Telecom law -- seven (7) principles!
Roy S. Carson
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Sept 19, 1996 - VENEZUELA'S ELECTRONIC NEWS - VHeadline No.121
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* SEVEN PRINCIPLES OF VENEZUELAN TELECOMMUNICATIONS LAW
-- VHeadline editorial by Claudio Sanchez-Guisandes --
-- Venezuela's telecommunications law should contain seven principles
--.seven (7) pillars that are incorporated in Venezuela's wisdom to see that
communications services are crucial to the SUCCESS OF OUR DEMOCRACY,
SOCIETY, and our nation's ECONOMY.
Under such a schedule Government shall guarantee that:
(1) Everyone in the country shall have quality service at just,
reasonable, and affordable rates;
(2) All regions of the country shall have access to advanced services;
(3) There shall be access for low-income consumers and those in rural and
high-cost areas;
(4) All providers of telecommunications services shall contribute towards
ensuring universal service;
(5) There shall be government support mechanisms to preserve and advance
that universal service;
(6) All schools, classrooms, health care providers, and libraries shall
have access to advanced telecommunications services, and;
(7) Other additional principles needed to protect the public interest.
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Maybe we should think of these seven universal principles as our very
own Communications Bill of Rights. Let me here give you some information to
help you better understand why these principles are so important.
Since being connected to a telephone network is how unemployed people
mostly get back into the workforce, the lack of phone services especially
hurts the unemployed.
And it hurts the children to go to schools that are cut off from the
information super-highway. But in Venezuelan classrooms, a phone service is
almost non-existent.
In only 1% of classrooms is there any form of Internet access, although
the World Wide Web is the path to equal opportunity in education for all
Venezuela's children -- that means only about 1% of children have regular
access to advanced telecommunications tools, and those students tend to be
in the most affluent schools. Furthermore, some "privileged" students use
computers at home, and often are the same children that use them at school.
Although 50% of children from high-income families have computers at
home, fewer than 5% of children from low-income families have them. So we
must help children at the lower end of the economic spectrum by giving them
the tools they need at school.
For the first time in the history of Venezuela, we have a chance to
help breach the gap between the information "haves" and the "have-nots"!
We achieve it by hastening the day when 100% of our schools and
classrooms will be linked to the information superhighway.
I'll tell you why that's so important:
Opportunity to succeed in our competitive, information economy depends
on technological literacy. For each of our children to have his or her fair
chance to make their DREAM come true, each needs to be taught both WITH and
ABOUT the latest technology.
But, while the business sector is roaring into the 21st-century
information age, the children of Venezuelan children will go to school in a
19th-century world of chalk-and-blackboard technology.
By the beginning of the next century (which is less than 4 years from
now), 60% of the new jobs available, will require skills possessed today by
only 1% of the young people entering the labor market. Already now more
than half of high-wage jobs require the use of networked computers ... and
jobs that require knowledge and use of computer pay 15% more, on average,
than those that do not.
The GOOD NEWS would be a progress report that our nation, Venezuela, is
wiring our classrooms and that the nation's public schools soon will be
hooked up to the Internet in their entirety.
The BAD NEWS is that Internet is a tool available to our classrooms and
that, nationally, fewer than 1% of schools have local area networks (LAN),
connecting to all classrooms.
There is a world of difference between the availability of computers in
schools, and the availability of computers in EACH CLASSROOM -- teachers and
students need to be able to use the tools, but they're not yet widely
available. And without giving the kids the opportunity to have hands-on
experience, computers might just as well not be available at all.
Besides, curriculums haven't changed to keep up with advances in
technology, and teachers must themselves be trained in using the new
technology -- we're making progress, but we need to do MUCH more.
Low-income students are less likely to have classroom access to the
Internet than wealthier students. So there continues to be a significant
information gap between schools in poor areas and schools in well-off areas.
Learning on-line must not become a weakness and fault line in Venezuela's
education.
There should be provision made in law requiring telecommunications
providers to give school discounts for services to make them affordable,
with the Ministry of Transport & Communications (MTC) determining what such
discounts should be.
In doing so, however, we need to answer such basic questions as what
does "affordable" mean?
Should just telephone service be included?
Or should it include satellite companies, which play an important role
in distance learning?
A MTC provision should gives us a powerful tool to help ensure that (at
least for schoolchildren), the economic "haves" and "have-nots" will NOT
also become the information "haves" and "have-nots".
The President, together with members of the telecommunications
industry, educators, and parents, should jump-start the networking of
Venezuela's schools so that by the end of this year, 5% of classrooms could
be on the information super-highway.
