ZFellow Sean McLaughlin on Broadband Access for the Next Generation

Broadband Access for the Next Generation

ZFellow Sean McLaughlin writes about the future of broadband for Eureka Times-Standard and how it is about more than surfing the Web, watching video, playing interactive games, texting and making phone calls.

It is about entirely new forms of communication, including diverse community-wide conversations and large scale social collaboration. Through any media, broadband represents the future common means of sharing ideas and organizing people to act, regardless of frontiers.

”Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

Through any media, including public airwaves, copper wire, coaxial cable, or glass fibers, broadband has the potential to advance the progress of local regions with respect to education, health care, economic development, standard of living, level of civic discourse, and the quality of life.

Regardless of frontiers, in 2008 it is clear that the next generation platforms for effectively sharing local voices, organizing information and cultural resources, creating open media archives and building open source solutions will require universal and affordable access to broadband connections. And these connections must travel across public land and public airwaves.

Because broadband communication systems are built upon public rights of way and the public spectrum, they must be managed transparently with a measure of local accountability to ensure that common carrier principles are upheld, and to focus public oversight on critical needs for diversity and localism. Concentrated commercial interests can sometimes conflict with the greater social good, so public oversight with local participation is essential to protect freedom of communication via broadband media.

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