May 18, 2000 | Read Time: 5 minutes
By JEFFREY CHESTER and GARY O. LARSON
Non-profit organizations, like almost all other segments of American society, are understandably excited about the opportunities that online communications afford. Indeed, the Internet is already transforming all aspects of charitable practice, from enlisting volunteers to forming new partnerships between non-profit and for-profit organizations.
Yet for all the good news associated with the Internet, troubling questions remain. While many charities and foundations have begun to focus on the “digital divide” — the lack of computer access and content for the poor and for minority groups — very few have paid attention to an issue with equally significant consequences.
A battle is now being fought over the future of “broadband” — the high-speed cable and phone-line connections that will soon become the standard means by which most Americans reach the Internet. The broadband revolution, now in its infancy, represents one of those “communications crossroads” that we reach periodically, not unlike the advent of telephony, radio, television, cable, and the Internet itself.
More often than not, the non-profit world and the public-interest values it embodies have lagged in the deployment of new communications systems, as commercial interests led the way.
No doubt that will be our experience with broadband too, with various new forms of e-commerce and interactive television defining the new communications system. But with a little organized effort by foundations and other non-profit organizations, there is still time to make certain that the public interest is accommodated in the new broadband networks.
Without question, those new networks have the potential to create a much more diverse, democratic media system, fostering the kind of “electronic civic sector” that has proved so elusive in an increasingly market-driven system. But for all of the promise of broadband networks to serve our democracy, they come with absolutely no guarantees. In the absence of the necessary public policies to ensure open network access and to foster noncommercial content, the broadband platform will simply become another extension of the existing mass media, designed primarily to sell rather than to serve.
Enjoying an 80-percent share of the existing broadband market, and with access to two-thirds of the nation’s households, cable appears likely to dominate high-speed Internet service over the next several years. The danger that cable’s reign poses to the diversity and democracy of the Internet is quite simple: Unlike their telephone-company counterparts, cable operators are not required to share their networks with competitive Internet service providers.
It would not be surprising, then, if cable operators decide to exclude the vast majority of the nation’s 6,000-plus Internet service providers from their new high-speed networks. Consumer choice will be limited accordingly, and, equally important, the many community networks and other organizations that provide a vital public service will be hard pressed to survive.
In addition, the underlying architecture of the new networks will make possible tiered levels of service, priced accordingly. Informational and editorial content owned by or affiliated with the cable operator is likely to receive preferential treatment, while other material is relegated to the slower lanes. Non-profit and community-based organizations will be especially challenged, as businesses and other organizations that can afford to pay for premium service will thrive.
The same constraints that now affect other mass-media-delivery systems, including film, broadcast, and publishing, will now effectively limit the Internet, creating distribution bottlenecks in a system in which all manner of material once flowed freely.
And it’s not just the senders of the information who will have to pay. Americans will probably face higher charges (or endure longer waits) to gain access to information that isn’t distributed by groups affiliated with cable companies. All users, to greater or lesser degrees, will suffer in this situation, as vital news and information will be reduced to commodity status in a vast data marketplace.
Fortunately, there is still time to influence the broadband revolution, but foundations and other non-profit groups must move now to make their views known. Among the steps that non-profit organizations can take:
First, the Federal Communications Commission must be prevailed upon to consider making a formal ruling on the broadband-access issue. That will give all parties in the debate an opportunity to clarify their goals and strategies for the broadband era, wresting the future of the medium from the realm of press releases and placing it squarely in the arena of public policy, where it belongs.
Non-profit organizations need to weigh in on this issue, and to insist that the “public interest, convenience, and necessity,” long the forgotten standard governing the electronic media, be much more vigorously applied to the broadband context.
Second, non-profit organizations should make their presence felt as hundreds of local franchise authorities review cable-system transfers and renewals in the coming months. A handful of municipalities have already succeeded in establishing open-access requirements, while other communities have won important concessions in support of noncommercial facilities and programming. Non-profit groups must demonstrate the role that local high-speed networks can play in their work, and build such systems into local franchise agreements.
Indeed, given the rapid commercialization of the World Wide Web, and the impending convergence of broadcast and online technologies, it is all the more important that non-profit groups act now to foster an environment in which all forms of civic, educational, and cultural expression can flourish.
Foundations can play a role in this regard, too, by undertaking projects that educate the public about the nature of the emerging broadband landscape; by supporting civic, educational, and cultural uses of the new media; and by monitoring the installation of broadband networks in their own communities to ensure that the public interest is represented.
With the requisite public-interest ground rules in place, the new broadband networks could bring a vast array of new programming into the home, at once extending the reach of the Internet (which currently serves only a third of the nation’s households) and enhancing its content (much of which is currently constrained by the bandwidth limitations of dial-up modems). In the process, foundations and their grantees, no longer solely at the mercy of the mass media for coverage, will have an important new platform of their own from which to express views, exchange ideas, publicize their work, and continue to do what they do best touching the lives of millions.
Jeffrey Chester is executive director of the Center for Media Education, in Washington. Gary O. Larson is a consultant to the center.
