Blandin on Broadband

Today’s one of those, working-on-3-computers-at-once days. I was uploading video to YouTube for a resort, watching the webcast of the Senate meeting and doing regular work on the other. The YouTube video timed out, the webcast was shaky but the email went well. So one thing I learned today without even paying attention is that DSL is not enough.

Here are the other things I picked up from the Full Senate Meeting: Why Broadband Matters. My notes are pretty “high level”, which is really just another way of saying I gave it about 80 percent of my attention and focused in on parts that interested me (libraries and Minnesota).

Telemedicine

As you might imagine, people talked about applications. Telemedicine ranked highly. The guy from Alaska (Gene Peltola) talked about the programs that they have in the hinterlands to provide services, especially to veterans. Apparently the government is supposed to track vets for 5 years; many are difficult to track because they come from and/or land in rural areas. Also the rural areas often do not have resources to support vets; telecommunications is a practical way to reach out and support this group. (Apparently many of the folks in Alaska receive services from Minnesota.)

Loads of people already take advantage of telemedicine applications (though often over POTS lines); examples include 80,000 people who are able to report their vitals to a healthcare provider from home and 1 million people with remote heart monitors.

Some people expected that there would be some apprehension from patients to use the technology – but that has not been the case. In fact patients are improving uses. [Note from Ann: my mom used a remote heart monitor for testing years ago. She thought it was slick and beat the heck out of going to the doctor daily or more.]

To sustain telemedicine, we need to develop policy that compensates people for the effort. Medicare has to reimburse costs and compensate health care workers.

Right now health care networks are a state issue. We need to bump that to a national level. Not that federal folks need to step in on state issues but we need to create an intra-state network to expand expertise beyond state borders.

school

E-Learning

According to Speed Matters (Larry Cohen) 3.5 million have taken at least one class online.  I loved when one Senator praised that number but also said we need to do a study to see how online degrees are perceived in the workplace. So smart! [Ann’s note: I am a proponent of online learning but when we looked at an online program for my husband’s PhD we realized that at least in the Humanities, the programs were not as respected as the old ivory walls.]

Libraries (represented by ALA member Margaret Conroy) remain a great equalizer. [Ann’s note: I have a Master’s degree in Library & Info Science so I am not unbiased.] Libraries serve as the frontlines to technology. They help students (78% of patrons come in for education-based reasons), they help the elderly, job seekers, recent immigrants (not to recent immigrants), they help spouses IM to loved ones in the military and more. [Ann’s note: examples of how technology supports military and vets ran high in the session.]

Seniors

The woman from AARP (Dr. Mara Mayor) talked about the role that broadband can play in keeping seniors active. Seniors as a demographic are growing in great numbers as the Baby Boomers age and live longer. Most remain and/or want to remain active. Access to broadband helps them create livable communities, continue lifelong learning and expand productivity into later years.

Rural Areas

There are people who would like to move to rural and remote areas but without broadband access they have trouble continuing careers and/or finding jobs.

Where Does the US Stand?

Just about anyone reading this has read before – we don’t rank well with US counterparts. We’re like the fallen major league player strutting our stuff on the minor league baseball diamond. We brag about speeds of 2.3 mbps, while Japan averages 65 mbps.

A sobering tidbit: We talk about a goal of 10 mbps by 2010. First, we’re not going to make that unless we see some serious hustle. Second, we are aiming way too low. There is something wrong when we’re happy (and lucky) ato achieve 10 percent of what Japan and other countries are doing with infrastructure.

How can we change it?

The countries that have better broadband access than the US have national broadband plans. They developed policies to support those plans. We need a national plan.

A few people proposed a plan – at a very high level. Basically they consisted of:

• Set goals
• Assess current access
• Stimulate demand/Support demonstrations with grants
• Encourage the build-out of existing networks with
  • tax policies that encourage investment or
  • regulations that demand better bandwidth

Universal Service Funds

We need to reform the universal service fund to include/embrace digital access. The E-Rate was a great success.

We need to look at affordable housing and make sure that those homes are getting wired. There is plenty of affordable housing going up in urban and rural areas and now is a good time to set up the broadband access to those homes.

A good question – What are the sources for the future funds for the USF? Right now they come from long distance companies and surcharges – but that’s a diminishing market.

How much is it?

A few people asked about the costs associated with broadband. Some rough numbers were thrown around such as $300-$1000 per home for FTTH.

Questions from Amy Klobuchar (back to the MN focus)

Q. What has Canada done?

A. They have mapped connectivity. We need to set broadband goals.

Q. How are the public/private partnerships working?

A. The level of capital expenditure required for broadband demands private investment. We need to tell the providers that the market isn’t working. We need to regulate the market to insist on a higher minimum level of service.

Q. How did Alaska up their broadband speeds?

A. They worked with the private sector.

Q. What’s up with the Public Radio/Public TV model on the Internet? (I paraphrase hugely.)

A. One Economy Corporation is working on acting as a producers and aggregator of information similar to that created for Public Radio and Public TV.

Senator Inouye

The thing I liked most about Senator Inouye was that he had an air of urgency about his comments and questions. He more or less said – come on know we have to start paying attention to this issue, immediately. He did say, “this is just as important as the printing press.” He reminded folks that on Feb 17, 2009, television is going digital. He predicted that thousands of people would probably wake and wonder why their TVs won’t work. And he’s right. And that’s a bad sign.

We understand the benefits – but need to know the costs – which I offered above.