Tuesday, October 18th, 2005

Universal Service

The Wikipedia definition is a bit sparse, but universal service is the idea the everyone should have access to telecommunications. Classically this idea has only been applied to basic telephone service, it’s why 99% of the United States has the ability to have a land line telephone.

This Slashdot discussion talks about the problems with broadband on America. The US is now 16th in the world in broadband use per capita. Other countries see the benefits of broadband why not the US? Broadband access is the new digital divide. And the US as a country is on the wrong side of it.

Note: Now that I’m back in the LIS world full force, I’m trying to get back to more of way I started this blog, to comment on things librarianish. (is that a word?) Look for more of these type of posts in the future.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 18th, 2005 at 10:24 pm and is filed under Information Policy and Library & Information Science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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2 Responses to “Universal Service”

1. neelie Says:
   October 19th, 2005 at 4:59 am

   i think it’s very cool. it is neat to get different perspecives on things like that.
   Are you talking hardline high=speed access, or also including wireless access?
   Do you suppose we will go full on wireless in the near future? I think it’s actually coming within a couple of decades, perhaps several.

2. Library Monk Says:
   October 19th, 2005 at 11:45 am

   Wireless is definitely included, in high speed service. I think wireless has proved itself during the post hurricane relief efforts. Often the first type of communications restored has been wireless internet.

   I don’t think we’ll ever go fully wireless, there are some situations where wires make sense. But wireless will be the way most people connect eventually.

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