OK, first it’s the free Muni FTTH Networking Day in Nashville (Feb 20), now it’s the free Future of Broadband: Moving From Why to How conference in DC (January 29) — it’s a enough to get a girl to move back to the US.

Future of Broadband: Moving From Why to How is being sponsored by EDUCAUSE and App-Rising.com. A powerful duo on their own – and they have a nice line up of speakers, including Jim Baller, Congreeman Rich Boucher, Gary Bachula from Internet2…

I just want to say a little bit about the sponsors in case you don’t know them:

EDUCAUSE – is a big gun in the education realm. I remember reading their newsletter faithfully when I was a computer teacher. What I like is it appears to be teachers teaching teachers not just IT folks. Now, IT folks are great – but if you haven’t been in front of a classroom, you don’t know the challenges.

App-Rising.com – is maintained by Minnesota homegrown tech guru, Geoff Daily, who keeps a good eye on what’s going on in the world of broadband. He checks out what people and communities are doing to deploy broadband and what they can do once they get it.

The event is a precursor to the State of the Net, which they tout as “the largest technology policy conference in DC”. Apparently there were 500 attendees last year.

 The issues for this January 30 conference will be:

Trust, Privacy & Security: Concerns related to trust, privacy and security are becoming more acute as more and more businesses, consumers, and systems rely upon the global Internet grid.

Intellectual Property Protection and Innovation: As the Internet evolves, technologists and policy makers must continue to struggle with the challenge of ensuring that both intellectual property and creative innovation are appropriately protected.

Media Convergence and Internet Architecture: Convergence is becoming a reality. The Internet has begun to subsume traditional communications technologies. As Congress continues to explore telecom and wireless regulation, how will it balance traditional regulatory policies with the Internet’s open, decentralized and unregulated nature at the same time and promote investment?

I’ll try to keep an eye out for news on the conference – but I think it’s the pre-conference that I’ll really miss.