ABSTRACT
According to A Nation Online: Entering the Broadband Age, the largest sector of
growth in home Internet use in the United States has been aided by the transition
from dial-up to broadband technology (cited in U.S. Department of Commerce,
2005). Such movement, however technically impressive, has two problematic
implications in terms of digital divergence: For one, it widens the gap between those
without any form of Internet access and those who now have high-speed access;
for another, it creates a new gap between those with low-speed and those with
high-speed access. Not surprisingly, the shift to higher bandwidth also has important
consequences for the profession of technical communication. We argue in this
chapter that differences in broadband usage constitute a new challenge to the
at-times fraught relationship between academics teaching technical communication
and practitioners working in industry.