The universities, of course, have had their own experience with
networking, but at least one direct benefit of the projected
telecommunications law would be an opportunity to create and to provide
low-cost communications specially for education, helping to diminish costs
and therefore diminishing the controversy.
Such a law would also help ensure that Venezuelans with disabilities
shall NOT be left out of the information revolution since one of the
provision would require telecommunications equipment manufacturers and
providers to ensure their equipment and services are accessible to people
with disabilities.
Another, similar, provision would ensure that video services are
accessible to people who are hearing-impaired or visually challenged. The
MTC should conduct a study to determine the availability of
closed-captioning and establish a timetable to make closed-captioning
universally widespread ... and to look into the availability of video
descriptions so people who are visually challenged can hear a description of
what they may not be able to see.
Venezuela's children with disabilities can have a much, much brighter
future if we Venezuelans put communications technology into every classroom
-- we want screen readers for those who are visually challenged, E-mail for
those who are hearing-impaired, and provisions for home-learning for
children who are physically handicapped.
Adults with disabilities will also reap the same benefits.
There is an increasing awareness of the many benefits of tele-medicine.
Present applications include storage of records, image processing for
diagnostic purposes, transmission of medical images, and computerized remote
control of medical equipment.
Tele-medicine makes it easier to gain quick access to medical
databases, such as those for transplant candidates. Emerging applications
include real-time transmission of video images for physician-to-physician
and physician to patient consultations and direct transmission of medical
data to hospitals from medical devices to patients at home. These technical
and medical marvels can improve the lives of people in countless ways.
The MTC should remove all barriers that might inhibit the use of
telecommunications technology to improve health care, making it affordable
is an important first step.
Under the projected law, rural health care providers can receive
telecommunications services at rates reasonably comparable to what is
charged for similar services in urban areas of the same State. A study
should be conducted to determine, among other things, tele-medicine's
safety, efficacy, quality of service, and related economic issues.
Venezuela's telecommunications law should be the result long hard work
and study but how will we know if it is to succeed? Success is NOT to be
measured by whether we have pleased one company or another, or one member of
Congress or another. Success will be measured by whether, five years from
now, Venezuelan citizens, whether in their hospitals, homes, businesses, or
in their classrooms, schools or libraries have a greater choice of
communications providers and services than ever before.
If, in five years, there would be at least a handful of different
companies competing to win our business, then our efforts will NOT have been
in vain!
What we buy, how we pay, and what we get, will all be different -- but
if we do it right, we will all get more and better services for our money.
Perhaps most importantly, we will also know that we, Venezuelans have
succeeded if, five years from now, schools and libraries have become
communication community hubs where parents, teachers, and students have
access to the most advanced communications network in the world ... the
communications revolution promises to be a great equalizer between the
information "haves" and "have-nots".
THESE HUBS WOULD HELP FULFILL THAT PROMISE.
...if we get the implementation right, it will open up a wondrous world
of learning opportunity for every person in Venezuela.
General Moises Orozco Graterol, Venezuela's Minister Transport &
Communications should pledge himself here and NOW to do everything he can to
make it happen. The MTC should be striving to bring the tremendous benefits
of the communications revolution to everyone!
But we Venezuelans can do even better with more participation. Write,
call and share your views with everyone and let everyone know how Venezuela
can get it right.
But do it soon!
Venezuela has to implement many important parts of the law in just six
months time.
Venezuela has a lot of work to do in a very short time. The
opportunities of the communications revolution are limitless. Don't
hesitate, let's do everything we possibly can to make sure there are
opportunities for one and all!
<Claudio...@oag.state.tx.us> is also at telephone USA (512) 475-4173
>>>>> Editor's Note: Regular VHeadline/VENews editorial contributor, Doctor
Claudio Sanchez-Guisandes is a Venezuelan citizen who works as an Economist
and Lawyer at the Office of the Attorney General's Public Agency
Representation in Austin, Texas (U.S.A.). His dissertation for his
doctorate in Jurisprudence was entitled "Plagiarism Is The Right to Authorship".
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Venezuela's Electronic VHeadline and VENews are an internet publishing
venture in which our independent editorial aim is to mirror events and the
aspirations of a majority towards new and positive faith in Venezuela and
it's future.
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(C)opyright, 1996 - Roy S. Carson
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* As a foreign correspondent in Venezuela, Roy S. Carson is a
fully-accredited member of the APEX (Asociacion de Periodistas Extranjeros)
affiliated to the (Venezuelan) Colegio Nacional de Periodismo and the
International Journalists' Federation. His more than 35 year career covers
both print and broadcast journalism in many parts of the world.
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