The Next Steve Jobs Might Hail from Newark - Here?s Why

The Next Steve Jobs Might Hail from Newark - Here?s Why

Photo credit to Forbes

With gridlock on Capitol Hill, news of infrastructural improvements has more often come from the Chinese than the American press in recent years. In a step in the right direction however, the Washington Post reports that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently submitted a proposal to create very powerful, free WiFi networks that would cover almost all metropolitan areas and most rural ones. While the project has generated news mainly because of the lobbying fight it has spawned between large telecommunications companies (AT&T, Qualcomm, etc.) and large technology companies (Microsoft, Google, etc.), the project would be a global first. Just as Eisenhower?s 1956 interstate highway project cut transportation costs and gave the U.S. a competitive advantage that many nations are only just approaching, this ambitious project by FCC head Julius Genachowski has the potential to give Newark and Palo Alto something powerful in common: access to the next wave of American innovation.

How would this help inner cities?

According to the article, ?Cities support the idea because the networks would lower costs for schools and businesses. Consumer advocates note the benefits to the poor, who often cannot afford high cellphone and internet bills.? Unlike contentious national arguments over taxes and spending, the plan has the additional benefit of having already been tested and analyzed. In 1985, ?when the U.S. government made a limited amount of unlicensed airwaves available to the public, an unexpected explosion in innovation followed. Baby monitors, garage door openers, and wireless stage microphones were created.? Fast forward a quarter century later, and one can only begin to imagine the innovation that might follow from low-income consumers gaining access to connected devices. Finally on the broader network, underserved resident participation would spur technologists to create products that could continuously monitor their health, improve the quality of their educations, and share tools that might allow them to eventually build their own transformative companies. If this project is successful, it is not an overstatement to suggest that the next Steve Jobs might hail from Newark rather than Palo Alto.

Addressing Concerns

Some lawmakers fret that, in times of deficits and debt, the Treasury should not be denied the billions of dollars that could come from privately auctioning off unlicensed airwaves. However, these concerns are mitigated by the fact that the least painful remedy for our deficits is not cutting or spending, but growth if possible. If the FCC?s proposal results in the formation of new tax-paying companies that simultaneously prevent expensive health episodes from occurring, improve the competitiveness of our citizenry, and stimulate exports as other countries race to adopt our technology, then we might be able to look back in 30 years and call our fears of debt default completely unfounded.

Other critiques center on the tensions between private industry and public goods that have long dominated our discourse. Should the government contract public WiFi to telecom providers instead of trying to directly provide the service? A study by the Project on Government Oversight recently found that contractors charged the federal government more than twice the amount it pays federal workers for comparable services. On the other side of the argument, the telecom companies can claim justifiably that they would provide better, more robust service that would adapt with the times as they fulfilled consumer?s needs. While the details of its implementation will be settled by the political process, the stakes of the game belie the gravity of the prize: who will provide ubiquitous access to telephone and web services for the next century?

Conclusion

However the implementation plays out, the mere consideration of this project by the government represents a profoundly positive development for inner city residents and the nation at large. Reorienting the government towards taking responsibility for innovation rather than growth may even be the policy of the future and the success or failure of this project could be a bellwether for that change. It is this writer?s hope that just as the 19^th century featured public rails and the 20^th century featured public roads, the 21^st century will be characterized by public airways and economic mobility.

BY Sathya Vijayakumar on February 6th, 2013

TAGS: innovation | newark | equity | community development | cities | technology

Source: http://www.icic.org//connection/blog-entry/blog-the-next-steve-jobs-might-hail-from-newark-heres-why

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