Monthly Archives: March 2008

Tech Policy Summit 2008

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The Tech Policy Summit 2008 was held March 26-28 in Hollywood. I wasn’t there but I thought I’d virtually lurk by checking out the Summit site, blogs and news articles on the event – but then I found the Tech Policy Central site that has done the job for me.
Here are quickie highlights taken from there or from resources cited there:

  1. The theme this year was Markets in Transition: Collaborating to Drive Technology Innovation and Adoption.
    Tech Talent Drain One Of The ‘Scariest’ Trends In US, Says Qualcomm Chief – I thought this was interesting as I just listened to a radio program in Ireland about incentives they are creating to encourage more students to study math. The point here was a little different and focused on students from abroad who are educated in the US and then can’t (or don’t) get work here. But building a homegrown interest in math wouldn’t hurt. (Here’s another related article – Congress is holding H-1B boost ‘hostage,’ says Oracle lobbyist.)

    It makes about as much sense as Minnesota feeding and training the farm team for the Yankees.

  1. Comcast & BitTorrent are friends. I reported on this earlier – but the timing of the announcement coincided with the conference; c|net posted a nice Q&A with Comcast on the new partnership. (Here’s FCC Commissioner McDowell’s take on it.)
  2. I’ve seen the most coverage on a panel session that included Ambassador Richard Russell, the associate director of the White House’s Office on Science and Technology Policy who thinks the US rocks for broadband and Yale Law School’s Susan Crawford doesn’t agree. My favorite reading of the session comes from Slashdot – and as is often the case, it’s the comments that I most enjoy.

Blandin on Broadband shows up in the darnedest places

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Yesterday I attended a technology and communications conference sponsored by the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits and MAP for Nonprofits. Throughout the day, “Digital Immigrants” (a term used by keynote presenter Beth Kanter for folks who didn’t grow up with technology) were exposed to examples of how Web 2.0 tools such as Flickr and Tweeter, You Tube and Facebook and blogs and wikis could support our work.

Mary Turck of Twin Cities Daily Planet fame and Jeremy Iggers, executive director of the Twin Cities Media Alliance, presented an information-rich session titled “Media Relations in the Age of New Media”. Theirs was a message of change and opportunity – change brought about by the dramatic decline in print media readership (resulting in sharp cuts in news rooms across the country and their ability to cover the news) and opportunity enabled by technologies that put powerful tools in the hands of ordinary citizens. This repositions a growing segment of the population formerly known as “the audience” to partners in a multi-directional communication network.

The take-home message behind all of this is that the stories we tell must remain the constant and the driving force behind the mediums we choose to deliver them. I was jotting this note while Mary was bringing up an example of a blog that, in her opinion, does just that. When I looked back up, I was both surprised and delighted to see the Blandin on Broadband blog projected – bigger than life – on the screen. I shared with the group that the success of the BoB blog (as we affectionately call it) rests squarely on the shoulders of Ann Treacy, our blogger rock star. Thank you Ann, for jumping in with both feet to the age of new media!

Minnesota State Video Franchising Impact Study

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And speaking of statewide studies, thanks to Ann Higgins at the League of Minnesota Cities for sending me a heads up on HF2351.

The plan is to study the impact of state cable franchising laws that have been implemented in at least three states with a report to the 2009 legislature next January. The bill was amended again earlier this week when it was included in state budget recommendations from the House Energy Finance Division. The study would be funded at $85,000, with the funding for the study to be transferred to the Board of Regents of the University of Minnesota in order to have a study conducted through the U of M.

The bill is now set to be included in the House supplemental budget legislation to be passed out of the House Finance Committee today. The Senate took no similar action on the companion to HF 2351 (SF 2216 – Sparks), which was not heard in committee once Qwest announced that it would no longer be taking the lead to urge passage of the bill. It remains to be seen if the study will be in the final supplemental budget legislation that emerges from the 2008 session.

Minnesota Senate Broadband Inventory Project

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Thanks to Christopher Mitchell of ILSR for sending me the final link to SF 2866 – the Minnesota Senate Broadband Inventory Project. The plan is to move ahead with broadband mapping. They want to track (by November 1, 2008):

  1. minimum and maximum upload and download speeds at a local government unit or level.

And produce maps that clearly convey:

  1. areas unserved by any broadband provider;
  2. areas served by a single broadband provider;
  3. areas served by multiple broadband providers;
  4. available upstream and downstream transmission speeds at the county level of detail
  5. the types of technology used to provide broadband service.

Broadband providers must provide info requested. I won’t say much more. I have posted thoughts on the mapping in earlier posts.

Comcast Opens Lanes for All Traffic

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Thanks to Ann Higgins to sending me the heads up on shift of winds at Comcast (Comcast to stop hampering file-sharing). Comcast got into trouble for throttling customer traffic based on usage. One of the big examples was cutting off BitTorrent users.

