High-tech royalty: ‘Let them eat cake’

A couple of recent events got me thinking about the proper role of government in fostering high-tech development. One was the passage of legislation by both the Pennsylvania State Senate and House that would prevent the city of Philadelphia from rolling out a low-cost Wi-Fi network across the entire city. The other was a televised interview with the CEOs of Cisco, Google, Intel, and Yahoo.

The goal of Philadelphia’s Wi-Fi strategy is to bring broadband — through a combination of Wi-Fi and mesh networks — to all of its citizens, especially those in the poorer neighborhoods who might otherwise have limited access to communications. The strapped city budget prevented Philadelphia from offering the service for free, so it intended to charge what it considered a nominal fee of approximately $15 per month.

Unfortunately, inserted into the multifaceted telecommunications act House Bill 30 is a provision that would prevent government entities from charging a fee for broadband service. According to an article by IDG News Service reporter Steve Lawson, Verizon, which offers limited broadband coverage in Philadelphia, strongly lobbied in favor of this provision.

Verizon is typical of those in high tech who say that government should keep its hands off anything to do with technology. From Verizon’s point of view, the city has an unfair competitive advantage, in that it has access to public funds and it doesn’t pay taxes. I suppose it doesn’t have to make a profit for its shareholders, either.

But there’s another way of looking at this. The city of Philadelphia’s shareholders are its citizens. Doesn’t the government have an obligation to them?

In addition, for Verizon to play the spoilsport is very shortsighted. Many other high-tech companies, such as Apple and Microsoft, understand that when you seed technology into poor communities, you see returns over time through additional sales of products and services.

The interview I saw on The Charlie Rose Show was also enlightening, highlighting as it did another incorrect view of government’s role in high tech.

John Chambers, CEO of Cisco, echoed everyone else on the panel — including Intel’s Paul Otellini, Google’s Eric Schmidt, and Yahoo’s Terry Semel — warning that unless government gives tax breaks on profit sharing and pushes for more science and math in the American educational system, the United States will become a second-rate country.

What is this patrician worldview really saying? It says, give people like us a better deal (tax breaks) and make sure the rabble are better able to supply us with bodies (push more math and science down everybody’s throat).

The tax breaks are fine. But the claim about our educational system bothers me. Frankly, it’s a myth that we must raise a nation of engineers or else go to the dogs. I would like to remind these esteemed CEOs that the Soviet Union did just that from the ’50s through the ’80s. See how far it got them.

Science and math are important, but so are history, English, sociology, and psychology. At the risk of getting corny, I contend it is the spirit of free thought and freedom of action here in the United States that fosters creativity, invention, and economic growth — not courses in Cobol, Perl, or XAML.

I’ll agree that there is a fine line between when the government needs to step in and when it needs to step back. I just don’t think our high-tech leaders have it right.