Today the Minnesota Broadband Advisory Task Force met. The notes are quicker to read this month – the devil was really in the detail today. The goal was to walk out of the room with a report that was approved. Many of the conversations focused on editing. I grabbed what I thought would be most meaningful out of context. Why the rush to get done?

The Legislature will see the Task Force report on February 10. The report will come from the Commissioner. By February 2011, we will have a new Commissioner of Commerce. (Glenn Wilson is retiring at the end of the year.) If the report is done before then, he may be able to help move it forward. Otherwise, the hope is that the next Commissioner is either up on broadband issues in Minnesota or is a very quick study.

The goal was accomplished. The report needs only a final proof. Because the report is so close to final version, I won’t publish it this month. Don’t want to dull the thunder for the unveiling. I am delighted to share one of my favorite sections (with thanks to JoAnne Johnson for permission). The Task Force took a chart that we did a while back – and made it much better by adding detail. Actually think it would be fair and accurate to say that John Schultz added the detail: Minnesota ARRA awards, including houses passed, miles of fiber and accordance with MN speed goals.

Here are the notes…

Introduction of guests and those on video or teleconference

Ann Treacy, Dennis Fazio

Public remarks

No

Approval of Minutes of November 17, 2010 meeting

Approved

Finalize report – John and Shirley
They took all of the sections that others had written and organized them. The goal is to leave the meeting today with an approved report.

Q: Exec Summary – Do we need a transition to the data? It seems as if we might be throwing too much into the executive summary.
A: Move the intro from page 13 to exective summary

Q: Should we reformat goals to align with current status? We need to delineate are goals with current status.
Q: Are we OK with the charts? We use Speed Matters & Akamai. Maybe we should drop Speed Matters results. (Speed Matters is a self-select test; Akamai has been around longer.) Let’s add dates to the Akamai charts. (yes)

Q: Do we want to use the FCC chart that indicates that MN ranks about 30th in terms of broadband access? (no)

ID Insight has some great data but it’s not available for free. They are providing some statistics to the FCC. ID Insight deals with fraud, which is how they ended up with data on connection speeds.

Q: Unique IP address is a strange number to look at – because some folks might have more than one. Also a home or office network might seem to hide numbers – in that the internal network addressing is internal. Maybe it’s helpful to try to explain the fussiness of IP addresses in terms of trying to calculate penetration – because this may be the best number we can find.

Akamai found a way to explain the inherent troubles with using IP addresses. The trouble is that measurement tools are pretty immature for this field.

Q: What about using email addresses as a determinant? (There is a difference between email addresses and IP addresses.)
Maybe we’ll have to postpone the international comparisons because we can’t find a credible way to compare the MN stats and the International stats.
We have taken out info on Qwest/CenturyTel because the issue won’t be resolved before the report comes out. We modified some healthcare info because again some changes are still not complete and without the definitive facts it paragraph becomes political.

The Future Intentions/Beliefs section is a wish list of the things the Task Force would like to accomplish – but first need the blessing of the new Commissioner.
We need to add tracking unserved. That may be covered as we track ARRA programs. But it would also be nice to track what other states are doing. It seems as if that is a key component to our job.

It would be nice to include a sentence on the closeness of the local surveys (Connect MN and Jack Geller’s report) it lends to the credibility of the results.

LUNCH

Look at Healthcare – this is a look at what’s different in healthcare now as compared to when the last report came out. One big issue is Meaningful Use – and broadband is a key tool necessary to take advantage of/prove meaningful use. (Allina Hospitals could qualify for $65 million in reimbursement for meaningful use.)

Look at Local Government – We have missed listing some advancements allowed through broadband because we are doing them – such as live-casting government meetings, better communications among first responders…

In many ways broadband makes government more transparent. Maybe we will move to a time when decisions are made remotely. Right now people can meet – but not vote.

We’ll need to have discussions about open meeting and other regulations. That would be a discussion on the edge. But we might have to take baby steps. Right now broadband is a bottleneck.

Look into Education: It seems as if there’s a discrepancy between Higher Ed and K12. K12 entered the Learning Network in 1996.

Legislators may think that the Learning Network of Minnesota is a physical network. But the network isn’t so much a real physical network. It is more on the higher education side – but the k12 is less stand alone. LNM is more of a concept – or network of networks.

This is a look at what exists today. There is interest in finding someone to manage some of the broadband/e-rate/network plans. Now is a good time to make that point.

Making that statement might be politically sticky.
Look into Libraries: starts with a lot of quotes.
Much of the e-rate info is also listed in the education section.

We want to make the point that we need public access points.

Pencil in a plan of January 19 (third Wed of the month really for 2011)

Next meeting: date, location, agenda topics
The third Wednesdays of the month have been penciled in for 2011 – but with new Commissioner expected, I emphasize pencil.

Adjournment