You might not have made it to Mesa for the Digital Southwest Regional Broadband Summit, but you can now watch some of the speakers and panel conversations. Next Century Cities has posted video from panel conversations and the keynote address from Commissioner Mignon Clyburn.

In her address, Commissioner Clyburn said:

“Access to high-speed broadband is a necessity in today’s 21st century economy, providing a gateway to jobs, education, and healthcare. I am honored to join state and local leaders who are on the front lines of closing the digital and opportunities divide. Working together, we can achieve our shared goal of affordable broadband for all Americans.”

The Commissioner’s full remarks were about 18 minutes long:

Sharing Knowledge on Infrastructure 

Christopher moderated Panel Two, focused on infrastructure needs, which included CISSP President and CTO of CityLink Telecommunications John Brown, Partner at Conexon Jonathan Chambers, Director of Technology at the Southern California Tribal Chairmen’s Association Matt Rantanen, Manager of Tribal Critical Infrastructure at Amerind Riskand Kimball Sekaquaptewa, and Vice President of Digital Innovation at Magellan Advisors Jory Wolf. If you listen to the Community Broadband Bits podcast, you’ll probably recognize most of these voices.

The video lasts one hour thirteen minutes:

The other videos are available on the Next Century Cities YouTube channel page, or watch them here.

Welcome and Introduction: Deb Socia, Executive Director of Next Century Cities and Eric Farkas, Fujitsu Network Communications, 7:32

...

Next Century Cities’ just announced that Federal Communications Commissioner Mignon Clyburn will Keynote at the Digital Southwest event on April 18th. You can register now to attend the conference in Mesa, Arizona, at the Mesa Convention Center.

About the event:

This full-day event will bring together broadband champions from federal, state, and local government, as well as community leaders and broadband policy experts from the Southwest and across the nation. The event will feature stories of broadband deployment success, digital inclusion initiatives, financing opportunities, and more.

Participants will hear from mayors, other city officials, state and federal policymakers, rural and tribal representatives, as well as national broadband experts. From financing to infrastructure development to smart cities, panelists will share a wealth of practical information.

The full agenda and participant list is available online, but here’s peek at some of the topics:

• Stories of Success
• Small Cells and Poll Attachments
• Rural and Tribal
• Broadband Financing
• Models 101

Christopher, as Policy Director of Next Century Cities, will participate in the Broadband Infrastructure Panel.

There will be a welcome reception from 5:30 - 7 p.m. at the Media Arts Center in Mesa and the conference starts at 8:30 a.m. at the Convention Center. Register now and be sure to book your hotel.

West Virginia rural communities struggle with access to broadband but a bill in the state legislature is taking some first steps to encourage better connectivity. HB 3093 passed the House with wide support (97 - 2) and has been sent on to the Senate for review. The bill doesn’t appropriate any funding for Internet infrastructure projects around the state, but adopts some policies that may help local communities obtain better connectivity.

Revenue Neutral And Popular

The state is facing a $500 million budget deficit and lawmakers don't have the appetite to appropriate finds for Internet infrastructure projects. As in most states, policy bills do well during times of financial strife. Elected officials still want to do what they can to encourage better broadband so, according to at least one lawmaker, the revenue neutral nature of the bill has contributed to its success in the legislature. Delegate Roger Henshaw, one of the bill's co-sponsors, told Metro News:

“Notice this is a revenue-neutral bill,” Hanshaw said. “That’s in fact one of the reasons we’re rolling it out now. We have other bills here in both the House and Senate that are not revenue-neutral bills that were on the table for consideration.

“But with the clock ticking on us, it became clear that we probably ought to be looking at options to advance service that didn’t even have the possibility of a financial impact. This bill does not.”

Check out the 3-minute interview with Hanshaw on Soundcloud.

The Broadband Enhancement Council

West Virginia’s Broadband Enhancement Council was created in a previous session and receives more authority and responsibility under HB 3093. They are tasked with the authority to, among other things, gather comparative data between actual and advertised speeds around the state, to advise and provide consultation services to project sponsors, and make the public know about facilities that offer community broadband access. 

HB 3093 briefly addresses the creation of the “Broadband Enhancement Fund," and addresses how the funds should be spent. For now, the fund remains dry...

Our friends at Fight for the Future let us know that an important vote on privacy rules is happening today. We want to pass on the information so you know who to call to express your concern about who collects and disseminates your personal data:

Today at noon, Congress is expected to vote on whether to gut the FCC’s broadband privacy rules that prevent Internet Service Providers like Comcast and Verizon from collecting and selling your personal data without your permission.

In just a few hours Congress could roll back these landmark rules that many of us fought hard for last year.

And get this-- the 22 senators behind this controversial resolution have received more than $1.6 million from the very same companies that would profit from us losing our broadband privacy rights.

Here are the names and phone numbers of the lawmakers who we need to side with us to protect broadband privacy rights:

We can’t let this happen. Call Congress right now.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (202) 224-6665 @lisamurkowski

Sen. Susan Collins (202) 224-2523 @SenatorCollins

Sen. Jerry Moran (202) 224-6521 @JerryMoran

Sen. Cory Gardner (202) 224-5941 @SenCoryGardner

Sen. Benjamin Sasse (202) 224-4224 @BenSasse

Sen. Dean Heller (202) 224-6244 @SenDeanHeller

If these privacy protections are removed, ISPs will be able to do the following :

Monitor and sell all your location data, search history, app usage, and browsing habits to advertisers without your permission, hijack your search results, redirecting your traffic to paying third parties, and insert ads into web pages that would otherwise not have them
.

This is going to be a close vote. We’ve included the names, numbers, and twitter handles of key members of Congress who could vote to uphold current broadband privacy rules.

Call them now. Tell them to protect our privacy. Here’s a sample script you can use:

“Hi, my name is ______, I’m calling to ask Senator _____ to vote against the CRA proposal to roll back the FCC’s broadband privacy rules. Please don’t let Internet Service Providers sell my personal information without my permission.”

This vote is happening very soon, please call or contact these key members of Congress now.