Wireless Internet Will Be Key To Minority, Low-Income Areas
June 08 2009 - 3:41PM
Dow Jones News
Cellphone companies may have an unexpected ally in a newly
formed coalition of civil rights and minority groups asking federal
regulators to prioritize disadvantaged communities in a national
Internet plan.
The group on Monday echoed repeated statements from wireless
companies like Sprint Nextel Corp. (S) and T-Mobile USA, a unit of
Deutsche Telekom AG (DT), that mobile Internet access is a central
part of any national broadband plan.
Smaller wireless firms including Leap Wireless International
Inc. (LEAP) specialize in marketing wireless services to low-income
and minority communities.
Internet applications for cellphones could be a particular boon
to disadvantaged groups that are reluctant to invest in computers,
members of the newly formed civil rights coalition said during a
conference call.
The coalition believes government should go beyond the $7.2
billion it has set aside for broadband deployment and provide
additional aid to people who can't afford to wire up or don't
understand why they should.
"There is a profound lack of awareness in minority communities
of what broadband is," said Janet Murguia, president of the
hispanic advocacy group National Council of La Raza, or NCLR.
"Forty percent of broadband nonadopters are from communities of
color."
NCLR is partnering with the National Urban League, the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Asian
American Justice Center, and the Minority Media &
Telecommunications Council, among others, to urge regulators to
make minority communities and minority-owned businesses a priority
in its broadband plan.
The Minority Media & Telecommunications Council successfully
lobbied regulators earlier this year to ensure that minority-owned
businesses would be able to access broadband economic stimulus
funds.
In comments to the Federal Communications Commission, MMTC said
regulators should ensure that "diversity in contracting and
employment and service becomes a priority," said David Honig, the
council's executive director.
Cellphones could hold one of the keys to connecting
disadvantaged communities, said Rey Ramsey, chief executive of One
Economy, a nonprofit Internet deployment group. One Economy also is
a member of the civil rights broadband coalition.
Ramsey said culture-specific cellphone applications could help
non-English speakers learn English or communicate with a doctor
while on a bus to their workplaces.
More cellphone Internet options also could boost earnings for
lower income people, according to Mobile Future, a group of
companies and nonprofits advocating for growth in wireless
services.
"Prepaid wireless users - who are typically lower-income and
more likely to be self-employed - are almost twice as likely to
credit their mobile phones with increasing their earning power,"
Mobile Future said in separate comments to the FCC.
Mobile Future lists AT&T Inc. (T) and Cisco Systems Inc.
(CSCO) among its members.
The FCC is collecting thousands of comments from industry, state
and local governments, and nonprofits about the national broadband
plan it will craft over the next eight months. Many comments focus
on how the FCC should regulate (or not) new Internet connections in
hard-to-reach areas.
Telecom giants like AT&T, Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ),
and Comcast Corp. (CMCSA) are emphasizing the massive investments
from private sector in offering Internet to the nation, but they
all agree more needs to be done.
Verizon said pointedly in its written comments that "intrusive
new regulations" would stifle sustained private-sector investments
in the future. Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen said in
a recent blog that he hopes the FCC will "avoid the extreme in
favor of the practical."
But Internet advocacy groups like the Media Access Project and
Free Press say the FCC should require open access to
government-funded Internet networks.
Free Press went so far as to say that "the private market does
not care about the public need for robust broadband
infrastructure," asserting that large carriers want to squelch
openness and other rules so they can "squeeze out higher
revenues."
By contrast, the Free State Foundation, a free-market think
tank, called for "built-in flexibility" for private-sector
providers. FSF President Randolph May said "rigid goals, production
quotas, input costs, output prices, and the like" are akin to
Soviet-era planning.
-By Fawn Johnson, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-9263;
fawn.johnson@dowjones.com