
universal service.

In addition to urging the delegates of this conference to adopt these
principles as part of the Buenos Aires Declaration, guiding the next
four years of telecommunications development, I assure you that the
U.S. will be discussing in many fora, inside and outside the ITU,
whether these principles might be usefully adopted by all countries.

The commitment of all nations to enforcing regulatory regimes to build
the GII is vital to world development and many global social goals.

But the power of the Global Information Infrastructure will be
diminished if it cannot reach large segments of the world population.

We have heard together Dr. Tarjanne's eloquent speech setting forth the
challenges we face.  As he points out: the 24 countries of the OECD
have only 16 percent of the world's population.  But they account for
70 percent of global telephone mainlines and 90 percent of mobile phone
subscribers.

There are those who say the lack of economic development causes poor
telecommunications.  I believe they have it exactly backwards.   A
primitive telecommunications systems causes poor economic development.

So we cannot be complacent about the disparity between the high and low
income nations, whether in how many phones are available to people or
in whether they have such new technologies as high speed computer
networks or videoconferencing.

The United States delegation is devoted to working with each of you at
this Conference to address the many problems that hinder development.

And there are many.  Financing is a problem in almost every country,
even though telecommunications has proven itself to be an excellent
investment.

Even where telecommunications has been identified as a top development
priority, countries lack trained personnel and up-to-date information.

And in too many parts of the world, political unrest makes it difficult
or impossible to maintain existing infrastructure, let alone lay new
wire or deploy new capacity.

How can we work together to overcome these hurdles?  Let me mention a
few things industrialized countries can do to help.

First, we can use the Global Information Infrastructure for technical
collaboration between industrialized nations and developing countries.
All agencies of the U.S. government are potential sources of
information and knowledge that can be shared with partners across the
globe.

The Global Information Infrastructure can help development agencies
link experts from every nation and enable them to solve common
problems.  For instance, the Pan American Health Organization has
conducted hemisphere-wide teleconferences to present new methods to
diagnose and prevent the spread of AIDS.

Second, multilateral institutions like the World Bank, can help nations
finance the building of telecommunications infrastructure.

Third, the U.S. can help provide the technical know-how needed to
deploy and use these new technologies.  USAID and U.S.  businesses have
helped the U.S.  Telecommunications Training Institute train more than
3500 telecommunications professionals from the developing world,
including many in this room.

In the future, USTTI plans also to help businesspeople, bankers,
farmers, and others from the developing world find ways that computer
networking, wireless technology, satellites, video links, and other
telecommunications technology could improve their effectiveness and
efficiency.

I challenge other nations, the development banks, and the UN system to
create similar training opportunities.

The head of our Peace Corps, Carol Bellamy, intends to use Peace Corps
volunteers both to help deploy telecommunications and computer systems
and to find innovative uses for them.   Here in Argentina, a Peace
Corps volunteer is doing just that.

To join the GII to the effort to protect and preserve the global
environment, our Administration will soon propose using satellite and
personal communication technology to create a global network of
environmental information.  We will propose using the schools and
students of the world to gather and study environmental information on
a daily basis and communicate that data to the world through
television.

But regulatory reform must accompany this technical assistance and
financial aid for it to work.  This requires top-level leadership and
commitment--commitment to foster investment in telecommunications and
commitment to adopt policies that ensure the rapid deployment and
widespread use of the information infrastructure.

I opened by quoting Nathaniel Hawthorne, inspired by  Samuel Morse's
invention of the telegraph.

Morse was also a famous portrait artist in the U.S.-- his portrait of
President James Monroe hangs today in the White House.  While Morse was
working on a portrait of General Lafayette in Washington, his wife, who
lived about 500 kilometers away, grew ill and died.  But it took seven
days for the news to reach him.

In his grief and remorse, he began to wonder if it were possible to
erase barriers of time and space, so that no one would be unable to
reach a loved one in time of need.  Pursuing this thought, he came to
discover how to use electricity to convey messages, and so he invented
the telegraph and, indirectly, the ITU.

The Global Information Infrastructure offers instant communication to
the great human family.

It can provide us the information we need to dramatically improve the
quality of their lives.  By linking clinics and hospitals together, it
will ensure that doctors treating patients have access to the best
possible information on diseases and treatments.  By providing early
warning on natural disasters like volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, or
typhoons, it can save the lives of thousands of people.

By linking villages and towns, it can help people organize and work
together to solve local and regional problems ranging from improving
water supplies to preventing deforestation.

To promote ... to protect ... to preserve freedom and democracy, we
must make telecommunications development an integral part of every
nation's development.  Each link we create strengthens the bonds of
liberty and democracy around the world.  By opening markets to
stimulate the development of the global information infrastructure, we
open lines of communication.

By opening lines of communication, we open minds.  This summer, from my
country cameras will bring the World Cup Championship to well over one
billion people.

To those of you from the 23 visiting countries whose teams are in the
Finals, I wish you luck--although I'll be rooting for the home team.

The Global Information Infrastructure carries implications even more
important than soccer.

It has brought us images of earthquakes in California, of Boris Yeltsin
on a tank in Red Square, of the effects of mortar shells in Sarajevo
and Somalia, of the fall of the Berlin Wall.  It has brought us images
of war and peace, and tragedy and joy, in which we all can share.

There's a Dutch relief worker, Wam Kat, who has been broadcasting an
electronic diary from Zagreb for more than a year and a half on the
Internet, sharing his observations of life in Croatia.

After reading Kat's Croatian diary, people around the world began to
send money for relief efforts.   The result: 25 houses have been
rebuilt in a town destroyed by war.

Governments didn't do this.  People did.  But such events are the hope
of the future.

When I began proposing the NII in the U.S., I said that my hope is that
the United States, born in revolution, can lead the way to this new,
peaceful revolution.  However, I believe we will reach our goal faster
and with greater certainty if we walk down that path together.  As
Antonio Machado, Spanish poet, once said, "Pathwalker, there is no
path, we create the path as we walk."


Let us  build a global community in which the people of neighboring
countries view each other not as potential enemies, but as potential
partners, as members of the same family in the vast, increasingly
interconnected human family.

Let us seize this moment.  Let us work to link the people of the
world.  Let us create this new path as we walk it together.