Government Policy as a Necessary Condition of Digital Equality.

Notwithstanding the billions of dollars spent to promote digital equality, until governmental policies are enacted both to encourage and to facilitate such an ideal, the effort is going to flounder along less effectively than intended or needed. Governmental policies not only establish the conditions for such an effort, but they also provide tangible proof of the commitment of the nation, and its political elite, to the effort.Two cases demonstrate the result of just such policies: the Internet?s open network architecture and the United States? current state of digital access and literacy. Governmental public policy has consciously allowed the system to develop to grant the widest distribution of information to the greatest number of people through easy access to the system.In the case of the open network architecture, public policy allowed the system to develop to grant the widest distribution of information to the greatest number of people through easy access to the system. The growth and vitality of the Internet demonstrates that commonality of vision can make a decentralized process more efficient and effective and also underscores government investment as a catalyst for private investment in both the demand and supply sides of the information infrastructure.With respect to the U.S.?s digital access, a conscious decision was made by government decision makers with a goal to provide a source of data that was equal with user-transparent access via public networks to network services provided by network-based and non-network enhanced service providers. The government encouraged the deployment of communications infrastructure that is general and flexible, removed regulatory barriers to innovation (e.g., making spectrum for experiments easily and predictably available) and to competition, and continues to foster the success of the Internet through R&D and delivery of public services.In each case, the Internet and the United States? national information infrastructure, as well as the envisioned global information infrastructure, governmental policies were instrumental in stimulating their creation and growth. In the same manner, policies of subnational governmental units are necessary to complement those of the national government if digital access is going to proliferate to as many people as possible. The state of Pennsylvania used governmental policies to both encourage the construction of the necessary infrastructure (Keystone Technology Plan: An Information Technology Blueprint For the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania), personal equipment (tax-free purchase days), and education (current PA proposal to provide laptop computers for classrooms). Without these policies, the phenomena of relatively universal digital access more than likely would still have come into being and grown, but not at the same rate, as effectively, or in the same manner. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]