According to the O.E.C.D., a Paris-based governmental research organization, the U.S. ranks 11th in the world in broadband communications behind Korea, Singapore, Japan, Canada and Norway to name but a few.
Broadband today is as important as the waterways, railroads and interstate highways of an earlier era. Cities of the future will decidedly have 24/7, broadband telecommunications in place; wired and wireless infrastructures connecting every home, school and office -- and through the World Wide Web -- to every organization or institution worldwide. In less than a decade, the great global network of computer networks called the Internet has blossomed from an arcane tool used by academics and government researchers into a worldwide mass communications medium, now poised to become the leading carrier of all communications and financial transactions affecting life and work in the 21st century.
Quite obviously the Philadelphia plan collided with commercial interests including the local phone company. The telco and cable interests have now joined hands to make sure no other city in Pennsylvania gets as creative. As dozens of cities and towns have either begun or announced similar ambitions, these competing interests have intensified a national campaign to quash municipal wireless initiatives like Philadelphia's.
Other cites across he country are developing plans to be so-called "connected communities," or as California called them almost a decade ago, "smart communities." In the wake of globalization there is a new urgency. Within the last two years, for example, America began to see the outlines of yet another out-migration of American jobs. Unlike the earlier shift of manufacturing jobs to less-developed East Asian countries, the loss of the latest round of high-tech software and service jobs will have dramatic -- some say devastating -- impacts on America's economic wealth and well-being. It is clear that the pervasive worldwide spread of the Internet, digitization and the availability of white-collar skills abroad mean huge cost savings for global corporations. Consequently, this shift of high-tech service jobs will be a permanent feature of economic life in the 21st century.
Those communities placing a premium on cultural and ethnic diversity, developing their own aggressive broadband strategies, and reinventing their educational systems for the creative age, will likely burst with innovation and entrepreneurial fervor. These are the ingredients so essential to developing and attracting the type of bright and creative people that generate new patents and inventions, innovative world-class products and services and the finance and marketing plans to support them. Nothing less will ensure America's dominant economic, social and political position in the 21st century.
If ever there was a time for federal action, it is now. The Bush Administration must act swiftly and decisively. The Congress and the new chairman of the FCC must likewise follow suit to ensure that America has the infrastructure of the 21st century, and that our cities once again are allowed to retool so that all our citizens get connected.
