[Home]
[Themes]
[Comments]
[Date Prev] [Date Next] [By Date] [By Thread] [Top]
- - E-Mail for All - - - EMFA-EVENT - - - Universal Access - - Universal E-mail - Responses to Safdar Essay #1 (Primarily) 1. Ronald A. Isaacson, Maryland, US 2. Gerald England, Hyde, Cheshire, UK 3. Tom Abeles, Minnesota, US Access the original Universal E-mail Essay 1 (T1E1) from: http://www.iaginteractive.com/emfa/uac-archive.htm -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- [1] From: "Ronald A. Isaacson" <isaacson@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu> Subject: Response/Comments T1E1 First, much of the issue of Universal E-Mail Access has to do with access - access to the computer hardware, access to the network (both the local exchange network and the internet), etc. Assuming those externalities are resolvable, we beg the question, "Do all citizens require access to every form of communication all the time?" The answer is no. A certain portion of humanity simply *chooses* to not be connected to everything. I have not yet convinced my grandparents (aged 88 and 89) that they need an e-mail account. They can afford a computer, and could even figure out how to use it... eventually... Some people choose not to make these purchases because they see no need -- "I can just as easily pick up the phone and call," they will probably say. A couple of Mr. Safdar's assumptions bothered me. "The market had created... an advertising revenue-driven free service that a lot of people really, really needed." E-mail is not like a telephone line. We can't pick up the e-mail and dial 911, nor will e-mail keep people warm on a frigid night in mid-February, nor will it keep the food in the 'fridge from spoiling. E-mail is not a basic requirement for living, it is a neat, new feature available through the 'blessings' (for lack of a better term) of new-age technology. These types of communications services available via e-mail are also available via regular mail and over the telephone. E-mail is like Cable-TV -- it is nice to have, but it is not a NECESSITY. Also, although free e-mail might seem free, it is not, in truth, free. This point deals less with Telecommunication, specifically, and more with life in general. Although there is no direct charge for e-mail, accessing it is not free. The computer is not free, the telephone lines connecting to the computer in the home/office/school are certainly not free and the network connecting the telephone lines to the server are not free. Access has certain costs, and someone, somewhere will be paying them. Also, as I got to thinking about Mr. Safdar's first of 3 Factors That Might End Free EMail Services, The true question in #1 (Tariffing on Telephone Calls to ISPs) is the age-old debate fought a number of times at the FCC and state PSCs over whether the ISPs are to be carriers or end- users: If the ISPs want to be considered as carriers (info-conduits, not responsible for content, etc.) then there are certain responsibilities inherent to being carriers; If the ISPs want to be end-users, then so be it; but we can't have it both ways... The other problem with making any sort of change in the access charge arrangements is that to do so would be perceived as another grand "bait-and-switch" scheme -- get 'em hooked on one access arrangement and then sock 'em. The current perception out there in customer land is that because marginal costs of service are -0-, the true costs of the service (after the ISP's hardware are purchased is -0-. As for Mr. Safdar's taxi meter analogy, the answer is that some people will quit the system, making it easier for those who stay to use a system that is not running at capacity, and those that stay will use it more efficiently. #3 People will deal with spam like they deal with telemarketing #calls at dinnertime -- most people will just put up with it, and those really bothered will push for "unlisted e-mail addresses," as is done with telephone numbers. _________________________________________________________________ Ronald Allan Isaacson 3013539153 Home Phone - - - - - 3019069600 Cell Phone 12481 Walnut Cove Cir 3019720142 HomeFAX/Modem - isaacson@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu Germantown, MD 20874 Represent Myself as recent Graduate of Geo Washington USA University's Graduate Telecommunication Program. _________________________________________________________________ -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- [2] From: "Gerald England" <newhope@iname.com> Subject: Re: EMFA: T1E1 - Free E-mail Services, Future Factors - Safdar > Theme: Universal E-mail - Essay 1 > Author: Shabbir J. Safdar > E-mail: shabbir@mindshare.net > He writes > But the campaign also posed an interesting dilemma. If you > strip away the issues of universal Internet access and > telephone service and assume