[9578] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Gore Speech & Bell Atlantic Reply (Attn. Ray Smith)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (David Rothman)
Tue Jan 11 22:33:35 1994
In-Reply-To: <Pine.3.85.9401111851.B29220-0100000@ba>
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 94 22:23:23 -0400
To: "Eric Rabe" <rabe@ba.com>
Cc: com-priv@psi.com, "COSNDISC" <cosndisc@yukon.cren.org>,
From: "David Rothman" <rothman@netcom.com>
Reply-To: rothman@netcom.com
>FROM: Eric Rabe <rabe@ba.com>
[Eric Rabe is with Bell Atlantic, of which Ray Smith is chairman]
>
>*********************************************************
> RESPONSE STATEMENT TO VICE PRESIDENT GORE'S SPEECH
> ON THE ADMINISTRATION'S TELECOMMUNICATIONS INITIATIVES
>*********************************************************
[...]
> Bell Atlantic and TCI announced
>yesterday that we will provide free connections to
>K-12 classrooms in our service areas. This is just one
>example of the benefits telecommunications service
>providers can offer. We believe the possibilities are
>virtually limitless in an open market where all can
>compete fairly.
[...]
Eric, I downloaded your news release and read the following: "The
companies also explained that, although the Basic Education Connection
is free, many service providers who offer educational products over the
information superhighway are likely to charge for those products."
You, of all people, know how true those words are. Bell Atlantic and
other corporations are not going to give children all the e-books and
educational software they need. Not even your employer can afford it;
ditto for private people like Walter Annenberg.
Instead, then, we should establish a comprehensive National Library
online--full of affordable e-books and software, and cost-justified to
the taxpayers. I suggest a three-part program, which has already been
endorsed by people ranging from Afro American activists to William F.
Buckley, Jr.:
1. The federal government would encourage the production of
sharp-screened, low-cost computers optimized for reading, writing, K-12
networking, and other worthwhile purposes. Washington wouldn't get
computers for every child. Instead it would buy portables for schools
and libraries to loan out, thereby creating a core market, which in turn
would drive down the costs for private citizens. Remember how the
government unwittingly helped the laptop industry grow through
procurement for Treasury, the military, and the rest? Same idea.
The needs is clear. Dartmouth University has 8,000 computers for 5,000
students; on the other hand, the student-computer ratio for American
public schools is 16-1, and most of the machine are too fuzzy-screened
to be book-friendly. Besides, portables, not the regular desktops, are
the best solutions here. Like 30-inch HDTVs, desktop computers aren't
the coziest machines for a child to read with.
2. The National Library would work toward a comprehensive collection of
e-books and educational software for rich and poor alike. Subscriptions
would be free or for small fees based on family income. Many librarians
in many cities would have purchasing power to avoid domination by
Washington or New York. If encryption were used in a way I describe in
my TeleRead proposal, the National Library could also buy free books for
*local* libraries to distribute. Books could reach readers via phone,
cable, cellular, and otherwise.
Publishers and writers would receive fair compensation and, in fact, do
better than under the present system, in which printers and book chains
siphon away all too much. Telcom companies could be publishers with
fewer anti-trust problems since the National Library would be the main
distribution system. Every now and then I hear that Ray Smith wants
children to keep reading. ; Here's a chance for him to speak up and
prove it.
As long as U.S. schools are becoming more segregated, rich and poor
children should be able to dial up books from the same national
library. Knowledge stamps won't do. We know the money just is not there
for the children of the inner city and our rural areas.
Al Gore can talk all he wants about the little girl in Tennessee dialing
up the Library Congress, but will she be able to retrieve *every* book
or program there? Shouldn't she have the same chance as a doctor's
daughter in Beverly Hills? If you at Bell Atlantic spoke up now, I
suspect that you'd find the White House most open minded. To use a word
popular in D.C., Bell is a "stakeholder." Why not insist that Al Gore's
neighbor be one too?
Significantly, even with an online National Library as a goal, there
would still be an opportunity for private industry and people like
Walter Annenberg to help if they wanted. They could fund demo projects.
But, please, let's realize that *tax* money is the only way to assure
enough resources to wipe out the proverbial "savage inequalities."
Raymond Smith needs to do his civic duty and speak his mind if he truly
believes in well-stocked electronic libraries for rich and poor alike.
As Andrew Carnegie once write, "I think that an institution has not
taken root and is scarely worth maintaining unless the community
appreciates it sufficiently to tax itself for maintenance." The same
principle would apply to a national library of e-books and ed software.
3. The U.S. would cost-justify the above by way of smart electronic
forms for transactions with local, state and federal government,
especially the IRS. Right now we're spending hundreds of billions of
dollars a year on government-related paperwork, according to the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce. If smart electronic forms drove down the costs by
just a fraction, the forms would cost-justify themselves; as you know
the cost of government isn't just in taxes per se but in paperwork.
Besides, wouldn't e-forms be yet another opportunity for Bell and the
like? Why not work to speed up and expand the existing government plans
in this area?
Coincidentally, during the Electronic Media Summit in LA, the woman with
Nickelodeon said she hoped that the new technology would reduce
government-created paperwork; here's a direct way.
We could phase in the electronic forms as the same time we did the
e-books so that if anything, the taxpayers would come out *ahead* as
the program grew.
The latest version of teleread.txt (170K) is available to you or anyone
else via e-mail to me at rothman@netcom.com.
For the sake of your stockholders, you might take a look. Al Gore is
calling for universal high-tech service in all areas, but what happens
if you build the service and then the customers don't come? Here's a way
to stimulate demand in a way that serves the public interest *and* helps
you raise capital.
**************************************************************************
David H. Rothman "So we beat on, boats against
rothman@netcom.com the current...."
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