The report builds upon the Coalition’s initial suggestions for a National Rural Policy released last September. According to the recent report, “The mission of the Adoption and Use Group was to investigate why residential, commercial, and institutional users do or do not use the Internet; to examine how broadband connections to the Internet can facilitate, expand, and improve such use; and to develop as much agreement as possible on promising approaches to increase adoption and use of broadband connectivity.”
The report starts out recognizing the importance of broadband on a household and community level. It promotes Federal and state support such as programs, grants, subsidies, and other measures that foster broadband connectivity, computer access, education, and training and that address barriers to effective use of broadband. They organize adoption efforts into 5 categories:
• Bridging the Digital Divide
• Addressing the Broadband Adoption Gap for People with Disabilities
• Increasing the Intensity Of Broadband Use In Core Sectors of Our Economy
• Raising the Bar on Skills and Ease of Use
• Accelerating Innovation
The report details recommendations for policy and actions that would support improvements in each area. What’s nice is that much of what they’ve outlined is in agreement with the recommendations made a week earlier by the Minnesota Ultra High-Speed Broadband Task Force. Both recognize the importance on ubiquitous access. Both recognize the importance of improving adoption rates through training, subsidized computers and increasing relevance.
I thought that the most valuable section talked about increasing broadband use in core sectors because it focuses on broadband as a solution – not a requirement. I know I’ve talked about this from the schools perspectives before – but when I was an undergraduate we had to pass a computer literacy test to graduate. I hated it. It was just about the only time as an undergraduate that I used a computer! I learned whatever I needed to know for the test and that was it. I hadn’t really become a user.
Fast forward 4 years to graduate school – there was no computer literacy test, but there was an expectation that you could use a computer. Computers use had increased and intensified so that we all took it upon ourselves to learn how to use them. That’s not to say that access and training aren’t valuable – they are – but motivation is the key. Framing broadband (and the technology it drives) as a solution is a key motivator for an individual, community or country.
The Ultra Hig-Speed Task Force recommendations are still get media attention, which is great. I think a goal for those of us who support broabdand is to keep it and the Task Force recommendations in the news as long as possible – and to help it bubble up again during the legislative seesion.
Here are some of the places I’ve seen it crop up in the last week:
Almanac North (Duluth, TV) – Task Force Chair, Rick King, Senator Yvonne Prettner Solon and Bill Coleman from Community Technology Advisors (consultatnt to the Blandin Foudnation) talk about the recommednation on their television show.
Broadband Task Force report mixes wants, needs (St Cloud Times) – describes the Task Force speed goal as lofty, and compares it to “the automotive equivalent of providing every resident with a Cadillac”
An editorial in yesterday’s Lake County News-Chronicle champions Minnesota as a possible national leader in rural broadband. Here’s an excerpt from the editorial, but it’s definitely worth reading the whole thing!
Minnesota is no stranger to demanding that rural areas have the technological advantages of metropolitan areas. In the 1920s, the state led the way in proving that bringing electricity to farms was viable. Electric companies then feared they would never recoup the costs to build a rural grid. There were soon electric co-operatives across the state.
The example set in the state proved a model for President Roosevelt’s Rural Electric Administration in 1935 that brought the technology across the nation.
While it’s nice to see that state gumption again from the broadband task force, too many times we’ve seen businesses leave out our rural areas when it comes to today’s technology. Dead zones remain when it comes to cell phone coverage. Only now are there plans for towers in Finland and Isabella in Lake County.
The slow pace of providing what is now a basic service can’t happen when it comes to internet service. With Lake County’s work on broadband, we can stay ahead of the curve and perhaps prove to internet companies that rural areas are a market.
On November 19, 2009, Native Public Media and the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Initiative will release New Media, Technology and Internet Use in Indian Country: Quantitative and Qualitative Analyses, one of the most extensive studies of on the ground technology use, access, and adoption in Native American lands. Demonstrating the great need to include Native Americans in the discourse around the National Broadband Plan, the report combines both a survey of Native American technology use amongst 120 tribes, normed against other national surveys, and in-depth case studies of six successful projects exhibiting Digital Excellence in Native America.
The report will be released at an event jointly hosted by Native Public Media and the Open Technology Initiative in Washington DC. Get Details.
Itasca County is planning to leverage its 800 Mhz public safety network investment to improve local broadband services for the sheriff’s department, communities and residents. The county has issued an RFP for wireless Internet providers to outline how towers, owned by the county, could be used to deliver wireless Internet. A vendor meeting is scheduled for 2 pm this Thursday (November 12) in Grand Rapids.
The Universal Service Fund money comes from telecommunications providers based an assessment of their interstate and international revenues. It goes to subsidize telecommunications service (phones) to low income programs and high-cost areas and services (broadband) schools and libraries and towards rural health care.
