[CAnet - news] US prosperity at risk; Gigabit networks should be national priority

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http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-04/ioea-iwp040805.php

Public release date: 11-Apr-2005

Contact: Chris McManes
[email protected]
IEEE-USA-Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

IEEE-USA white paper: US prosperity at risk; Gigabit networks should be
national priority

The United States should deploy widespread wired and wireless gigabit
networks as a national priority, according to a white paper from the
IEEE-USA Committee on Communications and Information Policy (CCIP).

"Providing Ubiquitous Gigabit Networks in the United States," issued 14
March, says that our nation must act promptly to ensure that a new
generation of broadband networks - of gigabit per second speed - is
ubiquitous and available to all. Failure to act will "relegate the U.S.
telecommunications infrastructure to an inferior competitive position" and
undermine the future of the U.S. economy.

"Priority deployment of gigabit networks is essential for the United States
to maintain its world leadership in the knowledge economy," IEEE Life Fellow
and IEEE-USA CCIP member Dr. John Richardson said. "Information drives our
lives and our prosperity. The problem is that current networks aren't fast
enough to distribute that information properly."

Digital data rates, or speeds, are typically expressed as megabits per
second (Mb/s) or gigabits per second (Gb/s). A megabit is one million bits;
a gigabit is one billion bits. Current broadband networks, such as DSL or
cable modems, have an asymmetric speed of about 2 Mb/s. Gigabit networks are
capable of digital rates 50 to 5,000 times as fast, with equal upstream and
downstream speed. Symmetric speed means information can be downloaded and
uploaded at the same rate. With asymmetric systems, upstream speeds lag
behind downstream delivery rates.

Omnipresent U.S. gigabit networks, readily achievable by deploying optical
fiber and high-speed wireless, would carry numerous benefits. These include
providing the U.S. economy with superior ability to compete globally;
stimulating economic activity in digital home entertainment; enhancing
online education and training; and facilitating health care remote diagnosis
and consultation (telemedicine).

Congress, the Executive Branch and private-sector initiatives could secure
these benefits for our nation's global competitiveness and quality of life
by adopting "principles leading to ubiquitous, symmetric gigabit
availability as a national priority," according to the CCIP white paper
(http://www.ieeeusa.org/volunteers/committees/ccip/docs/Gigabit-WP.pdf).
Such principles include regulatory flexibility and encouragement of
user-owned networks.

"The key fact of modern telecommunications is the convergence of voice,
data, image and video into digital bit streams," said Richardson, a former
chief scientist at the National Telecommunications and Information
Administration. "We need faster networks to carry these bit streams to
users. Broadband speed and penetration in the United States are pitiful
compared to levels in Japan and South Korea. This means that U.S. prosperity
is at risk because it depends, in large part, on fast and easy exchange of
information."

###

IEEE-USA is an organizational unit of the IEEE. It was created in 1973 to
advance the public good and promote the careers and public policy interests
of the more than 220,000 technology professionals who are U.S. members of
the IEEE. The IEEE is the world's largest technical professional society.
For more information, go to http://www.ieeeusa.org.


The actual report, about 14 pages, is at
<http://www.ieeeusa.org/volunteers/committees/ccip/docs/Gigabit-WP.pdf

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Bill St. Arnaud
Senior Director Network Projects
CANARIE
[email protected]
+1 613 944-5603

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