News from the Blandin on Broadband Blog

MIRC Projects Highlighted
Last week, the Blandin Foundation hosted NTIA (National Telecommunications and Information Administration) consultants on a tour of some of the ARRA-funded Minnesota Intelligent Rural Communities (MIRC) initiative projects. The tour headed west from St. Paul including stops in Windom, Ortonville, Madison, Morris, Willmar and a few places in between, hearing from broadband adoption programs in the various communities. http://wp.me/p3if7-1pY Stories from the trip will be posted on the blog over the next couple of weeks.

Fall Broadband Conference – Nov 16-17
The Blandin Foundation and Connect Minnesota are joining forces to provide conference goers a snapshot of policy and progress being made both inside Minnesota’s borders and on the national level at the Policy and Progress: Border to Border Broadband conference held November 16-17 in Duluth, Minnesota. http://tinyurl.com/44qgnxg The event will include a series of pre-conference webinars and a broadband film fest at the event. http://wp.me/p3if7-1q6

Who isn’t Online?
Over the summer, Connected Nation interviewed 12,000 US residents about their broadband adoption. In September, they released the first of many reports on their findings; this one focuses on low-income families with children. They report that 37 percent of low-income minority households with children have broadband at home and only 40 percent have computers at home. In fact, for low-income households, the cost of access and computer ownership is the most-cited reason why they do not adopt broadband. http://wp.me/p3if7-1pr

AT&T T – Mobile Merger
The AT&T/T-Mobile Merger continues to attract attention. http://wp.me/p3if7-1oF Yesterday, the Center for Science, Technology, and Public Policy hosted a lecture featuring former Congressman Rick Boucher and amalia delony, grassroots director for the Center for Media Justice discussing the impact of the proposed merger, especially on rural areas and low-income residents. http://wp.me/p3if7-1qp

Local Broadband News

Albert Lea
The Albert Lea City Council approves another move toward sharing information technology services with Freeborn County, which is expected to save the city more than $6,000 a year. http://wp.me/p3if7-1p7

Anoka
Anoka County celebrates the groundbreaking of their ARRA-supported fiber deployment. http://wp.me/p3if7-1p5

Blue Earth
Save Rural Broadband works with Blue Earth to produce a video extolling the virtues of broadband. http://wp.me/p3if7-1pj

Lake County
Minnesota PUC approved Lake Communications’ application for the authority to provide broadband fiber optic service in Lake and St. Louis counties. http://wp.me/p3if7-1oX

Park Rapids
Paul Bunyan Telephone is expanding broadband to 4,000 homes in Park Rapids thanks to a $17 million loan through the USDA’s Rural Utility Service. http://wp.me/p3if7-1pQ

Red Wing, Lake City, Plainview, Elgin, Eyota and Dover
HBC’s (Hiawatha Broadband Communications) fiber access network plans an extension to cover a wide swath of Southern Minnesota, including Red Wing, Lake City, Plainview, Elgin, Eyota and Dover. http://wp.me/p3if7-1pd

Redwood County
Redwood County decides to move forward with a fiber optic feasibility study. http://wp.me/p3if7-1oC

Roseville
Terre Hauser, from the City of Roseville, speaks at the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors Conference in San Francisco about collaboration and shared IT services among Ramsey County communities. http://wp.me/p3if7-1pn

Silver Bay
A Lake County Commissioner urges for improved wireless broadband for public safety, especially to support emergency personnel combatting forest fires. http://wp.me/p3if7-1pL

Stearns County
Stearns County’s web site is named the best county government web site in the country in the Center for Digital Government’s Best of the Web awards. http://wp.me/p3if7-1oy

Trout Lake Township
Paul Bunyan Telephone is expanding fiber service to Trout Lake Township. While construction is expected to begin next Spring, service may be three years away. http://wp.me/p3if7-1pV

Twin Cities
Comcast is offering fast Internet access to low-income Twin Cities families for $10 a month. http://wp.me/p3if7-1p3

(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

October 6-7 – MN Telecom Alliance Fall Conference (Minneapolis) http://tinyurl.com/3jp7qq9

October 13 – Minnesota Association of Community Telecommunications Administrators Annual Conference (Lake Elmo, MN) http://tinyurl.com/25re5wp

November 3 – Tekne Awards (Minneapolis) http://www.tekneawards.org/

November 12 – CityCamp Minnesota (Minneapolis) http://citycamp.govfresh.com/

November 16-17 – Policy & Progress: Border to Border Broadband (Duluth) http://tinyurl.com/44qgnxg

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.)

Stirring the Pot

Several folks from Google were on the agenda at last week’s NATOA conference. I have to say that the more I heard from the Googlers, the less I liked them! Smugness filled the room whenever Google was talking. We learned that Google people are really smart. And that they work really fast. And that their new network will be the model of best practices despite never having built a network before. And that they are really, really smart.

All of which may be true. On the other hand, one Googler stated that satellite broadband was “good enough” for rural consumers, so maybe not so smart after all. That remark brought boos and hisses from my corner of the room.

Another Google representative bragged aggressively about Google Speed – which describes their fast pace of action at Google. Based on their implementation so far, I am skeptical. Google announced their community fiber project in February 2010 and took more than a year to announce Kansas City, Kansas as their partner. Seven months after the announcement, they have yet to break ground. NTIA and RUS and hundreds of project partners around the country are moving at least as fast in a much more complex financial, legal and regulatory environment.

Regulation and permitting was a point of emphasis for Google. Interestingly, Google estimates that they can save 3 – 5% of fiber network construction costs by working with the local government to efficiently permit and inspect the project. They did not give much detail on how the savings might be accomplished or whether Google’s savings are simply costs transferred to Kansas City. Google emphasized Kansas City’s single layer of regulation as a key factor in their selection. Heads seemed to be nodding in agreement around the room.

This contrasted to an earlier discussion at the conference over the wireless industry’s complaints about tower siting and permitting processes. The industry’s testimony to the FCC brought howls of protests from local representatives. “We are not the problem” was the consensus of the attendees. Considering the importance of broadband deployment to communities, I do wonder about the minimum goal of the regulators and whether their goal should move from “not the problem” to “infrastructure investment enabler”. When Google came a calling, we all jumped as high and as fast as possible. I wonder how we treat our local providers.

Speed and ease of implementation can be a competitive advantage. Clearly, Google considers it to be an important factor in its business. How does it work in your community?

Bill Coleman helps communities make the connection between telecommunications and economic development. As principal in Community Technology Advisors http://tinyurl.com/3f4dx7g for ten years, he assists community, foundation and corporate clients develop and implement programs of broadband infrastructure investment and technology promotion and training. Bill is working with the Blandin Foundation on the MIRC Initiative http://tinyurl.com/2c6mhh4, Community Broadband Resource Program http://tinyurl.com/cseu7e and other broadband projects.