There’s good news. According to MulitChannel News, “House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher (D-Va.) is circulating a draft of a bill that would extend the Universal Service Fund to broadband and set a minimum speed of service to qualify for the subsidy.” (Thanks to Ann Higgins for sending the article.)
The plan is to relook at the Fund, which has not grown with the times and kept up with both growing demand for broadband and diversity of telecommunications/communications carriers. Here’s more info taken from the article:
The bill, The Universal Service Reform Act, would require fund recipients to offer broadband at a download rate of 1.5 mbps within five years. That’s twice the FCC’s current definition of high speed, but less than many parties argue will be necessary for some of the bandwidth-hunger apps either in the market or on the drawing board.
Contributions would be based on revenues, phone numbers, or a combination of the two, with that call left up to the FCC. If it chooses revenues, those can be based on intrastate, interstate and “foreign” services.
The fund will create a competitive bidding process for wireless carriers and cap the total growth, with a couple of exceptions. One will be the closing of the so-called “parent trap.” The fund has heretofore capped the payments to a carrier who buys phone exchanges to the amount the previous owner was getting. That rule would be eliminated in the hopes of spurring sales to rural carriers.
I suspect that details such as download rate requirements might be best left elusive (or maybe penciled in) until the National Broadband Plan is set – but I like to see that these things are being considered. Because USF is an existing funding structure, I think it’s easier for many to look at restructuring it than starting from scratch with something completely different.
It’s official, NTIA/RUS today announced they are streamlining the ARRA’s broadband grant and loan programs by awarding the remaining funding in just one more round, instead of two rounds, to increase efficiency and better accommodate applicants. Not unexpected, but now official.
The agencies expect to begin announcing funding first round awards in December 2009.
The agencies also announced they are seeking public comment on how best to administer the second round of funding for the programs in order to improve the applicant experience and maximize the ability of the programs to meet Recovery Act objectives.
I want to thank David Russell for sending me this terrific presentation on FTTH. It outlines the national perspective and includes costs for deploying FTTH. The costs were put together for the FCC staff using real life numbers from Minnesota and Wisconsin, with the assistance of Finley Engineering, Hiawatha and Jaguar.
The numbers are dramatically different than the costs estimated in the Minnesota Ultra High-Speed Broadband Task Force Report (pg 73). I have no firsthand knowledge of actual costs but thought that this might be interesting for readers for the financial information but also the technical detail.
Last summer, Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Rep. Anna Eshoo proposed the Broadband Conduit Deployment Act, which would require that when any government builds or rebuilds a road with federal money that broadband conduit be installed at the same time.
According to the Hillicon Valley blog, “Two key departments –The Department of Transportation and Federal Communications Commission– gave their support for a proposal to dig trenches for broadband fiber as part of the construction of new roads and highways.”
So the “ditch digging bill” seems to be making its way to clear skies.
Today the Minnesota Ultra High-Speed Task Force spoke to the Minnesota High Tech Association (MHTA) about the recommendations. (You can track the comments – mostly from the MHTA – during the conference on Twitter (#Broadband). As always those comments will become less relevant as time passes and new tweets replace the tweets from this morning.
Here is the presentation from today (thanks as always to the Task Force for sharing!):
Here are the Task Force members that sat on the panel:
Rep Sheldon Johnson (not actually a TF member)
Mike O’Connor
Gopal Khanna
John Stanoch
Mary Ellen Wells
Here are their brief notes:
JS – We spoke and more importantly listened to each other. This discussion was about more than speed. We also talked about demand and adoption. We need to boost demand to make supply affordable. We focused on communities without broadband – but some of those areas are high cost areas with low take rates. But as demand grows, so will investment.
GK – Delivery of government services rely on broadband. Many citizens now expect Amazon-type service, 24×7, online, fast service. But to provide that service, we need to be able to reach everyone through broadband – this report will help us.
MO – What do we do now? The dynamic of the group was unusual, we had our usual perspectives but we got beyond that. This isn’t as fast as some folks wanted us to go – but we got to consensus and this speed worked for everyone. We addressed some federal issues – such as symmetry. We recognized that symmetry isn’t actually required as much as having adequate speeds both down and up. Good pages to read: 56 (things to do to get to ubiquitous). Wondering what do to next – page 56+ has a list of tasks that we can work on now. Also page 80 starts the funding discussion. We need another group of people to continue this discussion.
SJ – Legislators come from difference places of understanding of broadband. I haven’t read the report yet, due to such wonderful weather this weekend, but will read it soon. Broadband isn’t so much a partisan issue; it’s rural vs urban. Getting an oversight group is important and I think there will be interest – although the biggest legislative issues is the budget.
MEW – has been involved with some measure of telemedicine since 1995. We need to find some quick wins in the next 6 months to build momentum. We don’t’ need money necessarily but we need those wins and healthcare is a good industry to have those wins.
Posted by Ann Treacy 
Posted by Ann Treacy 
Posted by Ann Treacy 
