There are lots of people out there who are being left out of the VoIP revolution. Yes, they’re tempted by the television commercials that bombard them with information about how they too, can make cheap phone calls. The ubiquitous Magic Jack commercials temp people with promises of “no more monthly phone bills!” And it’s true, this product and others like it make it cheap to call, and it works well.
But, not everyone can take advantage of these marvelous VoIP tools. You need broadband Internet access before you can use VoIP. And granted, a lot more people have broadband today than ever before, but we people who have it, tend to take it for granted and assume that everybody else also has it. But sadly, this is not the case.
The United States’ “National Broadband Plan” has as is ambitious goal to deliver broadband to everyone in the country, but the FCC reported this month that still, between 14 and 24 million Americans still do not have access to broadband. It’s not because they don’t want it—it’s because they live in areas that just don’t have it available. We people that live in cities tend to forget—but there are parts of the country with low population densities, and it’s expensive for carriers to bring broadband to these areas.
The statistic is particularly surprising, since the FCC had made a much rosier assessment in prior years, based mainly on an inaccurate definition of what broadband really is. Previously, the FCC had defined it as a laughable 200Kbps downstream—hardly enough to run any meaningful applications, VoIP or otherwise. Now, the latest FCC report defines broadband more realistically as 4Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream.
Broadband everywhere may not be as far off as we think, however. Some Western European countries already have national plans to deliver broadband everywhere, and an additional $800 million in broadband grants and loans were released as part of the stimulus plan this month. In announcing the funding, the President said, “Once we emerge from the immediate crisis, the long-term economic gains to communities that have been left behind in the digital age will be immeasurable.” And on that point, the President is right on the money—whereas much of the stimulus spending has been controversial and the benefits questionable—there is no denying that spending on tech and broadband will have a positive economic impact.
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