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NGPRDC - Telecommunications
2007-11-04
The Information Superhighway "that is now being built will have enormous impacts, both obvious and subtle. If properly designed and implemented, it can promote widespread prosperity, decentralize power, revitalize democracy, strengthen or even create communities, and make this a better world in which to live. If poorly designed and implemented, it can do just the opposite ...though technology helps shape our choices, the future is a human creation."
-Steven E. Miller Civilizing Cyberspace, 1996
The future is upon us. At this important crossroads, the Northern Great Plains (NGP) has initiated a comprehensive, asset-based set of telecommunications-related recommendations by which its five member states can:
- Create and sustain an NGP presence globally as an important trading region.
- Bring together resources in the five states to help make the region's marketplace more globally competitive.
- Address institutional or regulatory barriers that impact the region's competitiveness.
- Ensure that the region's economic, environmental, social and marketing infrastructure work together to maintain the quality of life that people of the Region expect.
Telecommunications in this Information Age describes the convergence of existing telephone networks with computers and cable networks -- forming a global information superhighway along which voice, text/data, and video images from a wide variety of sources will be transmitted at great speeds, on demand.
Telecommunications is increasingly vital to the ability to compete in a global economy. The decentralized and fast-growing Internet, although not designed for mass communication, gives insight into the potentials of the information superhighway.
"The nature of the means," scientist Thomas Huxley once observed, "...determines the end." Still in its early stages, the predicted Information Superhighway (also called the National Information Infrastructure) offers a means for us to shape an unprecedented and exciting future for the Northern Great Plains region.
The outcome or end is uncertain. The promise, however, is great.
The Information Superhighway has the potential to make our lives easier and more satisfying, even profitable. An advanced telecommunications infrastructure can serve a wide range of human needs. It can bring people together, help them become more productive and sustain or build communities to ensure continuity of the rural way of life. New products and services will be generated; value will be added to existing products and services.
When the anticipated interactive access to video/digital data/voice is indeed available to every business, school and home -- when we can access and exchange the information we want, when and where we want it -- our lives will be radically changed.
What if, for the Northern Great Plains, the promise does not materialize?
Should choices of rural place and quality of life be allowed to penalize our residents? To some extent, they already have.
The isolation of rural businesses, which used to afford some protection from outside competition, is a handicap without the telecommunications access integral to business operations. Not everyone is computer-literate. Many do not have a computer or a modem. Some cannot afford a telephone.
Rural communities already struggle with budget cutbacks, the pressures of competition from outside the community, lack of employment opportunities, changes in agricultural practices, reductions in availability of locally-provided medical, educational and other services, and increasing outmigration of young people.
Stakes are high, and change is uncomfortable. But without equity of access to modern telecommunications services, our rural communities are at risk of becoming ghost towns of the future.
The competitive, profit-driven marketplace enabled by the Telecommunications Act of 1996 includes some safeguards for rural areas, but there are no guarantees.
Between the vision and reality lie many challenging issues -- technical, social, regulatory, commercial, and legal -- that must be worked through.
The desirable future for the Northern Great Plains will happen only if we work together deliberately to create it. We dare not hesitate to inform ourselves and become active participants in this process.
