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Content tagged with "policy"
FCC Rural Broadband Workshop Video
In case you missed it, you can still stream the FCC's Rural Broadband Workshop. The announcement describes the event:
The workshop will include an examination of the broadband needs of rural populations and the unique challenges of both broadband deployment and adoption in rural areas. In addition, the discussion will highlight the economic, educational, and healthcare benefits that can be realized through broadband deployment and adoption. The workshop will also examine different business models that have been used to deploy broadband in rural areas, including a discussion of the factors that drive investment decisions and technology choices of different types of providers in rural communities. Finally, the workshop will examine the role that states have played, and can continue to play, in meeting the rural broadband challenge.
The first discussion, Broadband Needs, Challenges, and Opportunities in Rural America, focuses on the impact broadband access has on education, healthcare, and economic development. Panelists are:
- Jeff Fastnacht, Superintendent, Ellendale School, Ellendale, ND
- Charles Fluharty, President and CEO, Rural Policy Research Institute
- Brian Kelley, CEO, Ag Technologies
- Thomas F. Klobucar, Ph.D., Deputy Director, Office of Rural Health, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
- Linda Lord, Maine State Librarian
- Don Means, Coordinator, Gigabit Libraries Network
Rural Broadband Buildout - Effective Strategies and Lessons Learned, will start at 11:00 a.m. and will include:
To Overbuild or Underbuild? A Rural Policy Conundrum - Community Broadband Bits Podcast #91
Lisa Gonzalez and I, Christopher Mitchell, are back in studio for a short conversation about the implications of a municipal network or a coop receiving subsidies from government to engage in overbuilding, where it builds a fiber network in an area already served by slow DSL and cable networks. This has become an important issue as Minnesota considers a fund that would encourage networks in areas currently unserved and possibly underserved. We discuss the economics, fairness, and practial realities of both allowing "overbuilding" and disallowing it as Minnesota features two similar networks that have come to different conclusions, to the advantage and disadvantage of different local stakeholders. Read the transcript from this episode here. We want your feedback and suggestions for the show - please e-mail us or leave a comment below. Also, feel free to suggest other guests, topics, or questions you want us to address. This show is 13 minutes long and can be played below on this page or via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed. Listen to previous episodes here. You can can download this Mp3 file directly from here. Find more episodes in our podcast index. Thanks to Valley Lodge for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is "Sweet Elizabeth."
Minnesota Local Governments Advance Super Fast Internet Networks
History of the Quickly Subverted 1996 Telecommunications Act - Community Broadband Bits Episode 89
Kentucky Municipal Utilities Association Passes Resolution Favoring Local Control in Telecommunications
We recently reported that local leaders in Chanute and Westminster had passed resolutions supporting the FCC as it considers its authority. The Kentucky Municipal Utilities Association (KMUA) passed a similar resolution on February 28th.
KMUA members include 45 city-owned utilities including electricity, water, wastewater, natural gas, and telecommunications services. Members include places our readers are familiar with - Franklin, Glasgow, and Russellville - in addition to a lengthy list of other Kentucky communities.
The KMUA is publicly offering its support to the recent court decision finding that the FCC has the authority to remove or prevent state barriers.
The resolution reflects one of the KMUA credos, as listed on their website:
KMUA opposes any action, legislative or administrative, which would curb, limit, or remove local control of the operations of municipal utilities from their citizen owners.
We expect to see more resolutions like this as communities decide to go on record. The language is very similar to the Chanute and Westminster resolutions. We have made the document available below.
Save the White Spaces! From Public Knowledge
The FCC is now contemplating how much newly freed spectrum to retain for public use and how much to auction off to private companies for their exclusive use. Public Knowledge is leading the effort to ensure we retain enough shared spectrum to unleash more innovation and public benefits rather than simply padding the profits of a few massive firms that already control plenty of it.
In addition to the Gigabit Libraries Network's White Spaces Pilot Project, we have shared white space technology stories from North Carolina and New York.
Public Knowledge recently created a video on the prevalence of spectrum in our lives, included below. Most of us take for granted the fact that shared (or unlicensed) spectrum permeates our culture.
Instead of sitting by while the resource is auctioned off to the highest bidder, Public Knowledge has also created a petition to retain the spectrum needed for white space technology to spur more innovation. From the petition:
One of the most promising new technologies uses the empty spaces between television channels, the so-called "TV white spaces" (TVWS). The United States currently leads the world in this new technology. In the few short years since the FCC approved use of the TVWS, companies have built and shipped equipment to bring needed broadband to rural communities, creating jobs and expanding opportunities.
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We call on the FCC to set aside 4 reclaimed TV channels, or 24 MHz, for TV white spaces. This will still leave the FCC more than enough to auction to wireless companies for their commercial needs. By reserving 24 MHz of "unlicensed" spectrum across the country for TV white spaces, the FCC will encourage further innovation in wireless services and foster the growth of next generation WiFi contributing billions of dollars in new products and consumer savings.
Susan Crawford on National Public Radio
"Unless somebody in the system has industrial policy in mind, a long-term picture of where the United States needs to be and has the political power to act on it, we'll be a Third World country when it comes to communications."
Susan Crawford recently spoke with Dave Davies on NPR's FreshAir. During the conversation Crawford touches on a variety of interrelated topics that affect telecommunications in the U.S. The interview is worth a listen; Crawford and Davies discuss her book, Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age, and get into U.S. telecommunications policy.
Crawford discusses the recent U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit decision on network neutrality. Davies and Crawford also tackle the inteplay between the court decision and role of government in bringing access to more people:
I think the problem is actually much more profound than mere discrimination by a few cable actors when it comes to high-speed Internet access. We seem to currently assume that communications access it a luxury, something that should be left entirely to the private market, unconstrained by any form of oversight.
The problem is, that's just not true in the modern era. You can't get a job, you can't get access to adequate healthcare, you can't educate your children, we can't keep up with other countries in the developed world without having very high capacity, very high-speed access for everybody in the country. And the only way you get there is through government involvement in this market.
That's how we did it for the telephone. That's how we did it for the federal highway system. And we seem to have forgotten that when it comes to these utility basic services, we can't create a level playing field for all Americans or indeed compete on the world stage without having some form of government involvement.