the focus of the campaign is just > to ensure everyone has email once they have net access, the > problem appears to be solved. This shouldn't be taken to > diminish the importance of Universal Service and the dilemna of > the fact that tens of millions of Americans still don't have > simple dialup Internet accounts, or the luxury of the funds to > even pay for even increasingly cheap computers. But to a > certain extent, the narrow focus of this campaign seems to be > about continuing these free services, not creating them. This view seems to be based on a purely American viewpoint. The USA is only a small part of the Universe These questions should not be narrowed down nationalistic blinkers. He continues > In the last few years concern over high usage of the phone > system by Internet users has resulted in suggestions that calls > to Internet providers should carry a "per minute" charge to > account for the higher usage in traffic. However it's likely > that implementing such a system would drive people to spend far > less time online, dampening the potential market for free email > systems that thrive on lots of eyeballs seeing lots of ads. Ask > yourself, how much time would you spend sending and reading > email if there was the equivalent of a taxi meter running? > For the countless many of us outside the USA we are very conscious of the taxi meter running when we sending and receiving emails. It is not so much the cost of having an ISP account but the cost of the telephone connection. Here local calls are not free and so we restrict our access to those times of the day and week when call-rates are cheapest. Gerald England newhope@iname.com http://www.nhi.clara.net/gehome.htm Hyde, Cheshire, UK -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- [3] From: tom abeles <tabeles@tmn.com> Subject: Re: EMFA: T1E1 - Free E-mail Services, Future Factors - Safdar Shabbir Safdar has hit the nail on the head. There is a "dark side" to EMFA which has either been astutely avoided or not thoroughly explored. I suspect that this is, in part, due to the fact that as long as EMFA is on a roll, there is a fear that a hiccup might be fatal. The spam issue so eloquently stated by Shabbir is only a start of a flood. The commercial sector is so well entrained and funded that once the pipes are connected, not just with email, but webtv or a similar cheap internet box that, like tv and other media, the consumer mentality will be expanded to even the deepest, darkest corners, globally. And, potentially, rather than community building, it will take on a Brave New World flavor of isolati, as the consumer world does, where a person's identity is tied to what they consume Connectivity, like any technology, is a reflection of our culture and offers no hope that it would change the direction or sense that is being encouraged by other global issues such as the MAI and similar homogenization patterns which, like a monoculture in agriculture, make us extremely susceptible to a single vision. Stephenson's prescient novel, Snow Crash, is a foreshadowing of this potential as are the writings of Sterling and Gibson Does connectivity build community? Sprint would like us to believe this here in the US as would all the other long distance purveyors of connectivity- just reach out and touch someone. One might study the current efforts in this arena and ask yourself what does this mean with regards to building community or affecting democracy and all the other hopes. Perhaps we should look at what is happening with the Grameen Bank's program of issuing cell phones in rural villages in Bangladesh Some of us remember when nuclear power was going to be so cheap that we would not have to meter it. Technology, as Rothenberg's book, Hands End, so elequently proves, is just an extension of ourselves, at all levels. Focusing on the technology is a way of avoiding the "hard" questions. David Galernter has written 1939:The Lost World of the Fair. he cogently shows that by the end of WWII, all the technological hopes and dreams predicted by the visions of that Fair were realized; and, had the world changed? We still have time to ask the "hard" questions! cheers Tom P. Abeles, Ph.D., Resident Futurist Sagacity, Inc* 3704 11th Ave South Minneapolis, MN 55407 phn 612 823 3154 fax 612 825 6865 tabeles@tmn.com *Sagacity, Inc has consulted for over 25 years to public and private sector clients on socially and environmentally responsible technologies, service, and products, globally. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Markle Foundation's E-Mail for All Universal Access Event WWW/Un/Subscribe Info: http://www.iaginteractive.com/emfa EMFA-EVENT posts may be forwarded via e-mail, for details on other uses or for general comments: emfa@publicus.net - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -