|
“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 (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 www.ieeeusa.org.
For further information, please contact: Chris McManes, Senior Public
Relations Coordinator; Phone: + 1 202 785 0017, ext. 8356; E-Mail:
c.mcmanes@ieee.org
|