Well, faster than prom dates are made and broken at this time of year – Comcast and BitTorrent are friends. They are going to work together to find a better way to manage the traffic so that all users get the bandwidth they need.

It sounds as if they are hoping to have some solutions in place by the end of the year. It will be interesting to see how if this has any effect on the FCC meetings. I think that the fact that the vendors have worked on a solution together will demonstrate that a light touch in regulation can work. (That’s not a vote one way or another from me – just an observation.)

Free Seminar on Community Broadband in Mpls on May 14

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Alcatel-Lucent is offering a free, one-day seminar to encourage community leaders to network with peers and learn how to bring broadband to the community.

The will Answer your questions on:

  1. How to overcome regulatory and legal issues?
  2. How to develop and present your business case?
  3. What funding sources are available?
  4. What fiber technology to deploy?

The conference will be on May 14, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Learn more

NY Gives Out Broadband Grants

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Thanks to Ann Higgins for sending me the article (Universal Broadband Grants for New York Announced) on the grant program in NY for public/private sector partnerships.

It’s a nice example of a state that is getting involved with broadband on a statewide level by supporting local governments to create solutions that work. (Sadly, I don’t think they’re accept an application from Minnesota – though maybe New York Mills could give it a shot.)

SUrvey on MN Rural Blogs

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My friends at E-Democracy have asked me to post the following. If you have a minute please consider filling out their survey.     Thanks!   Ann 

E-Democracy

Dear Friends:

Over the next few months, E-Democracy.Org will be gathering information on interesting community orientated online web sites, discussions, or citizen media projects in Greater Minnesota. In addition to sharing the best resources that we find, we hope to invite some of these projects to take part in a series of five citizen media workshops that we are organizing around the state of Minnesota.

To help us gather information, E-Democracy.Org is asking people to fill out (and share with others) a short survey form that will help us better understand how internet users in Greater Minnesota are using the internet to connect with others in their local community and to share information about their community.

Here is a link to the survey, please fill it out and pass it along to others that you know. It should take less than 5 minutes to complete the survey.

http://tinyurl.com/2444xy

If you have additional questions about our project, please check out this site, or contact us at: team@e-democracy.org

Best wishes,

Tim Erickson
Program Director
E-Democracy.Org
651-246-5045

Public Safety Spectrum No Go

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National Broadband Safety NetworkAs I wrote the other day, the 700 Mhz Spectrum is closed but one auction did not meet its minimum – the spectrum to build the public safety network.

So, what happens now? The Congress is planning to hold meetings to decide just that. Maybe they’ll hold another auction. Maybe they’ll get rid of the minimum bid requirement. Maybe they’ll decide not to privatize the building of the safety network.

I wrote a lot about the public safety spectrum last spring:

More on the Public Safety Broadband Networks
Debate on the Emergency Broadband Network

The questions are similar to the questions floating around community access to broadband – how much should be left to the market and how much should government get involved?

Cyren Call is a company that approached the FCC in 2006 (I think) to take over the spectrum (for free) and build a safety net – but that didn’t work out. Last fall, they become advisors on the public safety spectrum. I didn’t find much info from them post Spectrum bidding.

Refinancing of UTPIA bonds

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http://origin.sltrib.com/ci_8645697

This very interesting article about the refinancing of UTOPIA bonds is very interesting to me. If the article is correct, UTOPIA will sell 189 million in bonds, repay 135 million in existing bond debt and receive 20 million for new network construction. I am not a finance guy, but 189 million minus 135 million minus 20 million is 34 million. If that is going for fees to lawyers and financiers, we need to find a new way to finance municipal networks! $34 million is 18 percent of the total. If one figures $3000 per house to hook up to a fiber network (Utopia’s incremental cost is probably less), those fees would cover costs to hook up over 11,000 homes.

HCO Project Update

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Home and Community Options, Inc.

Light Speed Grant Recipient

Project Update March 21, 2008

Peter Walsh, Project Coordinator

We have had an exciting couple of weeks as we have been wiring one of our residences with a plethora electronic security and remote monitoring devices.  The men at the residence are really excited and look forward to the day when they will not need a night staff on the premise.  This is really a big deal for them as it impacts directly on their sense of self and independence. 

We will be in the testing phase for some time as we work out the bugs and develop our intervention protocols.  Surprisingly one of the biggest challenges has been full duplex IP audio.  There are not very many options to provide at-the-moment dialog.  For example to get a response to the query “Are you alright?” in places where an IP camera is not allowed such as bedrooms and bathrooms.  We have located a solution and will begin testing it this week.

