Utility for the 21st Century – Thoughts from Summer of 2010

It was the summer of the iPad and the iPhone 4 from the beach. The ability to Skype and access Netflix from every place we traveled and the use of Google maps every time we got lost. The ability to lookup or download any digital book, song or trivia that came up. I took my ability to access this Internet for granted. It is my 21st century utility.

Going back to summer of 2009 when I camped out in the Redwoods along the Northern California coast for a week or went on a 50-mile backpacking trip into the Emigrant National Forest beyond Yosemite, I felt the Internet umbilical cord being cut as we interleaved into rural America and the wilderness. The odd question that came to mind was does the population (small though in number and varying by season) in these rural parts of America have a right to this 21st Century utility.

It was not a vastly different experience during the summer of 2008 when I was traveling in one of the developing countries also referred to many times as an emerging economy. Every time we left the urban expanse information and connectivity to our vast digital world was cut off abruptly. The same question came to mind does this global population (large in number and hungry for information) have the right to demand the same 21st Century utility that the rest of us take for granted.

This blog is dedicated to the question of Internet utility for the rest of us.