Thanks to Bill Coleman for taking very good notes for me – and for Chris Henjum for sharing video. (I was called out of town suddenly.)…

I was abler to attend and take some notes at the TISP Forum last week (February 28) held at St. Paul College.  The event was held in St. Paul to enable an excellent legislative panel to attend and participate.  For those used to Ann Treacy’s excellent and complete notes of past meetings, I apologize in advance!    Ann can seemingly take complete notes and think at the same time; I can barely do either one at a time!  These notes should be taken as capturing the spirit of the conversation rather than exact quotes of participants.

The panel included Senator Matt Schmit, Representative Erik Simonson of Duluth and Representative Sheldon Johnson of St. Paul.    Earlier in the day, Schmit and Simonson participated in a Capitol press conference announcing the introduction of broadband-focused bills, including the establishment of a $100 million dollar Border to Border Broadband fund.

Schmit wanted an approach where we move forward with local flexibility.  He stated that there will not be a state top-down solution and that there is not enough funding for the state to solve this entire problem.  Implementation of local solutions is the approach that he favors.  Schmit believes that this fund will leverage significant other funds, including federal, local and private funds.  While the legislation proposes a minimum of 1:1 match, Schmit foresees projects with a 5:1 leverage ratio.  Schmit noted that there are more mentions of telegraphs than Internet in state statute.

Rep. Erik Simonson spoke next.  While Duluth is fairly well served with broadband, Simonson believes in the border to border broadband concept.  As a relative newcomer to the broadband issue, he recognized the work that Senator Schmit and Representative Johnson have done on this issue – recently and into the past.  Simonson sees huge value in using state dollars to leverage other public and private funds in rural broadband investment.

Rep. Sheldon Johnson stated that everyone in this room agrees with the importance of broadband and the need to have it everywhere.    We need to figure out how to get this done.  Johnson listed a number of initiatives that he would like addressed:

1)    Restore the sales exemption on capital equipment.  (He noted that already today an amendment was made today to put the sales tax collected to date be put into the broadband fund, now totally $30 million dollars.)  He also noted that he would support extending the exemption from central office electronics to fiber optic cable and supplies.

2)    Amend the current municipal election requirement to deliver municipal telephone service from 65 to 50%.

3)    Clarify the authority for municipals to issue bonds for broadband network deployment to eliminate the legal challenge that Monticello faced.

4)    Establish the Border to Border Broadband matching grant program introduced by Senator Schmit.  50 – 50 matching grants

5)    Revisit the Minnesota broadband goals for appropriateness in light of the changing technology and emerging Gigabit capacity networks.

6)  Continue funding for mapping.

Milda Hedblom opened the event for questions.  Tom Garrison with the City of Eagan asked about the politics of this with the telecom providers and metro legislators.

• Schmit – providers want to extend services, but it is not financially feasible.  This set of programs can help existing providers extend services, in partnership with the government.
• Johnson- this is a positive movement that will be a political asset.  Minnesota has an obligation to try and reach the goal that is in statute.  Within the DFL, people see the purpose and value; the politics will be in what is the value compared to the other competing demands.  There needs to be some organized support for this concept.
•  Simonson – what is good for rural MN will also help the metro.  Ubiquitous connectivity will help metro businesses as well.  It is hard to be against rural broadband coverage.

It should be noted the lack of participation/attendance of the telecom provider community at either the Greater Minnesota Partnership/Schmit news conference or the TISP Forum event.  (Jim Hickle of Velocity was the TISP exception.)

Mike Reardon,City of St. Paul, asked a question asked earlier to him by a rural resident – Why rural subsidies for those who choose to live in a rural area?

• Schmit – this is the basic infrastructure of our time.  This investment will spur economic development throughout the state.  SNG study documents the $1 billion dollar increase in state GDP.

• Simonson- a dollar investment in rural broadband will provide a state ROI.

A Dorsey and Whitney attorney noted her experience in working with providers.  She noted the opportunity to leverage federal FCC dollars with the Experimental FCC program

Tom Garrison asked a string of questions– What is the role of the OBD and the Task Force?  What is the status of our protection from cyber terrorism or an issue at the 511 Building?  What about the need for the Twin Cities to have Gb fiber like the growing number of competitive communities with this Gb fiber?  No real answers on these questions were forthcoming.

Milda summarized Garrison’s questions with this one – is there a need to balance the rural and urban needs for broadband?

Simonson noted the similarity to transportation policy and metro/rural balancing – both are critical; both are two-way.  Both transportation and Internet investments allow participants to create and sell products between urban and rural and internationally.

Also noted was that all of the issues that Garrison brought up are on the agenda of the OBD.

Johnson again made note of the need to mobilize support for the broadband fund among rural and urban legislators – they will need to hear strongly from constituents.

Erik Lampland asked about the minimum standard of 100 Mbps.  Would that be adequate with the ever-growing bandwidth requirements?

I asked about the minimum 1:1 match, financial disclosure requirements and other parts of the legislation.  I asked if the state was going to provide half of the funds, what would be models for returning some of that ROI to the state?  Or would we use state funds to more firmly cement some incumbent’s monopoly status by assisting them build proprietary networks?

The legislative response was that the legislation would ideally provide flexibility to DEED OBD staff to craft rules that provided the best benefit for the state.