Today I attended the Minnesota Broadband Task Force at the Department of Transportation Building. The main attractions were visits from Representative Sheldon Johnson and Senator Dan Sparks. Margaret Anderson Kelliher had visited with the House committee last week so Representative Johnson was well versed on what the Task Force had done. He voiced an interest in working with the Task Force to introduce legislation. MA Kelliher is scheduled to visit with a Senate committee tomorrow.

The Task Force heard from Margaret Kelly from the Management and Budget Department on Governor Dayton’s proposed budget. She noted that broadband is an economic development tool.

There were updates from a few of the Task Force subcommittees and plans for greater advocacy of their recommendations next month.

Rep Sheldon Johnson

There is bipartisan support and interest in broadband as a tool to bring us better healthcare and education.

It’s a new committee. As people become acquainted they will go through a learning curve.

Thanks to the Task Force for the work you’ve done. It’s time to take the next step forward. We want to make broadband part of a government agency – and that’s what the Governor has recommended as well.

Things that cost money will be difficult to move forward.

Looking at the recommendations – it seems like a Broadband Office is a place to coordinate some of these recommendations. We need measurable results. This is a good start. I want to work in collaboration with the Task Force to make a recommendation in the house.

I’m generally less concerned about adoption rates. The key is having broadband available because we are developing tool that require access and we are making plans to deliver services via broadband. With the iPad more people are going online.

Question – is there interest in introducing all of the recommendations we’ve made? Or does it make sense to create one piece of legislation to cover all recommendations?

SJ: I am willing to entertain either approach. It depends how hard people in the room want to work.

Tax credits to providers are excellent. It might do more to get to the goals.

MAK: Sometimes ideas take a while. There may be an argument to introduce all of this at once even if some items have higher hurdles to climb.

SW (Shirley Walz): Glad the committee is open to working with us. I’m interested in hearing more from people who need to adopt. There is an age group that we might tap to increase adoption.

MAK: We need better coordination with workforce people, such as understanding the hurdle online job applications with unserved populaitons. The mobile adoption rate is high, especially with minority groups. But it’s hard to apply for a job on a smartphone. Education drives a lot of adoption. Healthcare drives adoption.

SJ: To what extent do 3G and 4G help reach the statewide goals?

MAK: We’ve only begun to look into this. It would be nice to have the office of broadband work on something like this.

SJ: Will we reach the goals?

MAK: The natural pace we’re moving at will not get us to the State goals. So we need approaches that will help us reach that goal.

SJ: The Task Force has made some pretty strategic recommendations. They aren’t too bold.

Senator Sparks

The report has been useful – thank you for your work.

The Task Force will be coming in tomorrow to talk to us: MAK, Bill Hoffman and Jack Geller will be at the committee meeting.

We’ve talked to Democrats and Republicans have an interest in the telecommunications – especially the ones in the rural areas.

MI (Maureen Ideker): In the report we didn’t have many recommendations related to healthcare. We wanted to find more clarity in recommendations. Are there comments about healthcare that you have?

I’m also on the healthcare task force; we’ve been talking a lot about EHR (electronic health records). Telehealth is taking more of a lead as more health care facilities have adopted EHR. I’m also the chair for the Greater Minnesota Telehealth/e-Health project. We bring discounted broadband to nonprofit health care facilities (about 120 facilities). We need the infrastructure in place before we can get to applications.

SJ: Seems like health care can be a tool to drive broadband. We could educate members about the importance of being able to access health care info and facilities.

MAK: Are there things you’d like us to do to support you?

SJ: Healthcare and role of wireless are important. I’d like more info on redundancy and security in the State.

DS: We need to keep up the pace. We can’t move as quickly as technology but we can try to keep pace. The Mayo Clinic is a leader – and a big place for jobs. We’re a larger state so we have challenges but we can strive to succeed.

MAK: FirstNet may play a role in redundancy. Right now the main focus is public safety – but it would bring a lot of dark fiber into a community, which could help with redundancy but also might be tapped for other purposes.

SJ: Would like to know more about CAF funding. We like to know impact of ARRA funding. What were the measurable results?

DS: We have an open door policy. Is the goal of the Task Force to create legislation?

MAK: Representative Johnson has already mentioned the opportunity to introduce legislation. We’d love to see our recommendations be introduced as legislation.

Margaret Kelly – State budget

Introducing the Governor Dayton’s proposed Budget. I didn’t take notes on the initial presentation; it was similar to the initial introduction Governor Dayton gave last week (Jan 22, 2013) and there are other places where you can get a good recap.

I did try to record and take notes on the broadband-specific discussion:

MAK: We met with many businesses around the state that said that they would not be as successful without broadband access; and those without it let us know they are suffering. Broadband is essential for business.

