The Cloud: Unleashing Global Opportunities

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski spoke at the Aspen IDEA Project in Brussels, Belgium on March 24 about the benefits of cloud computing.

Information is a form of capital, he said. As barriers to accessing funding prevent entrepreneurs, wherever they are, from starting the next great cloud computing company, barriers to accessing information prevent innovators, wherever they are, from growing cloud computing companies, improving productivity, growing GDP, and creating new industries, jobs, and opportunity. How do we begin to address these barriers? One way is to identify the inputs that make communications networks with freely flowing information possible.

They are:

• Robust backbone and middle-mile networks that can handle heavy data backhaul loads;
• Last-mile broadband-wired or wireless-that reaches every citizen;
• Spectrum for mobile broadband, so people can access the cloud wherever they are;
• Interconnection among networks; and
• Public policies that don't inhibit-and indeed facilitate-data flows across international borders.

But he identified five challenges faced worldwide in the provision of each of those inputs: a global broadband availability gap, a global broadband adoption gap, a looming global spectrum crunch, a privacy and security gap, and a regulatory gap.