Dreaming large, an interstate highway system for the 21st century

It is the middle of the summer. The current state of technology bores me. Apple is growing, Microsoft shrinking. Microsoft hopes Windows 7 will revive its fortunes. Businesses resist change, over 86% still run Windows XP. The newspaper industry is decimated by Internet-delivered news. Ironically, Amazon shows us the way to Orwell’s 1984 by deleting that book from its customers’ Kindles, the Amazon ebook reader, without customer knowledge or consent. There are reports that some Apple iPod batteries spontaneously ignite. Telephone landlines are in decline, cell phones replacing them. Smartphones, iPhones and BlackBerrys, are the future of personal computing. The United States’ broadcast TV switch from analog to digital is behind us. The above seems like more of the same. Little is truly new or interesting.

The bright spot in my technology doldrums is entertainment delivery systems. I am listening to more podcasts and audio books. I am enjoying music through Pandora on my computer and my BlackBerry. I watch more video from the Internet, from sites such as Hulu.com, CBS.com, Amazon Video on Demand and the iTunes store, while shunning traditional TV distribution—cable, satellite and broadcast. I contemplate replacing premium cable TV, like HBO, with Netflix.

There is a trend here. The Internet is THE delivery mechanism for all communications—news, entertainment, messaging, voice communication or anything else. We connect to the Internet in two ways, wired and wireless. Wireless divides further into WiFi and cellular. Wired Internet does not extend to rural America. Cellular coverage around the nation is spotty. There are many cellular dead zones in Fairfield County, CT, where I live.

In 1919, Dwight Eisenhower was part of an Army convoy, a training exercise and a test of the feasibility of moving men and supplies long distances by auto and truck. Later in his military career, he experienced firsthand the wonder of the German autobahn. DDE and others imagined the interstate highway system (IHS). As President, he championed and began the IHS. Sometimes while sitting in traffic on the I-95 it is hard to understand how much the IHS has positively transformed the country. The IHS opened up the suburbs. It created a huge economic boom in road building, real estate development, industry, and consumer purchasing.

The IHS was paid for the American people. It is owned by the American people. The vast bulk of its 46,726 miles is toll free.

Now imagine a similar thing but replace IHS with Internet. As a nation, we no longer need broadcast media consuming large parts of the precious radio wave spectrum. Most of America gets its TV via cable or satellite, over 90%. Broadcast commercial radio is rapidly being replaced by iPods, smartphones and Internet streaming audio. We can take back the broadcast radio and television industry radio frequencies using eminent domain. We can replace the existing toll-road structure of cellular carriers with a publicly funded, publicly owned and publicly operated, free wireless communication network that covers the nation.

The emerging cellular duopoly of AT&T Wireless and Verizon Wireless has often demonstrated that executive greed drives their implementation of technology and their frequent ill-treatment of the public. Why do we allow this? Why do we the people give them our airwaves? Imagine if the IHS was owned by two companies such as these. Rural America would have no highways. Only major routes between large cities and the highways around these cities would be built.

Now imagine the boon to America of a toll-free wireless network, an interstate highway system for the 21st century. Wherever we went, whether a major city, a suburb or the wilderness (if any remains) we would have wireless communication. Imagine the industries that would spring up to take advantage of this, just as industry, retailing and the public make use of the IHS. Imagine the positive employment benefits of new ideas, new industry and commerce. If enough of us imagine it we could make it happen.