We’re not saying the government should build it but that it is important.

MK: It is an economic development policy.

Question – what is the budget for staff?

About $70,000 per FTE plus costs associated with overhead and costs for supporting the Task Force. (So $140,000 for staff.)

Question – will the new position fill gaps around the work that Connect Minnesota is doing?

The difficulty is in the deployment. It would be nice to have someone with modeling capabilities.

What’s the process with the budget?

This is like the first Act. It will need to go through both the House and the Senate before the third act.

LUNCH

Reports from Subgroups

Shirley: ADOPTION SUBGROUP

Do we still continue?

Yes!

High level items:

1. Look at top 10 states for adoption – what are they doing?
2. Continue work on WhyBroadband.org
3. Promote the site
4. Collect success stories
5. Focus on non-English resources
6. Maybe add something to Governor’s Dashboard or create a BB Dashboard
7. Add healthcare as a segment
8. Can we add adoption as a function of the Connect MN maps?
9. Expand local broadband directories
10. Think of a time to get whole task force to focus on adoption

Danna – Coordination Across Government Levels

• We’d like to see the charge of subgroup continue
• Maybe we could merge FCC monitoring and government role
• Like to get better dialog with Dep of Commerce to talk about what’s already happening
• We’re working with state legislature
• Might be nice to look at federal level
• Might be nice to look at community level too
• Nice to talk more with education
• MNGO
• Need to talk about ongoing nature of mapping
• PUC – might be good to learn/hear more
• We want to continue with ROW
• Understand broadband policy and regulation landscape from provider’s
  • o Maybe create a primer for task force
  • o Create a high level reference map

DANNA on behalf of GARY Evans

• Information is not ready for prime time in 2012 – but expecting more for 2013
• Looking at what’s happening with state, PUC & FCC
  • o Connections from HBC and Sjoberg might be helpful
  • Still need to look at cost of broadband – are we talking as resident or provider perspective?
  • What is TF’s goal for advocating recommendations?

Decision to merge Monitoring FCC and Role of Government

• Can so many TF members meet at once without concerns for open meeting rule?
• Does State of Broadband need to continue?
• Will people get a chance to move to other subgroups?

Diane, Bill and Margaret will look at the notes from subgroups that met, review remarks from legislators and make decisions about what subgroups should continue or maybe merge. Then folks can look at whether it makes sense for them to stay on the same subgroups.

We are down 3 seats on the Task Force.

Dennis Ehlers was going to do an update. There doesn’t appear to be any sense of urgency in filling these roles at Commerce. Two of the three members who have stepped down have at least had their positions listed again in Register. Commerce will need to work on this. MAK will contact Governor’s Office. Losing 3 people has made it difficult for some subgroups to meet.

Maybe we can see if AT&T has a replacement. We need the metro perspective and we need the tribal perspective.

People have expressed interest but it needs to go through Commerce.

What is out role for advocating for the recommendations?

The Task Force is behind the idea of the broadband office. We should advocate for it. We’ll look at the best ways to do that.

We’ll have a better idea of any other legislative action has been spurred from the other recommendations – so on Feb 19 we might plan to act on advocacy then.

About the State

Bill Hoffman will talk about availability trends and adoption numbers. Each legislator has received a broadband access map of their district.

Question – can you add info on the satisfaction survey too?

Then Margaret will speak.

Jack Geller may speak to the wireless. That would be good.

Dates & Places for Future Meetings

It would be nice to use some telepresence tools – for modeling but also just to accommodate folks from far away. It might be nice to use Department of Health facilities. It might be a nice chance to see the work done and learn more about telehealth done on site.

One issue is the open meeting law. The details are still being worked out. Remote members cannot just phone in from their desk; the locations of the meetings must be made available to public. Maybe courthouse network would be available.

Our current lawyers seem to think that phone participation is already a potential issue.

What we need is protocol developed around the process. And we need a solution that doesn’t cost money.

Health care has a statewide system that’s delivering services to patients. Roger Root would be the person to talk to there; he is a recognized expert.

Some other places:

• Windom – We spoke a bit about places to visit in 2013. We didn’t get a chance to visit SW MN. It would be nice to visit Windom.
• Red Wing – working with Ignite.
• Lena Lake – Mille Lacs Band od Ojibwe
• Maybe Alexandria and places around there too – the previous task force did meet in Fergus Falls
• HCMC has some online interpretation service – might be nice to see that

Potential dates

• Feb 19 (Metro Location)  – maybe we can hear from health care. We could hear from Bao Vang. There’s a webinar on Rural Health Care from 1-2:00 from Connected Nation.
• March 5 – hear from Connect MN on latest adoption survey results
• April 23
• May 14
• June 11
• July 23
• Aug 6
• September 10
• October 1
• November 12
• December 3