Farnet

The implication in FarNet was that successful posting and sharing of resources and e-mail communication by teachers would be a significant factor in the success of the introduction of internet technology and, as a corollary, promote the wider use of ICT in schools.

The sociability factor includes people, purposes, and policies, encompassing, significantly with respect to the FarNet community, the needs of the users.

The FarNet project attempted to forge a community of groups of teachers of particular subjects across 10 schools, largely high schools but including schools which span K-12.

However, given the time lag before there was traction in terms of operation of the hardware, software and the FarNet site, the majority of the data were collected in the latter half of the project.

Although the NSFNET began as a network solely for the education and research communities, it has evolved into the general purpose network we know today as the Internet, which now includes commercial access providers and a growing number of international networks.(183) FARNET relies on a process of consensus resolution to coordinate international protocols, equipment selection, and traffic routing policies.(184) A compelling justification for at least minimal government involvement arises in the context of non-discriminatory access, one of the basic reasons that the federal government is committed to the development of a National Information Infrastructure ("NII")(185) and the Global Information Infrastructure ("GII").(186)

Another non-profit organization dedicated to providing local access to the Internet is the Interactive Services Association ("ISA"), which is comprised of over 300 member organizations from the advertising, broadcasting, cable, computer, financial services, marketing, publishing, telephone, and travel industries.(187) Both the ISA and FARNET have identified a significant obstacle to universal national access in that most consumer commercial online services are only available through a local telephone number in about 80% of the country.(188) In addition, only 20% of the nation's public libraries have some type of connection to the Internet.(189)

126 (1994) (statement of Jim Williams, Executive Director, FARNET, Inc.) [hereinafter Hearing on Internet Access].