Welcome to BroadbandCensus.com

By Jennifer Soffen, Reporter, BroadbandCensus.com

WASHINGTON, September 2, 2009 – The Federal Communication Commission’s Wednesday workshop on how to best benchmark broadband for evaluating the various dimensions of broadband across geographic areas highlighted the difference between measuring the current network versus focusing on internet users’ needs. Richard Clarke, assistant vice president of public policy at AT&T, said that the FCC should benchmark broadband very broadly. This would allow the agency to cope with different classes of user necessity and service differentiation across user capabilities and time of day. Clarke also argued that the FCC must establish benchmarks that do not vary over time. Taking a different point of view was Harold Feld, legal director of Public Knowledge and Catherine Sandoval, Assistant Professor of Law, Santa Clara University. Feld and Sandoral said that the focus of benchmarks should be upon the American citizens’ right to use broadband – and should not be limited by usage availability or cost. They also said that FCC benchmarks must somewhat be adaptive to the changing needs of consumers, and will inevitably change over time. Where Clarke said that broadband should be tailored to different service levels depending upon the needs of different types of consumers, Feld, Sandoral and Scott Berendt said...

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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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'Broadband Census for America' Conference to Focus on Sharing Publicly-Available Broadband Data

Save the Date Announcement

Editor's Note: The agenda for the Broadband Census for America Conference was released on September 8, 2008, and is available at http://broadbandcensus.com/blog/?p=569. Please visit the page for fuller details about the conference program. WASHINGTON, August 7, 2008 - BroadbandCensus.com, Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Texas at Austin's Robert S. Strauss Center, and the Virginia Tech eCorridors Program invite government officials, academic researchers and other key stakeholders to a half-day conference on collecting and sharing public data about high-speed internet access. The conference, “Broadband Census for America,” aims to assemble state, local and federal officials engaged in gathering and mapping information about broadband availability, competition, speeds, prices and quality of service. Academic researchers will lend their perspective on the importance of universal broadband data. Keynote speakers scheduled to address the conference include:

• Eamonn Confrey, First Secretary, Information and Communications Policy, Embassy of Ireland. Mr. Confrey has confirmed as the luncheon speaker on “Mapping out Broadband for Consumers: The Irish Experience.”

• Massachusetts Representative Ed Markey*, Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. (*Invited to present opening keynote.)

The conference will also feature two...

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News

By Drew Clark, Editor, BroadbandCensus.com

WASHINGTON, July 28 – By combining better public information, market mechanisms and smarter systems of subsidization, the government can play a positive role in funding infrastructure investments in telecommunications, according to three reports released Friday by the Brookings Institution. The papers, released on Friday at an event that also featured an address by Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, are part of a Brookings Institution initiative promoting investments in infrastructure – both physical, transportation investments, as well as new ways to spur improvements in the telecommunications infrastructure. “No economy improves with a declining infrastructure,” said Kaine, a Democrat. “Unless you make that high-tech investment easy by telecom access, you won't get” improvements in your state's economic condition, he said. Brookings, a liberal-leaning think tank, released the reports as part of an initiative dubbed the “Hamilton Project.” The project seeks to put forward policy ideas that “embrac[e] a role for effective government in making needed public investments,” according to the think tank. Friday's event featured the release of six reports: three on transportation, two on telecommunications, and an overview report with recommendations on both subjects. “The rapid page of technological progress in telecommunications and the widespread dispersion of new products and services... may present...

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