 

Our employee training is starting to catch on.  The word is out that the classes are very beneficial and we now have waiting lists for the next round of classes that start this week.  So we may decide to offer a couple more sessions to accommodate the increased interest.  I think one of the responses from one of our former foot draggers speaks volumes:  “You know that if we are really going be able to take advantage of this system everyone is going to have to be up to speed.”  We may be approaching the downhill slope and all because of our Light Speed Grant!!  Thank you Blandin!

light speed communityThe Blandin Foundation is supporting four standout broadband programs through the Light Speed program. The program’s purpose is to stimulate the deployment of bandwidth intensive applications that connect local institutions to area resident’s home. This post comes from a Light Speed community leader.

700 Mhz Spectrum, and the winner is…

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Yesterday the FCC announced the results of the recent Spectrum Auction. The quick facts:

There were 214 qualified bidders
101 bidders won 1090 licenses
One auction didn’t get the necessary bid, which I thought meant they wouldn’t share info on the other auctions but apparently that isn’t the case.

Verizon/Vodafone was the big winner. They got 6 of the biggest licenses and many of the smaller licenses. They spent $9.63 billion.

AT&T didn’t win any of the big licenses but they did win a lot (227) of the medium licenses. They spent $6.64 billion.

Google won nothing. Although many people point out that they won the moment the FCC added the open access conditions into the bidding requirements. The comments on the Google policy blog might second that:

While the Commission’s anti-collusion rules prevent us from saying much at this point, one thing is clear: although Google didn’t pick up any spectrum licenses, the auction produced a major victory for American consumers.

DSL Reports has a nice story on the Auction (Verizon Nabs Most Valuable 700Mhz Spectrum) but the most interesting reading there is comments from readers. One feels let down by Google. One suggests that the winners this time around should not be allowed to bid next time. (I didn’t know a next time was in the works.)

Broadband Customer Gets Cut Off for Overuse

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Last week I wrote about the Judiciary Committee Antitrust Task Force Hearing on Net Neutrality and Free Speech on the Internet. One of the big issues discussed was the fact that ISPs are reducing bandwidth for folks they feel use too much bandwidth.

Several ISPs have been cited for doing this, most notably Comcast. In the hearing the ISPs maintained that they needed to be able to manage their networks to work for everyone. One presenter seemed to note that the real issue was that the super users were generally doing something illegal.

Well today a blog post from someone who had been cut off caught my eye (Clearwire Makes Me Sad). It’s not the first instance I’ve read about – but this blogger (Aaron Huslage) does a good job of describing the facts of his situation. Also he mentions that he worked for an ISP in the 1990s (so I liked him right away) and compares how the ISPs budgeted for customer usage then as compared to how they do it today.

I can remember one issue we had with capacity in the 90s in some rural parts of Minnesota was that people were online a lot more in the winter. So you had to decide whether you’d build for the peak times or for a sunny day in August.

I think the ISPs today need to consider the same today and market accordingly.

FiberNet Hits a Fiber Bump

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Thanks to Christopher Mitchell (of ILSR) for passing on article on the latest on FiberNet from the Timberjay Newspaper (Range fibernet project at a crossroads).

The project is at a crossroads. According to Hoyt Lakes Mayor Marlene Pospeck, the Iron Range Network Joint Powers Board is still committed to a high speed network. But the method is in question.

For a long while, FiberNet was working with Dynamic Cities. Last Fall, Hiawatha Broadband got involved with a much lower bid than Dynamic Cities. (I don’t know that the price was the reason for the change.) Initially, Hiawatha was going to build and run the network – but earlier this year, they decided to leave the operation of the network to the cities.

Some people had an issue with the government operating the networks. It wasn’t something they wanted to do.

Well now they have called in Tim Nulty (who was instrumental in the network in Burlington Vermont and East Central Vermont Community Fiber Network) to offer a proposal to help the project. Tim’s plan would not require public funds, he has a program where cities would pay an annual lease fee that would be equivalent to a mortgage payment, and then the cities would cover the cost of the fee through the revenue the network would collect from the sale of services

Apparently there is a meeting on Thursday where decisions will (hopefully) be made about how to move forward.

What happens when a third, triple-play provider comes to town?

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I am very interested to learn what happens when a third wired, triple-play provider enters a local market. Where does the third provider generally set their price point? What is the competitive response from the incumbent phone and/or cable providers? Is the competitive response a short-term special offer or are there long-term differences in prices that permanently affect the local market. I have been doing a little research here in Minnesota and my preliminary findings are that companies like Charter, Mediacom and Qwest maintain consistent pricing across Minnesota no matter whether there are two or three wired providers in the community. I am also interested in the impact on the pricing offered to the business community, both small and big bandwidth users; this information is more difficult to obtain.

What have you seen in your community? As communities go through the decision-making process about their own involvement in telecom investments, this is a critical consideration for marketing and cash flow projections.