Copyright 2000 News World Communications, Inc

July 30, 2000, Sunday, Final Edition

SECTION: PART B; COMMENTARY; FORUM; Pg. B5

LENGTH: 894 words

HEADLINE: The digital divide is no 'sham'

BODY:
Over the past few months, The Washington Times has published a number of columns on this page critical of efforts to close the Digital Divide, an issue very important to the Clinton administration and many Americans. Some commentators referred to the Digital Divide as "a sham . . . an excuse for big government to court Silicon Valley." Such assertions, and other similar attacks, are based more in fiction than in fact. While it may be an expected sport to politicize even the most self-evident issues inside the Beltway, around the country people know better.

There is an abundance of evidence that demonstrates that there is indeed a gap between those who have access to information technology and those who don't. A Commerce Department report, using Census data, found Americans from low-income families, rural citizens and racial minorities have less access than others to the tools of the new economy computers and Internet access.

Those perched in Washington think tanks see only the positive side of the telecommunications boom, where the streets are being torn up to accommodate the fiber cables that will deliver high-speed Internet to the businesses and wealthy neighborhoods here and other major cities. A visit to the Navaho people of New Mexico or those living in the housing projects in Brooklyn reveals a very different picture, namely that there are segments of our society that are not adequately equipped to participate in the new economy. The other side of the divide lacks access to the infrastructure, phones, computers and training that people who live in more privileged neighborhoods and business districts take for granted.

Some of the criticisms of the administration's efforts to close the Digital Divide have fallen into an ideological trap as old as capitalism - that the market takes care of everything, and that administration attempts to address the problem involve the dreaded "big government." Many of the criticisms are based on the false claims that the administration wants simply to buy computers for poor families. Not so. We never proposed such a program. Instead, the administration rightly believes in a more complex philosophy - that there is a need for federal programs that partner with local efforts to craft local solutions to bring information technology and training to underserved populations.

The American experience demonstrates that market forces alone cannot build national success. We recognize, as some have pointed out repeatedly, there are private sector initiatives which are expanding access to computers in homes for their employees and expanding training in several communities. These are very commendable, but not in themselves enough to call a halt to efforts to help those who do not work for Delta or Ford or other sponsoring companies.

On a larger scale, market forces alone never would have built an interstate highway system or would have allowed us to get to the point that about 95 percent of American homes have a telephone. A generation ago, putting telephones in every home and business was a federal priority. Today the next generation of communications technology - computing devices and the Internet - needs the same vision as President Franklin Roosevelt's decision to make certain all homes and businesses had access to electricity and modern communications technology.

The good news about the Digital Divide is that it is very possible to close. Technology is developing at such a pace that the cost of computing devices is dropping. Thus, the divide can be bridged through modest government assistance and the administration's fiscal 2001 budget request reflects this.

For about the same price as the excess Blackhawk helicopters and KC-130J tankers included in the House Defense Department spending bill that the Pentagon says it does not need, the Congress could fund grants to support innovative local initiatives and community technology centers for underserved populations.

At the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) we see hundreds of applications vying for very limited federal funds to help finance projects targeting underserved populations. The administration's Technology Opportunities Program grants, Community Technology Centers, and proposals for Connecting American Families with home Internet access to low-income families and Economic Development Administration infrastructure grants to distressed rural and urban areas are programs that support local initiatives. These are not programs that can honestly be characterized as big government.

The information technology revolution is so profound and so promising, the federal government simply cannot play the role as bystander. While it cannot and should not attempt to close the Digital Divide on its own, the government should be a constructive partner.

We should look upon the Digital Divide as an unprecedented opportunity to reverse the historic barriers that have kept the poor, the rural and minorities from being full participants in our economy. Information technology and the telecommunications boom gives us this historic chance that benefit the country as a whole.

GREGORY L. ROHDE

Assistant commerce secretary for communications and information and administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration

LOAD-DATE: July 30, 2000