'Bandwidth Divide' Could Bar Some From Free Online Courses 222
An anonymous reader writes "The Bandwidth Divide is a form of what economists call the Red Queen effect referring to a scene in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass when Alice races the Red Queen. As the Red Queen tells Alice: 'It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!' Keeping up with digital technology is like that race — it takes a continual investment of money and time just to keep up with the latest, and an exceptional amount of work to get ahead of the pack. 'The question is, What is the new basic?' said one researcher. 'There will always be inequality. But 100 years after the introduction of the car, not everybody has a Ferrari, but everyone has access to some form of motorized transportation through buses.' Well, not everyone, but even fewer people have the online equivalent. Colleges considering MOOCs should remember that."
Universal Service for Broadband (Score:5, Interesting)
I find it Intereresting and disturbing that in the US we provide "Universal Service" for many old technologies - US Mail, Analog Telephones, and T1s, but we don't even have a discussion about universal broadband.
Re:Universal Service for Broadband (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Internet = Utility (Score:5, Interesting)
Wait, you think it was ISPs that pioneered faster connection speeds? They fought it every step of the way because they didn't understand it.
Without the regulations, the big broadband providers would turn the Internet into cable television. They had their chance to create a real worldwide network, and gave us "bundles" of channels where we have to pay for stuff we don't want to protect their revenues. Do you forget how they had to scramble to catch up with the Internet? What the hell do you think they "innovated"?
The big ISPs are a threat to anything like a free market. The last thing they want is competition.
I've encountered this (Score:5, Interesting)
I've taught courses online for a regional university in Appalachia and had to design the courses specifically with bandwidth limitations in mind. Of the students who had home internet access, some were limited to dial-up or very slow DSL. Many students rely on internet access at public libraries and thus I had to create materials they could bring home for study. I could never assume constant access on the student's part. I made heavy use of public-domain sources as primary texts (I'm a historian), knowing these could be readily transferred to any machine, even a cell phone if necessary (of course, cell phone access can kind of suck out here too).
Courses can still be taught under these conditions, but a teacher cannot use multimedia as a crutch and must focus instead on course structure, careful selection of readings, and heavy use of lower bandwidth tools like message boards. I made any multimedia material optional and supplementary.
The question of technology, however, is not the chief problem with online courses in these circumstances. The chief problem is that the courses themselves are being used to advance the notion that education is a series of hoops, the easier to jump through the better. They're an administrator's dream. More degrees generated at lower cost.
Re:Internet = Utility (Score:5, Interesting)
If they're going to benefit from running wires on public land, or using public spectrum, then they need to become a public utility.
The joke is that the regulated parts of the telco industry are now pushing as aggressively as possible to switch their entire infrastrucute over to internet protocols so that they aren't regulated anymore.
AT&T recently made a FCC submission requesting that they not have to continue supporting their switched telephone network (TDM).
Here's all the responses for and against [fcc.gov]
They'll still be using wires on public land and providing phone service over *copper wires, just not under the auspices of "legacy" FCC regulations.
I.E. if AT&T gets their way, they'd no longer have a legal obligation to continue wired phone service to the middle of Montana or even the poor part of town.
*only a fraction of U-Verse customers have fiber to the home
Closed on weekends (Score:4, Interesting)
Cause for "divide" (Score:4, Interesting)
This is so far down the page that likely no one will see it but I am posting for the record.
From Pew ...
In April of 2009, 7% of American adults age 18+ used dial-up internet at home. (As of April 2012, this number is 3%) These are the reasons they gave for not switching to broadband.
Price must fall -- 35%
Nothing would get me to switch -- 20%
Don't know -- 16%
It would have to become available where I live -- 17%
Other -- 13%
http://pewinternet.org/Commentary/2012/May/Pew-Internet-Broadband.aspx [pewinternet.org]
So, in this survey, only 17% of 3% said that high speed internet was unavailable.