A public service in the United States is a service provided by the government to its citizens. Public services include education, electricity, fire service, police service, public transportation, certain types of broadcasting, waste management and a whole bunch of other stuff.
Anything classified as a public service is maintained by an organization known as public utility, usually known as simply "utility" or sometimes "utilities company". Public utilities operate much differently than privately owned businesses in the respect they have much more public and government involvement.
Internet access at this point is still considered a luxury and not a public service in the United States. The reason this is so is because internet is not accessible everywhere in the country. Once the accessibility is established, we could (finally) see the transition of internet access from luxury to public service.
Something really big recently happened which is explained in this week’s upcoming PCMech Newsletter – white space (as in the old bands analog television used to use) has taken the first step into the realm of actually being used. Very soon, or at least hopefully very soon, deep rural areas in the US which were essentially completely cut off from getting internet access may finally be able to get online.
A reason why white space is such an amazing thing is because it can be received in areas where even cell phones can’t go. For those areas that can’t even get phone service, they could get a white space data pipe for VoIP; that in turn brings them phone service whereas they didn’t have it before.
True long-range affordable wireless, which is what white space will allow for, will finally edge internet and data connectivity into the public service classification. It is inevitable it will occur because this weird wild thing we call Internet is well beyond the ‘just a fad’ point. It’s here to stay, and it’s required at some point that it graduates into being a classified as a public service.
Why is it so important that internet be classified as a public service?
Do you know any kid that doesn’t use internet?
I didn’t think so.
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So because most everyone uses it, it should be a public service???
The internet is great, and yes it is no fad, but it’s not THAT important.
So because most everyone uses it, it should be a public service???
The internet is great, and yes it is no fad, but it’s not THAT important.
Actually you can get internet everywhere in the US, by satellite.
http://www.hughesnet.com/
…assuming it even works, which it doesn’t most of the time: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/internet/hughes.html
Not to mention that it’s very pricey for what you get and the ping times are a killer for anything like gaming. You’re also extremely limited on bandwidth also. I don’t use this but I know someone who does and they hate it but it’s the only way they can get internet (except dialup, which is unacceptable). The phone or cable co won’t run a line down their street (rural area) unless someone pays them some crazy amount to do so.
I just paid $ 23.86 for an iPhone and my girlfriend loves her Dell laptop that we got for $ 38.76 there arriving tomorrow by UPS I will never pay such expensive retail prices in stores again. Especially when I also sold a 42 inch LED TV to my boss for $ 665 which only cost me $ 62,81 to buy. Here is the website we use to get it all from, GrabPenny.com
I don’t think internet needs to be classified as a “public service”. The government is large enough already….Keep letting the private sector control it. No need for government to be involved
The internet really does need to be a public utility ’cause most people use it, kind of like the petroleum industry is. No, wait, more people (make that read all!) rely on petroleum, have for the better part of the last century, yet it is still not “public”. The oil industry has been in use (existence) longer than perhaps any public utility. I don’t advocate the inclusion of government into any area arbitrarily, but look at petroleum’s track record and realize that the internet could indeed be headed along a similar path. Malware anyone? Spyware-adware-botnets-cyberclisms to come? The government has a hand in ALL business, the only distinction being degree and definition (mostly semantics).