TECHNOLOGY ALLIANCE CALLS FOR TELECOMMUNICATIONS UPGRADE by Paul W. Schroeder, Director of Governmental Affairs It's the vacation you've waited years to enjoy. You're hundreds of miles from home in a small rural community where people lock their doors at night only if they remember. Maybe today you'll do a little fly fishing, or just sit and read. You have an appointment at 2:30 with your doctor back home, but that's no problem, even in a town too small for a hospital. You're an expert at using the wireless medical monitoring device you brought--a device which will record a host of facts about you, compress the information, and send it to a broadband communications network which transmits the information to your doctor. If he sees a problem, he can activate the receiver in your medical monitor and talk to you about it. Back at the quaint little motel room you've taken for the week, your kids are in front of an intelligent TV/computer terminal, not merely watching TV, but competing with other kids around the nation in an exciting quiz program. At the same time, that intelligent communications device is recording the compressed audio that will make up your daily paper. The stories are selected for you based on a comprehensive reading profile you set up earlier using the same communications device on an interactive two-way hookup between your vacation spot and the newspaper's offices. Sounds too much like science fiction to be believable, right? Maybe, but the technology is already here that would allow for just such a scenario and for even more sophisticated ones. One thing is certain. Blind and partially sighted Americans can't afford to be shut out of the communications revolution by graphical delivery schemes that are unfriendly to speech or braille output. The technology's here, but a profusion of questions still remain--questions like who will actually lay the electronic super highway needed to carry the information to your door. How fast will the fiber optic super highway be put in place? And above all, who will ultimately pay the bill for all this added access? Perhaps you're wondering about the difference between broadband and narrowband telecommunications. The copper wires that connect your phone to the vast public network of telephones around the world are okay for doing single jobs like talking to a friend or sending information between two computers. Those wires currently operate using the narrowband concept. Fiber optic cables are hair-thin wires capable of transmitting and receiving large amounts of information. A telecommunications super highway will be made of fiber optic cables and have the capacity to handle an almost unlimited number of transmissions, especially when compared to current copper wire technology. All those unanswered questions ultimately need answers. That's where the Alliance for Public Technology comes into play. Consisting of individuals and more than 40 nonprofit groups with thousands of members including the American Council of the Blind, the alliance will likely be in the forefront when policies are made which deal with who has access to the telecommunications super highway and at what price. At its annual conference in Washington, D.C., in late February, the alliance released a report entitled "Connecting Each to All: A Telecommunications Platform for the Information Age." The report calls on Congress and the Clinton administration to bring the revolution in communication technologies and services to all Americans in their homes, schools and workplaces. "We do not want a single household or school district to be denied access to the telecommunications revolution," said Dr. Barbara O'Connor, chair of the APT Board of Directors and coauthor of the vision paper. "The benefits of 'connecting each to all' range as far and wide as our imagination will take us," O'Connor added. "But we have to have a common vision that guides the legal and regulatory decisions being made today--decisions that will have consequences reaching well into the 21st century." The Alliance vision paper calls for upgrading the public telephone network to a broadband telecommunications platform that supports two-way interactive multi-media applications. Panel members say unless regulations can be crafted early on in the super highway- building process, a two-tiered system will inevitably develop. Panelists fear that society will be divided among people who are information rich and those who are information poor. "APT believes that everyone should have access to two-way voice, video and data communications," according to Dr. Susan Hadden, an Alliance for Public Technology board member and coauthor of the report. "But there is a real danger that the benefits of a broadband network will only flow to the fortunate few if public policy makers are timid or guided by a minimalist vision of the future. To do great things, we have to imagine great things. Universal access to the broadband network and its services will allow individuals to obtain information and entertainment when and how they want it. It will allow information providers to offer innovative services to everyone on the network. And it will make the United States competitive in global markets with nations that are well on their way to deploying national broadband telecommunications networks." Current telephone and video technology are transmitted by narrowband facilities. The copper wires that bring telephone voice and data service to your home today can't handle broadband technology. Sending broadband signals down narrowband copper wires is analogous to funneling the contents of the ocean through a straw. But the new elements of the telecommunications super highway are expensive to build. Some experts say it could be as long as 15 years before every American home, school, and business is wired with fiber optic cable. Business users will probably be the first to benefit from the broadband advantage. Alliance members say they want to make certain that consumers who are blind or otherwise disabled have every opportunity to enjoy broadband telecommunications. Paul Schroeder, ACB's director of governmental affairs, underscored the importance of telecommunications policy to people with disabilities. In a speech at the conference, Schroeder urged the telecommunications industry to involve people with disabling conditions in the design of telecommunications services and equipment. Drawing a parallel with the Americans with Disabilities Act, Schroeder said, "Telecommunications equipment and network services must be developed and designed to be fully and directly usable by persons with disabilities." While some might argue that the Alliance for Public Technology's report is just another stack of paper blowing in Washington's legislative wind, the reality is that the report's release is timely. As you read this story, legislation may already be introduced in Congress which would be the first steps in the remodeling of the telecommunications infrastructure. It would lift the ban on equipment manufacture by the Bell companies and could allow the Regional Bell Operating Companies to create and distribute information, something they were prohibited from doing by the court-decreed breakup of AT&T a decade ago. As is true with many revolutions, you can be certain the telecommunications revolution won't happen without a few legislative gun battles and maybe even some casualties along the way. Thorny questions remain about how your phone company and your cable company will operate in the new technological arena. And it's not wise to assume the local newspaper is going to sit back and watch all this happen from a distance. But when the dust settles, you will very likely be able to take that badly-needed vacation and keep that doctor appointment 800 miles away back home. That may happen sooner than you realize. "Our vision can be found today in limited applications across the country," O'Connor says. "In California, the seventh grade science curriculum relies on computer terminals and voice, data and video links instead of textbooks. Doctors in Austin, Texas have monitored dialysis patients receiving treatment 65 miles away using two-way video communications. And Martin Marietta is using a fiber optic broadband network to facilitate telecommuting. The challenge we face is to make sure that services like these are available to all Americans."