The CETF is a non-profitable organization, but it has the support from the California Public Utilities Commission and state government funding of 60 million U.S. dollars to close what CETF called the "Digital Divide" in California by the year of 2017.
U.S. President Barack Obama has asked for 6 billion dollars in his stimulus package to get more U.S. people connected with broadband, and the CETF campaign will focus on education to raise awareness of the American people on the importance of going to high speed Internet.
CETF's campaign theme is "Get Connected, Your Life Made Easier." The slogan has been translated into Chinese, Korean and Hispanic to attract the Asian and Hispanic communities.
The group announced five categories of strategic action which will be integrated into a comprehensive plan to close the Digital Divide.
It will organize fact finding conversations to identify best practices and prospective partners. It will also convene urban regional roundtables among civic leaders to reach agreements on priority strategies to accelerate adoption.
The organization will partner with community-based organizations that are trusted messengers and honest brokers to reach the target populations.
It will encourage California to adopt an official goal of Digital Literacy to help drive demand, promote public policies that support and complement major grant-making and other strategies, such as tele-health tele-medicine smart housing and smart infrastructure.
The organization will inform elected officials, policy-makers and thought leaders about the benefits of broadband to enlist them as champions, target information and media into disadvantaged neighborhoods to encourage adoption.
Nationwide in the United States, although urban and suburban Americans generally have a choice of broadband providers, millions of ex-urban and rural households, possibly as many as 8 percent of the U.S. households, do not have the access to affordable broadband.
A recent report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project on the overall reasons why some U.S. people do not have broadband showed that availability is not the biggest barrier, neither is price. About two-thirds of the surveyed without broadband said they just do not want it.
Researchers found that the bigger issue is a lack of perceived value. Some 19 percent of dial-up users in the country said that "nothing" would get them to upgrade, not even lower prices. Of the 25 percent of the U.S. people that do not regularly use the Internet, a third said that they were "not interested in going online," almost 10 percent thought it was too "difficult," and seven percent simply said they do not "have time."
Study found the older and the poorer tend to be the ones who see less need for broadband, and it is clear that demand for it could be boosted through national e-health and e-government programs.
According to the CETF, there are more than 17 million Californians without a broadband connection and more than 13 million without an Internet connection at home.
---
Autor(en)/Author(s): Zhang Xiang
Quelle/Source: Xinhua, 12.06.2009
Bitte besuchen Sie/Please visit:
