Elon University

A Normative View of Networking Applications

It is [the] expansion of our personal and working relationships that leads to the significant impacts on individuals, groups, and organizations with respect to both the quality of the results and the speed at which human networks can form and act within the technology of networking. This ability to “network” among larger groupings of individuals and to make any link available when needed is the heart of the idea of “superconnectivity.” However many people a person can communicate with as part of a working group through the use of face-to-face meetings and phones, the introduction of CMC potentially expands the size of the coordinated group effort by fivefold to tenfold, or more.

A Normative View of Networking Applications

There is considerable danger in attempting to extrapolate the future from existing institutional viewpoints when there is every reason to believe there will be major changes in current industry structure and in the requirements for policy and regulation. What is needed is a view of what should be as opposed to what has been.

Universal Access to E-mail: Feasibility and Societal Implications

Facilitating access to information on, for example, education and employment opportunities should benefit traditionally disadvantaged groups relatively more than their socioeconomically advantaged counterparts. It should have the effect of “leveling the playing field.” In addition, network access promises to facilitate organizational formation and restructuring. This is a particular benefit for nonprofit and community-based organizations that typically operate under severe human, financial, and technical resource constraints.

Universal Access to E-mail: Feasibility and Societal Implications

Concerns that boundary-spanning networks might facilitate a breakdown of community affiliation, or disinterest in local affairs, appear unfounded … Also the fear that individuals will be overwhelmed by a deluge of “junk mail,” or subjected to defamatory or otherwise inappropriate message content, appears to be, although not a trivial issue, at least not one requiring too much attention at this point.

Universal Access to E-mail: Feasibility and Societal Implications

Obligating service providers to offer subscriptions to large classes of customers at low rates that are financed by contributions from other services, a policy that was successfully used in the telephone industry for many years, is unlikely to succeed in the competitive messaging industry. Instead, e-mail assistance will require public funding from an industrywide tax or from general revenues. Subsidies will need to be narrowly targeted to reach consumers who would not otherwise subscribe.

Universal Access to E-mail: Feasibility and Societal Implications

There are international dimensions to “universal” e-mail within the United States. Policies to influence the development of a national e-mail system should recognize the borderless nature of this technology. Perhaps more than other national systems, an e-mail system will affect and be affected by worldwide standards, policies, and events.

Universal Access to E-mail: Feasibility and Societal Implications

[There is a] need for a simple e-mail address system that gives every U.S. resident a “default” e-mail address by which they can be reached. Such a development would “jump start” a universal access system, because governmental and other organizations could then assume that “everyone” was reachable by this means and design procedures and systems accordingly … A simple e-mail address provision scheme should be developed giving every U.S. resident an e-mail address, perhaps based on a person’s physical address or telephone number.

Universal Access to E-mail: Feasibility and Societal Implications

With only about half of U.S. households containing personal computers by the year 2000, a robust set of alternative devices and locations is needed, including keyboard attachments to TV set-top boxes and video game machines, and extended telephones providing e-mail (and likely integrated voice mail) access. Public access is vital, with libraries, post offices, kiosks, and government buildings each playing a role. There might well be a market for “pay” terminals analogous to the ubiquitous pay telephones.