. . . continued from Hot News Dell regularly hoses our doorsteps and e-mail inboxes with $399.oo deals. The computers sold at that price are not speedburners, but they'll sure as anything do well as word processors, basic photo and graphics editors, e-mail machines, web browsers and so on. Every computer motherboard incorporates a high speed network connection. Combining the commodities of Internet access and computers is obvious and rampant. So how long will it be until one of the big cable or DSL Internet providers starts offering a free computer with every one or two year Internet access subscription? I called my high speed cable provider and buzzed the powers that be about the possibility. They claimed ignorance. I called a couple of other providers in the U.S. and Canada. All the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) unhesitatingly and rapidly claimed ignorance. Their hasty reponses lead me to believe that there's something going on. I mean those people wouldn't even begin to discuss the idea with me. So without any hard evidence let me nonetheless state my firm belief that very soon now, some large ISP is going to announce a partnership with Dell (or HP or Gateway or eMachines or some other company) to provide a 'free' PC with every new fixed term Internet account.

Getting the new content to them may very well be a process of essentially supplying the means of access to new content, providing Podcasts, Internet Protocol Television (IPTV), Internet movies, streaming movies and who knows what else.

It's still possible that PCs, even at their most (useably) rudimentary, are still too costly to offer in such a combination. Realistic technology planning and growth however, seems to demand that the next level of technological incursion has to drive down into households which can't currently afford the combination of high speed access and a decent computer. With entertainment content shifting to more versatile models, the Internet continues to grow faster than ever. The people who can afford only televisions and basic cable are also a very large group of consumers. Getting the new content to them may very well be a process of essentially supplying the means of access to new content, providing Podcasts, Internet Protocol Television (IPTV), Internet movies, streaming movies and who knows what else. It's coming. The timing is unclear right now, but it's all coming.

A free, low end computer coupled with a high speed Internet connection can be an enlightening experience. The ISP and computer maker who get together and start this ball rolling will have the upper hand in controlling and expanding access for an enormous number of people who are currently without an online voice. In many cases, those same people don't have an offline voice either. An important aspect of political and social influence are therefore often out of their reach. Providing them with an online voice is a good idea. The fact is that the appearance of those voices in great numbers may be just around the corner. I think we live in interesting times.

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