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They're just like the railroad in that if you were a farmer in the 1890s, the only way to get your goods to market would be to work through the railroad. ... We just can't operate without it. They're also like them in that they're expensive businesses to build in the first place — it's very hard to come in and compete against one of these guys once they've built one of these giant networks. They're also like the railroad in that it takes intentional policy to make them stretch all the way across the United States.

We seem to currently assume that communications access is a luxury, something that should be entirely left to the private market unconstrained by any form of oversight. The problem is that it's just not true in the modern era. You can't get a job, you can't get access to adequate health care, you can't educate your children, we can't keep up with other countries in the developed world without having very high capacity, very high speed access for everybody in the country. And the only way you get there is through government involvement in this market. That's how we did it for the telephone, that's how we did it for the federal highway system, and we seem to have forgotten that when it comes to these utility basic services, we can't create a level playing field for all Americans or indeed compete on the world stage without having some form of government involvement.

"Unless somebody in the system has industrial policy in mind, a long-term picture of where the United States needs to be and has the political power to act on it, we'll be a Third World country when it comes to communications."

According to President Obama, $5B USD of the funding will be used to expand wireless coverage from 95 percent of Americans to 98 percent of Americans.  Most of these 3 percent live in impoverished or remote areas that don't make sense for the profit-driven telecoms to come to.  That said, these regions often perform vital functions to our nation's economy like food-growing.

According to President Obama, $5B USD of the funding will be used to expand wireless coverage from 95 percent of Americans to 98 percent of Americans.  Most of these 3 percent live in impoverished or remote areas that don't make sense for the profit-driven telecoms to come to.  That said, these regions often perform vital functions to our nation's economy like food-growing.

The benefits of the public safety network are obvious.  The government will be able to prevent some of the loss of life and property that occurred in events like Hurricane Katrina.  And the public will be less likely to endure the fear and uncertainty that it did on the infamous 9/11 attacks in 2001.

State and local laws that make it difficult — if not impossible — for new competition to emerge in broadband markets should be reformed, according to Crawford. For example, many states make it very difficult for municipalities to create public wireless networks, thanks to decades of state-level lobbying by the industry giants. In order to help local governments upgrade their communications grids, Crawford is calling for an infrastructure bank to help cities obtain affordable financing to help build high-speed fiber networks for their citizens. Finally, U.S. regulators should apply real oversight to the broadband industry to ensure that these market behemoths abide by open Internet principles and don’t price gouge consumers. Should broadband Internet service be considered a public utility like water and electricity? “We treated the telephone industry like a utility and people don’t seem to be surprised by that,” says Crawford. “High-speed Internet access plays the same role in American life. It’s just that these guys have succeeded in making us think that it’s a luxury.”

According to Crawford, the interests of cable and telecom giants like Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Verizon, and AT&T, are not aligned with the interests of the public. Those corporate giants are concerned first and foremost with maximizing the profits of their shareholders. And all too often, profit maximization — especially in a market that lacks robust competition — is not consistent with providing the best possible service at reasonable prices.

“You let a little bit of competition exist so you can point to it and say ‘Ha, we’re competing!’ But otherwise it’s mostly controlled by one company.”

As technology filters into every corner of the globe and tech cities spring up in some unlikely places from Bangalore to Tel Aviv, a new gulf is emerging to separate the digitally savvy from the disconnected: Poverty.

In India, over two-thirds of the population live on less than $2 a day, according to the World Bank. But a United Nations report still says that mobile phones are more common than toilets, with nearly half of India's 1.2 billion population armed with a handset.

hierarchies created by digital literacy and the class systems that will be shaped by access to digital technologies.