Tel-WWW White Paper

Making good on the promise of Universal Access

Richard Premack

April 15, 1999

Many of us take the Internet and other types of information access for granted. The latest Internet usage data (Intelliquest Research, 4/99), shows the U.S. has both the largest number of adult Internet users (83 million) and the highest percentage of Internet users (40%) of any country in the world. Because recent advances in communication technology have made it is so easy for us to get access to the information we need through all sorts of media options (e.g. cable, satellite, television, radio, newspapers and other periodicals and of course the Internet), we may forget what it would be like to not have access to information that helps us in our day to day activities.

With the advent of the Internet as primarily a government experiment, over 26 years ago and the subsequent invention of the World Wide Web, 17 years later, this medium holds the most promise of any prior due to it's potential to become as universal as telephone service. Indeed, the attempt has been made to apply the concept of Universal Service[1], relating to the establishment of telephone and telecommunications services for all, to Internet access[2a],[2b].

The term "Universal Access", is often misused to refer to any type of convenient Internet access, rather than the significant and widespread access improvements for those who need it most[3].

Internet access utilizing Internet "appliances" (often described as Universal Access) and who is going to have access to the Internet because they can afford and are able to operate lots of gadgets and who's going to be left out because they can't, may become one of the most significant issues facing all of us in the next millenium.

In stark contrast to our domestic situation with respect to Internet usage rates, by 2005 the total online population will still account for less than 5 percent of the world population which is projected to reach 6.1 billion by the millennium (Datamonitor 3/99). This issue of information "haves" and "have nots" has been identified for some time now. To excerpt from Kevin Florey's excellent 1995 MIT paper entitled simply "Universal Service":

Recent focus has been given to the growing disparity between those who can utilize information services and those who cannot--between the "Information Haves" and the "Information Have Nots". Statistics concerning computer usage have been used to support both an individual and societal justification for the extension of Universal Service to information services. The NII Agenda for Action, for example, states that the United States "cannot accept a division of our people among telecommunication 'haves' and 'have-nots'." The National Telecommunications and Information Administration [NTIA] elaborates: "While a standard telephone line can be an individual's pathway to riches of the Information Age, a personal computer and modem are rapidly becoming the keys to the vault." Never one for understatement, Representative Markey [D-MA] perhaps best illustrates this argument: "...I fear we face a disturbing trend that could lead to a debilitating result for the country in informational apartheid."

Mr. Florey goes on to illustrate that:

A household's income, education-level and location are the greatest predictor of whether they will be computer owners [the information "haves"]. The percent of U.S. Households with computers varies significantly with these predictors…

The current trend in Internet access towards a more, non-PC based, portable/mobile model still leaves these constituencies (the information 'Have Nots') behind as it seeks to further enable those who are already information "haves" and in many cases have higher discretionary incomes which further enable them to purchase and use special devices, widening, rather than narrowing the information gap that the Internet was first designed to breach.

To quote Florey one final time:

Those who call for universal service using the Information "Have Not" justification often point to the two-tier society developing in America. They identify the increasing gap between the upper class and the lower class and attribute this division to the fact that there are those who have the tools and skills to compete in the information economy and those who do not: "It is not at all surprising that this trend [of networked information services accelerating at higher income and education levels] parallels a ten-year trend in widening income gaps as the information economy becomes more pervasive."

There is a vast difference in philosophies among some companies and organizations all claiming to be concerned with and/or addressing the same Universal Access issues. Based upon product information released to the public, it would appear that some companies envision a world wherein everyone is provided access to the Internet via an inter-connected network (internet) of special devices (e.g. special phones, hand-held computers, etc.) and modified host computers (web servers) all requiring special hardware and/or software to accomplish their vision. The devices, web server hardware and software would be of course furnished by these same companies. While this is obviously an excellent business model -- who wouldn't want to be the company outfitting the world's web servers to be accessible and providing the world with the requisite internet appliances? -- it is not a good solution model for establishing Universal Access.

Regardless of intentions, this approach to providing Universal Access is flawed, first and foremost because it is infeasible. With just the number of Internet top-level domains (not web servers) currently numbering over 7 million (DomainStats.com 4/99) and growing at a tremendous rate every day, there is no way universal access can be achieved as a result of placing special hardware and/or software on every host. The same holds true for Internet clients which are even greater in number.

Another philosophy and another approach is necessary -- one that can provide an acceptable level of access on a widespread basis using existing Internet host server and client infrastructure with few (if any) changes to either.

It is a philosophy that seeks not to capture the Internet appliance and accessible web server market, but rather to free Internet clients, servers and web content developers from any number of proprietary requisites including hardware, software and specialized, non-standard web content programming languages and/or language extensions.

At interNext, this is our vision for the future. People gaining access to the Internet with far fewer prerequisites than current access methods (e.g. special equipment, such as PCs, specially-equipped cell phones, modems, sound cards, etc. and knowledge of computers, browsers and the Internet), while at the same time reducing or some cases, obviating altogether, changes to the web server.

With Tel-WWW, our flagship service, people only have to know how to use a standard touch-tone telephone in order to access the World Wide Web.

Since it was introduced in 1964, the touch-tone telephone hasn't changed appreciably for 35 years. There are no planned "upgrades" for it either. The point being, any technology that is to make good on the promise of Universal Accessibility must be based upon universally available devices and infrastructure. In our opinion that universal communication device or "appliance" has to be the standard touch-tone telephone, if for no other reason it's ubiquity and familiarity.

You have heard about how organizations like the Maryland Technology Assistance Program, the National Federation of the Blind and the World Wide Web Consortium, through it's Web Accessibility Initiative interest group, work shoulder to shoulder with citizens groups, private sector consortiums and organizations of web and browser developers to promote universal accessibility to the Internet.

You saw firsthand how technology vendors are translating Universal Access from an abstract concept into reality by bringing state-of-the-art enabling technologies to bear on this issue.

At interNext, we are proud and honored to play our part in this process. Forging new solutions and building upon the efforts and continued success of organizations and individuals devoted to the dream of Universal Access, we will continue to face the challenges presented to us in providing web access to anyone who needs it.