Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
By Lou Carlozo, Special Correspondent, BroadbandCensus.com
CHICAGO, November 18, 2009 - One striking sentiment dominated this week’s convention of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners: The federal government remains on nearly as steep a learning curve on crafting the future of broadband as many state agencies, and the best work ahead will likely get done when public and private concerns team up.
“Of course more needs to be done, and they’re still learning [in Washington] how to reliably and effectively get the funds out,” said David Svanda of Svanda Consulting in Clarksville, Md., and a past president of NARUC.
“It’s an ongoing learning process, and they clearly have their feelers out to learn more,” said Svanda. “I think they’ll take very seriously what they hear here. You couldn’t have two better people on the case.”
By “they,” Svanda meant Larry Strickling, of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, and Jonathan Adelstein, of the Rural Utility Service.
These two key Obama administration broadband players have only been on the job only since the summer: the Senate confirmed Strickling in June, and Adelstein in July.
They have their hands full intrying to figure out how to distribute $7.2 billion in broadband stimulus funding by September 2010.
Are Strickling...
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Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008
Broadband Census Indiana (Sidebar)
By Drew Bennett, Special Correspondent, BroadbandCensus.com
Editor’s Note: BroadbandCensus.com has been surveying the state of broadband deployment and broadband data within each of the United States and its territories. Click here for the Indiana article.
As part of BroadbandCensus.com’s goal of mapping out broadband speeds, prices, availability, competition and reliability, BroadbandCensus.com recently sponsored (with Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Texas at Austin and Virginia Tech’s eCorridors Program) the “Broadband Census for America Conference” on September 26, 2008. Indiana Utility Regulatory Commissioner Larry Landis was one of the speakers at the event.
The spring 2009 conference, “Broadband Census for America: The New Administration,” is tentatively scheduled for Friday, March 27, 2009.
October 22 - Indiana Commissioner Larry Landis is one of the most knowledgeable state utility regulators on telecommunications and broadband.
In 2005, Landis was named to the Federal-State Joint Conference on Advanced Telecommunications Services, of which he is now State Chair, by Michael Powell, then-chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. Last year he was appointed to a second four-year term on the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission by Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels.
Through his service with the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC), Landis has been a first-hand...
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Tuesday, October 7th, 2008
News
Editor’s Note: The following story was published in TR Daily on September 26, 2008, and is reprinted with the permission of Telecommunications Reports International, Inc. Notwithstanding the fact that content on the BroadbandCensus.com web site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial License, this article is and remains Copyright 2008 Telecommunications Reports International, Inc.
By Carrie DeLeon, Telecommunications Reports
A national broadband infrastructure fund should include the involvement of state regulators and focus not only on the extension of broadband service into unserved areas, but also on the adoption rate of broadband service by consumers, according to California Public Utilities Commissioner Rachelle Chong.
During a keynote address this morning at the Broadband Census for America Conference in Washington, Commissioner Chong advocated for the implementation of a national broadband infrastructure fund, and suggested that the Universal Service Fund be reformed to shift the focus from traditional wireline to advanced services.
“More assertive national leadership on broadband policy is not only necessary, but critical,” Commissioner Chong said.
In addition, the former FCC regulator said that while some states, including California, have been successful in their efforts to map broadband data, a national mapping of broadband data could be helpful to states by enabling them to compare their...
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Monday, September 8th, 2008
Key Academics, State Officials and Broadband Data Collectors to Speak
Embassy of Ireland to Give Luncheon Keynote Address on Publicly-Available Broadband Data
Coverage of the Broadband Census for America Conference
- Broadband Census for America Conference Web Site
- Tvol's Flickr photostream of the Broadband Census for America Conference
- "Propriety Data Cited as Challenge for Broadband Mapping," by Lynn Stanton, TR Reports
- "Regulators, Officials Debate Need for National Broadband Policy, Fund," by Carrie DeLeon, TR Reports
- "Service Providers Should Report Better Metrics, Panelists Say," by Scott Sleek, Broadband Advisory Services, Pike & Fischer
- "U.S. Copes with Broadband Statistics Void," IP Democracy
- "Guessing at data," Susan Crawford's blog
- "Experts call for broadband transparency,"by Maya Prabhu, ESchool News
- American Library Association District Dispatch
For Immediate Release
WASHINGTON, September 8, 2008 – Many of the nation’s foremost broadband policy-makers and experts will analyze and discuss best practices for improving the collection and sharing of public data about high-speed internet access at the Broadband Census for America Conference in Washington, D.C., on Friday, September 26, 2008.
Panelists at the half-day conference include Rachelle Chong, California Public Utility Commissioner; broadband data pioneer Professor Kenneth Flamm...
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Sunday, June 15th, 2008
By Drew Clark, Editor, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, June 12 - Questions about the availability and detail of broadband data featured prominently in presentations and in discussions at Thursday's sessions of the Broadband Policy Summit IV, which was sponsored by Pike & Fischer.
"I have been long lamented that we don't have a national broadband policy," said Jeff Campbell, senior director of technology and communications policy at Cisco Systems. "If we did have a national broadband plan, we would have to define what exactly is the problem that we are attempting to solve."
For example, Campbell said during the summit's first panel – on the regulatory outlook for broadband – more information was needed on the number of households that have Internet connections, the speeds at which they are available, and how many subscribers take up such services.
"We just don't have the basic building blocks of the data to size the problem" and propose solutions to it, said Campbell. He applauded the work of the California Broadband Task Force, which produced address-level data about both broadband available and promised speeds. The California report did not list broadband data by carrier.
Larry Landis, a commission with the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission on the same panel, agreed. "There...
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