Last week, Spain added broadband Internet to its national "universal service" standards, making it mandatory for Internet service providers to offer high-speed connections to all Spanish citizens by 2011. The FCC is also in the process of developing a national broadband plan for the U.S. But without a similar legal mandate here, America's working poor may end up left out.

According to an FCC panel on broadband diversity highlighted on tech-industry news site Cnet, low-income Net surfers are held back in part due to a lack of competition in low-income areas. The panel found that broadband providers avoid deploying costly infrastructure in areas with substantial numbers of low-income residents, preferring instead to roll out competitive services in middle-class, upper-income areas. As a result, Americans with higher incomes generally end up paying less for broadband Internet access--and some low-income Americans have no broadband access at all, even within the same urban areas.

The question is, how can we get U.S. broadband providers to actually provide broadband for everyone without telling them they have to? A good start would be for major technology media sites to begin discussing the broadband-access disparity between rich and poor. Reviewing daily tech-news stories might leave one assuming the only people worthy of access to high-speed broadband -- or, worse, able to understand how to use it--are white, middle class professionals who work from home on their laptops (you know, like me.) You seldom read about the connectivity needs of the millions of wage workers, laborers, and working poor individuals and families who account for an enormous number of U.S. citizens and who deserve the same speedy access to the Internet that their middle-class counterparts get. Why should the cost of entry for what has become a basic right elsewhere be so onerous to so many here at home?

Another recent Cnet article chronicled one Manhattan reporter's search for a better broadband deal. She compared DSL to cable modem service and came away saving money--but still paying upwards of $50 a month for a modern, speedy Net connection. I did a similar comparison yesterday when my own DSL service failed. I signed up for Sprint's 4G CLEAR Wimax service, newly arrived in my home base of Chicago. The wireless connection offers amazing speed--but I'll pay even more than the Cnet reporter every month for the service. And that's in a city with competition among multiple (DSL, cable modem, Wimax) broadband providers.

Before CLEAR came to town, Chicago tried to set up a low-cost municpal wifi network, following the lead of Philadelphia. The effort failed in 2007 and Sprint began wiring the city for Wimax the following year. According to the Wall Street Journal and industry watcher site GigaOm, the steep cost of Wimax infrastructure means broadband ventures like CLEAR, which is in the midst of a huge national roll out push, will have a hard time making a profit -- especially if they pay for infrastructure and provide subsidized service plans for low-income communities. As 4G Wimax continues to rollout across the country, unless the FCC decides to follow Spain's lead and mandate high-speed access for all Americans, low-income residents will fall even further behind in the slow lane.

[Image: Apple]