Meeting the demand for global information.

• Author: McCloskey, Peter F.

The U.S. enjoys the world's most advanced and reliable information infrastructure, thanks to a national policy based upon private ownership that supports competition. This environment encourages and rewards timely development and deployment of innovative and competitively priced products and services that best anticipate and meets the diverse needs of users.

The Electronic Industries Association and its telecommunications sector, the Telecommunications Industry Association, represent the manufacturers of much of the electronic components and equipment that comprise the information infrastructure. As such, they strongly support Federal government policy initiatives designed to accelerate the further evolution of a National and Global Information Infrastructure (NII/GII).

The vision of a future NII/GII is of an environment that enables people and their information devices to connect and communicate with each other any time, anywhere. It will be linked by interoperable and competing commercial networks, connected to public and private sources of information. It will employ linkage modes most appropriate to separate applications - i.e., audio, text, image, video, braille, multimedia, etc. To make the NII/GII a reality, five principles must be followed:

The private sector must play the lead role. With competition and private-sector investment serving as the model, the private sector can continue to lead the feature development and deployment of the NII/GII. A myriad of products, networks, and services will be required to meet a vast and divers array of users needs. The talents and resources of a varied and increasing community of individuals and companies, enabled and encouraged by competition in all NII/GII sectors, will be required to meet these needs. Private investment is necessary to promote competition and stimulate pre-competitive technologies.

Enlightened telecommunications regulation is essential. One of the key areas where the government can help accelerate the NII/GII initiative is in telecommunications regulation. The NII/GII blurs the distinction among the computing, cable, consumers electronic, and telecommunications industries. Thus, it will require an enlightened and imaginative approach that fosters competition and, in doing so, eliminates unnecessary regulation if and when competition progresses. The new environment will need to avoid artificial industry distinctions and allow consumers - not the government - to pick winners and losers.

The role of standards is criticals. History demonstrates that national markets which foster universal access require that industry develop and support flexible interface standards to facilitate widespread availability of information devices and access to services. The success of television and FM radio, on the one hand, and the problems encountered by AM...