« Dewey Defeats Truman | Main | In Tunisia, The Sound of Enforced Silence »
January 5, 2006
Helping Latinos Bridge the Digital Divide Through Sensible Policymaking
Yesterday's Miami Herald featured an excellent op/ed by Hector Flores of the League of United Latin America Citizens offering a Latino policy perspective on the digital divide. "In 2006, Congress will set out to rewrite the nation's telecommunications laws," Flores notes. "And if federal lawmakers get it right, Hispanic Americans, and consumers generally, could have much to celebrate. But if lawmakers misfire, the digital divide could explode into a digital abyss."
Flores laments the state of telecom regulation, saying that current rules make it too hard for qualified companies to offer local telecom services and provide much-needed competition. "'Mother, may I' is truly bad policy in this technologically dynamic era," he says. Flores also suggests that companies seeking to compete in the voice-data realm should be required to contribute to the Universal Service Fund, the federal fund that makes the E-Rate program a reality, subsidizing Internet access for schools and libraries. Meanwhile, as companies move forward with deploying broadband and video services, they must address the growing content divide - a divide that's painfully clear to anyone who wants to go online but doesn't speak English.
"For Hispanics the stakes are especially significant because only one in eight are experiencing the digital fast lane known as broadband," Flores adds. "And study after study shows that broadband usage is a predictor of educational advancement and educational attainment."
"We all stand to benefit most from the innovative services and lower prices that competition will bring," he concludes. "Yet, we want the big telephone and cable companies to duke it out for our business -- for everyone's business. That is not too much to ask as the fastest growing demographic of Internet users."
It's heartening to see a prominent leader from the Latino community expressing concerns about the digital divide in a major media outlet. We've spent too much of the last five years retreating into our various communities of interest, spending less and less time working across ethnic, political and sector lines on crafting a common vision for bridging the divide. The Latino community, among other groups, is in an excellent position to mobilize faith-based organizations to get involved in digital divide policymaking. Years of experience have made it clear that no one sector - the private sector, government, civil society - can bridge the digital divide on their own. Just because all of middle class America is online doesn't mean we've bridged the digital divide. There's still lots of work to do, and I'm glad to see Mr. Flores and his colleagues at LULAC are taking up the challenge. -andy
Posted by acarvin at January 5, 2006 3:12 PM
Listen to a computer-generated podcast of this article
