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The Media Access Project will hold the third session in its 2009 MAPPING CHANGE series on October 8 in Silicon Valley for a conference exploring the issue of “smart grids.” MAP aims to bring together experts on communications, information technology, energy, and infrastructure to discuss policy developments and implementation strategies promoting smarter energy management and environmentally sustainable technologies. The keynote speaker will be Nick Sinai, Energy and Environment Director at the Federal Communications Commission. It will also involve two panel discussions with representatives from technology companies,  the telecom industry, universities, public utilities, and public interest organizations. The event, to be held in San Jose, California, and will include Michael Terrel, Google; Jim Dempsey, Center for Democracy and Technology, Christopher Boyer, AT&T; Shahin Sepassi, CALTRANS; Jeffrey Campbell, Cisco; John Damoulakis, University of Southern California; and Tom Casey, of Current Group. With the Obama administration’s strong commitment to expanding the use of smart, efficient, and green energy, there may be an opportunity to promoting smarter and greener initiatives in other areas as well, such as rural wireless and rural broadband, the organizers...

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By Drew Clark, Editor, BroadbandCensus.com

WASHINGTON, April 27, 2009 – Officials at the agency responsible for crafting the federal government’s broadband stimulus policies held 36 meetings meeting over the past two months – 17 with federal legislators, 11 with private companies and non-profit groups, and eight with state and city officials. In the two months since the National Telecommunications and Information Administration opened  its doors to these private meetings, the focus of the 36 meetings appears to have been three-fold: explaining and discussing the program with legislators; NTIA-solicited input from geographic companies; and obtaining advice from states with programs for broadband incentives. The record of the meetings was released by the NTIA, an agency of the Commerce Department, on their web site over the past two weeks. It was updated late last week to include the meetings with federal legislators. http://www.ntia.doc.gov/broadbandgrants/exparte.html The degree of detail about the content of the meetings varied widely. In some cases, elaborate Power Point presentations were included in the record. In other cases, only brief and cryptic summaries of the points made by the various parties were posted. In general, the earlier meetings in March included much more detailed information. The descriptions of the meetings in April tended...

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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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The Broadband Census for America Conference welcomes the nation’s foremost broadband policy-makers and experts on broadband data collection, distribution and mapping. Also see the official conference web page at http://broadbandcensus.com/conference.

Conference Bios and Key Resources:

• Art Brodsky, Public Knowledge
  • Art Brodsky has been the communications director of Public Knowledge since February 2004. He is a veteran of Washington, D.C. telecommunications and Internet journalism and public relations.Art worked for 16 years with Communications Daily, a leading trade publication. He covered Congress through the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and other major pieces of legislation. He also covered telephone regulation at the the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and at state regulatory commissions. In addition, he has covered the online industry since before there was an Internet, coming in just after videotext died but before the World Wide Web. Art was later an editor with Congressional Quarterly, with responsibilities for the daily and Web coverage of telecom, tech and other issues. Art’s freelance work has appeared in publications as diverse as the Washington Post, Huffington Post, TomPaine.com, TPMcafe and the World Book encyclopedia....

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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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