Blog Post #2

By Matthew Boyle | mboyle@flagler.edu

The Federal Communications Commission Chairman is working at implementing a policy to help close the digital divide within the United States, or the social divide.

The FCC’s proposed plan is due on March 17 and, according to a Computerworld story by Matt Hamblen on Feb. 23, it is expected to include a detailed “strategy for connecting the U.S. to affordable broadband to help create jobs and economic growth.”

Hamblen reported that the FCC released a survey on Feb. 23 showing “that cost and lack of digital skills are the main reasons a third of Americans do not get high-speed Internet connections at home.”

This FCC survey is a waste of government employee time and taxpayer money. Did the FCC have to conduct a survey to document what media professionals already know?

The FCC needs to stop wasting time and money on surveys and propose a plan. Then put the plan to work. I certainly do not think anyone out there knows exactly how to fix the social digital divide in America, but conducting useless studies is not helping.

At the end of the Computerworld article, Hamblen cites John Horrigan, the author of the 51-page report accompanying the survey results, saying that multiple solutions will be required to fix the social digital divide in the United States. Hamblen said Horrigan recommends lowering costs for service and for hardware, helping people develop web skills and informing them of the Internet’s benefits.

Maybe I am a little bit facetious with these statements, but still, come on, people. The FCC just spent all this time and money conducting this survey and paid this Horrigan character to write a 51-page report to tell decision-makers what they already know.

Also, according to Hamblen’s Computerworld article on Feb. 23, the FCC survey did not even delve into connect speeds. The survey assumed people that had cable modems, DSL services, fixed wireless connections, T-1 connections, satellite fiber optic connection or mobile broadband wireless connections were all the same. It considered each one of those connections a “home broadband user.”

“No specific throughput, or speed, was specified,” Hamblen wrote in the story.

The survey also found that 6 percent of Americans still use dial-up from home.

As for how the FCC plans to fix these issues, I guess we’ll have to wait until it comes out with another generic and ambiguous waste of credibility in its March 17 report.