News from the Blandin on Broadband Blog
Minnesota Broadband Advisory Task Force
The Minnesota Broadband Advisory Task Force has been dissolved with a plan to select new members. The Department of Commerce will be looking for applications for potential members for a new iteration of the Task Force later this spring. http://tinyurl.com/3oo4lwm
Blandin Broadband Breakfast Briefing March 30
Last week the Blandin Foundation hosted an event for legislators to meet members of the Blandin Broadband Strategy Board and the Minnesota Intelligent Rural Communities (MIRC) Coalition to listen to their best thinking about the State’s leadership role and the road ahead. http://wp.me/p3if7-1eo Lt Governor Prettner Solon spoke and legislators received a white paper, which is available on the Blandin web site. http://tinyurl.com/4pkd2z2
Rural and Urban Minnesota are Connected
Minnesota Rural Partners published a report that demonstrates the interdependencies between rural and urban areas, indicating the investment in one area produces results throughout the state. http://wp.me/p3if7-1dk Lt Governor Prettner Solon alluded to this report while speaking at the Blandin Broadband Breakfast Briefing.
Minnesotan Creates Award-Winning Health App
Demonstrating Minnesota’s innovative spirit, Minneapolis-based John Schrom wins the Health 2.0’s Spring Developer Challenge with his app, Epicenter. Epicenter allows doctors to benchmark local patient data against a uniform dataset to identify anomalies in real-time. http://wp.me/p3if7-1e7
Community Networks are not a Fad
Another Minnesotan, Chris Mitchell with the Institute for Local Self Reliance, published a report and map that highlights the prevalence of and barriers to publicly-owned networks. http://wp.me/p3if7-1e4 He draws out the financial and policy benefits a community reaps with its own network.
MPR Lifts Local Broadband
Minnesota Public Radio has created a hub of stories, news and editorials on broadband in Minnesota, especially rural Minnesota featuring communities that are taking diverse paths to deploy and adopt broadband. http://wp.me/p3if7-1e1
Ideas to Expand Rural Broadband Access
Guest Blogger, David Fisher details six public policy changes that would expand broadband to rural areas. His suggestions urge for leadership action and public support to be successful. http://wp.me/p3if7-1dJ
Local Broadband News
Anoka
Anoka County fiber project presents to the Schools, Health, Library Coalition BTOP Summit in Washington DC. http://wp.me/p3if7-1eF
Austin
Hormel supports Austin’s application to become a Google network pilot community. http://wp.me/p3if7-1do
Breckinridge
MN2020 publishes a 90-second video on why Breckinridge, and all of Wilkin County, needs better broadband. http://wp.me/p3if7-1dO
Burnsville
Burnsville City Council approved a Dark Fiber License Agreement with TTM Operating Corporation. http://wp.me/p3if7-1cm
Dakota County
Dakota County Libraries use their broadband connections to create a RFID system that allow for self-checkout and other time and money saving tasks. http://wp.me/p3if7-1dT
Dakota County shares its principles for countywide broadband projects, which may be useful to others looking to expand broadband access and use in a county. http://wp.me/p3if7-1cW
Duluth
While Duluth wasn’t the first community to get Google support for fast broadband, it remains hopeful that the momentum to gain Google’s attention will urge them forward. http://tinyurl.com/3frfhh4
Fergus Falls
Fergus Falls hosted a telework conference, inviting many Minnesota businesses and potential teleworkers. http://wp.me/p3if7-1cJ
Lac qui Parle County
More than 38 percent of the residents in the five counties in the Upper Minnesota River basin do not own a home computer, according to information released by the Blandin Foundation’s Intelligent Rural Communities project last year. The Computer Commuter in LqP is a way to drawn people into using technology. http://wp.me/p3if7-1d5
Stevens County
Using MIRC funding, Resource Connections is putting Wi-Fi hotspots and computers in public places so that residents and visitors can get online in Stevens County. http://wp.me/p3if7-1dh
Speech specialists use broadband to work with students remotely throughout the school district. http://wp.me/p3if7-1cA
Twin Cities
The University of Minnesota ARRA-funded project progresses with the help of the Hmong American Partnership and their computer centers and employment readiness classes. http://wp.me/p3if7-1eA
Employers such as Best Buy and Medtronic and giving iPads to employees. http://wp.me/p3if7-1d0
Punch Pizza forgoes traditional “punch card marketing” and moves entirely online. http://wp.me/p3if7-1cs
(Many stories are gathered from local online newspaper. Unfortunately each newspaper has a different policy in regards to archive news and therefore we cannot guarantee access to all articles cited.)
Events
April 14 – Minnesota High Tech Association Spring Conference, INNOVATION IN MINNESOTA – Fueling Our High Tech Economy – Minneapolis MN http://www.mhta.org/spring_conference.php
April 27 – Phone Justice Policy Day – explore relationships to the Internet and cell phones to create phone justice policy that reflects what Minnesota communities need. http://wp.me/p3if7-1eb
April 28 – Broadband and Economic Development (Dallas) http://www.bbpmag.com/2011s/11economic-dev.php
May 7 – TISP Forum http://tinyurl.com/44b7uy9 (Minneapolis) Save the date for a discussion on broadband policy
Looking for more events? Check out TechDotMN’s calendar http://tech.mn/events/. Many events are based in the Twin Cities but it is a comprehensive list. (If you have an upcoming event, consider submitting it.)
Coleman’s Corner
The Minnesota Telecom Alliance http://www.mnta.org annual conference was a great opportunity to see new technology products, meet vendors and to hear the news of providers from around the state. The predominant discussion among the providers is the future of the Universal Service Fund and access charges. Together, these revenue streams have been critical to the ability of smaller independent telephone companies to deploy, operate and maintain fiber to the home and node networks throughout their greater Minnesota service areas. Based on the national broadband plan’s 100 Mb/4 Mb dual standard, the emerging policies will have quite an impact on the companies that serve a big portion of Minnesota’s rural communities.
Customers of Minnesota’s larger telephone companies might benefit from these changes. Current regulatory policies do little to incent these providers to invest in rural areas and the Connected Minnesota maps clearly show the impact. It is not clear yet that the proposed changes will stimulate significant investment in fiber networks in unserved areas. Some expect wireless investment will be used to meet the 4 Mb standard leaving bandwidth hungry businesses and consumers wanting.
Rural Minnesota community leaders might want to investigate the impact of these new policies on their community.