WASHINGTON-Amid a backdrop of two new studies showing low-income, minority and disabled citizens continue to have less access to computing devices and the Internet than others in society, a broad cross-section of Democratic House members plan to distill pending digital divide bills into one comprehensive piece of legislation next year.
The Clinton administration’s strong push to bridge the digital divide has major implications for wireless technology, which some predict will drive the next generation of the Internet.
“Bridging the massive technology chasm that exists in America is something that demands attention in this session of Congress, as well as in future sessions,” said Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) “It would be shortsighted for the United States to allow the distance between those with access to technology and those without it to grow any farther apart.”
The House plan to combat the digital divide, which has pulled together African American, Hispanic, conservative and moderate Democrats as well as industry, religious and civil rights leaders, combines telecom policy with social objectives.
In some respects, the notion of a digital divide has evolved into a social justice issue that appears destined-perhaps designed-to stand along side housing, employment, health care, education and other issues central to the poor and minorities.
While next year’s digital divide initiative is forward looking, activists have immediate business.
Last month, in a letter to House GOP and Democratic leaders, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights urged members to support Clinton proposals to fund the $50 million Home Internet Access Program (designed to increase Net access among low-income families) and the $45 million Technology Opportunity Program.
TOP provides matching funds to local, nonprofit organizations for innovative telecom and information technology enterprises designed to improve education, public health, public safety and other social services.
The programs would be funded in the Commerce appropriations bill.
The measure has been the subject of controversy for weeks because of immigration provisions sought by congressional Democrats and the White House and because of a foreign-ownership amendment that appeared to be stricken from a companion Senate bill last week.
A new Commerce Department report last week found some progress is being made to bridge the digital divide, particularly on a geographic basis.
“This report shows that our progress is promising, but it also shows that we still have a lot of work to do,” said Commerce Secretary Norman Maneta. “More Americans are accessing computers and the Internet, and are doing so at dramatic rates of growth. Although gaps still remain between some segments of our society, computers and the Internet are becoming more the norm than the exception.”
A less sanguine view of the issue was offered by consumer advocates. A new report by the Consumer Federation of America and Consumers Union said the digital divide persists and is not likely to improve anytime soon.
Of the 1,900 respondents in its survey, the consumer groups said nearly half said they do not have Internet access at home. The disconnected were more apt to be from lower income, older and minority households.
“Once policy makers understand that these vulnerable groups are harmed by their lack of access to technology, they should begin to seek cost-effective avenues to address this deprivation,” said Gene Kimmelman, co-director of Consumers Union office here.
“As it becomes the main avenue of commerce and communications, people not connected to the Internet could become a new category of the disenfranchised,” said Mark Cooper, director of research at the Consumer Federation of America and principle author of the report.
