Musings from the NII Frontier
The information revolution has come in from the Cold War and the world
isn't the same anymore. A two-decade-old effort to link mainframe
computers for use by defense researchers has blossomed into everyman's
Internet--a global information system composed of millions of computers
and communications links that is doubling in size each year.
Reinforcing the law of unanticipated consequences, the network
genie set loose by the Defense Department now serves the most
unenfranchised of our citizens through dozens of Freenets as well as it
does the executive suites of our largest enterprises, with their
multimillion-dollar corporate networks.
Capturing the creative energies of talented designers and
programmers in software that executes millions of times a second on $50
microprocessors, we have devised a system for multiplying human
intelligence of far greater potential effect than any part of the
industrial revolution did.
In the ultimate paradigm shift, the mountain has come to Mohammed,
with immense and continuing impact on the organization of work and the
structure of society. As human muscle is displaced by code captured in
silicon, the value of an honest day's labor fades.
We now approach the zone of maximum confusion, as though perched
midway between Earth and Moon, pulled equally by the forces of the past
and the forces of the future, and in an ether without fixed points of
reference.
Nowhere does the information revolution fall with greater force
than in the academic community. Knowledge is our business. Education and
research are our missions. The steeples of our excellence, the Valhalla
of networking whence came the Internet, are unsurpassed, it is said.
Unnerved though we may be by possibilities and potentials, each day
brings another challenge in building the information infrastructure.
There are decisions to be made, and guidance to be provided. Money to be
found, and budgets to be approved. Partnerships to be formed, and
investments to be promoted.
NII and Higher Education
Higher education has been deeply involved in development of the national
network for many years as designers, developers, providers, and users.
In 1988, the Educom networking task force published a paper proposing
policy goals for the network in the areas of open access, financing,
research and development, and management structure. Many of these
principles were incorporated into the legislation introduced by then
Senator Gore, which became Public Law 102-194--the High-Performance
Computing Act of 1991--and mandated creation of the National Research
and Education Network.
Reflecting the growing expectations of what an advanced computing
and communications network infrastructure might accomplish, Educom
revised its own policy statement in 1992 to set forth a list of goals
for the National Information Infrastructure (NII) that go beyond the
traditional functional and geographic limits of research and education
to include the essential characteristics of a network capable of serving
the communications needs of everyone. (See box below).
(Boxed text) National Information Infrastructure Goals-- Educom, 9/92
* Ubiquitous, with universal accessibility for homes, businesses,
and public sector organizations,
* Digital and broadband, able to support a wide range of integrated
voice, video and data applications,
* Based on openly developed, interoperable standards,
* Containing adequate protections for individual rights,
* Market driven, with products and services primarily from the
private sector.
Higher education is also strongly supporting new legislation--the
National Information Infrastructure Act--which is expected to win
passage in this session of Congress. (See Robert G. Gillespie's article
in this issue.)
Government Role in NII
During the past year, the White House has adopted an expansive vision of
the NII, moving far beyond the limited program of the previous
administration. Building on the NII Agenda for Action, released in
September 1993 by the NII Task Force, Vice President Gore recently
described five major principles the federal government will follow in
developing the NII. (See box below.)
(Boxed text) Principles for Development of NII-- Vice President Gore, 12/93
* Encourage private investment
* Provide and protect competition
* Provide open access to the network
* Avoid creating information "haves" and "have-nots"
* Encourage flexible and responsive government action
The newly defined principles attempt to balance a number of
competing forces--economic, political, and technological--that bear on
the creation of an advanced computer and communications infrastructure
for the country. These include limits on federal funding of the NII,
economic restructuring of the communications industry, more reliance by
government on market mechanisms to meet public policy objectives, and
rapid convergence of the technologies underlying voice, video, and data
communications systems.
Despite the activist stance of the White House, debate continues on
the proper role for government in the design and deployment of the NII.
In part, the debate hinges on ideological differences over what the NII
is and what purposes it should serve. Conservatives tend to see the NII
as a technology-driven system that will be created by incremental
enhancement of the nation's existing, largely private-sector,
communications facilities. Liberals are more likely to view the NII as a
major shift in the public-private balance in communications and an
opportunity to redress some of the social failures of television and
telecommunications.
Since the core process at work in the NII is technological
innovation, most participants in policy debates agree that the primary
government role in that process should focus on three areas: sponsoring
basic research and precommercial development, facilitating the creation
of a competitive marketplace for NII products and services, and putting
the NII to work in government's own programs. Because the growth of the
NII will affect an important public good, namely, electronic
communications, the activities associated with markets and competition
must include the measures necessary to ensure that all citizens have
reasonable and affordable access to the NII.
NII Organization
A preliminary organization for the NII initiative has been put into
place. (See NII organization chart, pages 34-35.) Creation of the NII
Task Force and the NII's internal committees and external advisory
council are occurring at the same time as the White House is pursuing a
major overhaul of its top-level policy structures. In particular, a
baroque and ineffective science policy apparatus has been replaced by a
National Science and Technology Council, chaired by the president
himself. Major research and development components of the NII will be
the responsibility of that council and its committees.
Primary responsibility for coordination of NII work has been
assigned to the Commerce Department and its National Telecommunications
and Information Administration. Committees and working groups have been
established in three major areas: Telecommunications Policy, Information
Policy, and Applications and Technology.
In contrast to previous federal outreach efforts, the NII Task
Force intends to use the Internet as its primary communications means
and for that purpose has already established an Internet domain and
server, which are freely accessible to all users of the network
(NII@ntia.doc.gov).
Internet Impact on the NII
The Internet is having a large impact on planning for the NII. Users of
Internet, estimated at more than 30 million, now constitute a worldwide
critical mass of intellectual capability that poses a formidable
obstacle to any future efforts to impose proprietary systems of the type
that used to be customary in government-regulated television and
telecommunications industries. Internet's distributed architecture and
open design standards make it a magnet for new technical innovations,
which appear to spring up everywhere and are rapidly adopted throughout
the network, frequently through freeware or shareware mechanisms. Many,
if not most, of the designers of the NII are already Internet users,
which increases the likelihood that Internet's core design principles
will be used in the NII.
Not only will the Internet be the primary communications means for
NII developers, but also it will furnish many of the test-bed
opportunities and facilities for NII technology, ranging from gigabit
transmission trials to digital library and multimedia database projects,
to interoperability tests among the wide range of current and future
network components.
Major NII Public Policy Issues
Universal Service. A large number of NII policy issues are clustered
under the heading of universal service. In 1934, the Communications Act
established the principle that telephones should be accessible to
everyone in the United States and created the expectation that telephone
service providers--principally the monopolistic Bell System and its
state and federal regulators--would engineer facilities and adjust
tariffs to reach the goal of universal service.
Sixty years later, more than 90 percent of U.S. households do have
telephones, but much of the structure of the telecommunications industry
has changed dramatically because of advances in computer and
communications technology, and a great deal more change will take place
in the next decade as broadband systems capable of carrying voice,
video, and data traffic are installed throughout the country.
The Clinton Administration has proposed that the primary mechanism
for bringing the benefits of the NII to the nation will be open
competition and investment by a deregulated telecommunications industry.
That position has been widely endorsed by members of Congress and by
industry groups. Much of the necessary investment has already begun.
The administration's NII white paper also proposes new and expanded
support for the principle of universal service in connection with the
creation of an NII. However, the major changes in technical architecture
and the economics of telecommunications between the analog voice
telephone system that existed when the 1934 act was written and the
complex, broadband digital multimedia system that will underpin the NII
will require careful analysis of what universal service should mean in
an information age society. Equally as important are the transition
arrangements for the possibly lengthy period during which the old
systems and technology are replaced by new.
In the old system, two individuals were connected by a wire and
could talk to one another. In the new system, computers at the periphery
of the network will exchange high-speed digital bits with each other,
some of which may be voice traffic, some of which may be data from
applications running on workstations and PCs, and some of which may be
images from televison or other video sources. In addition to the
technical differences, the old system (before Bell System divestiture)
required the telephone company to own everything and be responsible for
everything--right up to the voice handset. In the competitive, digital
world of the future, pieces of the system will be supplied by different
companies, and ownership will be diffused.
The new approach to universal service must deal not only with the
challenges of digital technology and competitive delivery of services
but also with reform of the complex array of subsidies that has
accumulated in the old system for several generations of voice
telephony. Recent studies have revealed that most subsidy payments made
by telephone companies today go to benefit middle-class homeowners who
have no demonstrated financial need for the assistance.
Although no consensus has yet emerged on universal service for the
NII, several principles have been proposed for discussion and debate.
* The focus of the new universal service system should be on
empowering individuals to participate effectively in a technology-based,
information-oriented society.
* All providers of NII transmission services, whether voice, data,
video, or a broadband combination, should contribute to a universal
service fund.
* The universal service system should be administered by an
impartial third-party mechanism capable of efficient handling of
subsidies for clearly defined and targeted populations of users.
Revisions to the existing system of universal voice service will
undoubtedly be made in this Congress, although the exact details are
uncertain. The administration's white paper proposes that the Federal
Communications Commission and the states be directed to work jointly
toward a new definition and a new system of universal service.
Privacy. During the past fifteen years, Congress has passed several
measures establishing the ground rules for use of electronic information
about individuals. In general, the United States has lagged behind other
countries in protecting privacy in electronic systems. The NII will
carry vastly more electronic information about individuals than in the
past, and it will carry it under technical circumstances that make it
easy and inexpensive to compile comprehensive profiles of the everyday
activities of millions of citizens. The potential for abuse of such
electronic data on individuals by commercial firms, by governments, and
by other individuals is growing rapidly.
The privacy issue, complex in its own right, is further complicated
by a struggle between law enforcement and national security agencies on
one side and a number of civil rights and industrial groups on the other
side over the issue of access to strong cryptographic hardware and
software. The balance between citizen rights and national security
requirements, which was tilted toward national security during the Cold
War, is being redefined.
In its current session, Congress will be considering a number of
bills on various aspects of privacy. The outcome is uncertain.
Intellectual Property. The patent and copyright provisions of the
U.S. Constitution and subsequent federal statutes and case law give a
limited intellectual property right to citizens. Copyright protects the
expression of an idea, which traditionally has meant a printed book or
article. In an electronic world, protection takes on new dimensions and
raises many issues. In addition to the problem of outright theft of an
author's work through unauthorized network distribution, there is the
problem of the changing economic structure of publishing in an
electronic world. Many of the traditional middleman functions of
publishing are of lesser or no value in an electronic environment. To
add further complication to the mix, the library and education
communities are anxious to preserve the fair use provisions of copyright
law and to redefine "fair use"--as it applies to electronic publication-
-in a way that meets the needs of the academic community and of ordinary
citizens, for whom the public library--a uniquely American tradition--is
an important resource.
Congress appears unlikely to take up copyright revision in this
session.
Michael M. Roberts is vice president of Educom.