'Bandwidth Divide' Could Bar Some From Free Online Courses

An anonymous reader writes "The Bandwidth Divide is a form of what economists call the Red Queen effect referring to a scene in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass when Alice races the Red Queen. As the Red Queen tells Alice: 'It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!' Keeping up with digital technology is like that race — it takes a continual investment of money and time just to keep up with the latest, and an exceptional amount of work to get ahead of the pack. 'The question is, What is the new basic?' said one researcher. 'There will always be inequality. But 100 years after the introduction of the car, not everybody has a Ferrari, but everyone has access to some form of motorized transportation through buses.' Well, not everyone, but even fewer people have the online equivalent. Colleges considering MOOCs should remember that."

Comments

Universal Service for Broadband

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it Intereresting and disturbing that in the US we provide "Universal Service" for many old technologies - US Mail, Analog Telephones, and T1s, but we don't even have a discussion about universal broadband.

Re:Internet = Utility

[PopeRatzo]

Wait, you think it was ISPs that pioneered faster connection speeds? They fought it every step of the way because they didn't understand it.

Without the regulations, the big broadband providers would turn the Internet into cable television. They had their chance to create a real worldwide network, and gave us "bundles" of channels where we have to pay for stuff we don't want to protect their revenues. Do you forget how they had to scramble to catch up with the Internet? What the hell do you think they "innovated"?

The big ISPs are a threat to anything like a free market. The last thing they want is competition.