Tuesday, September 29th, 2009
By Drew Clark, Editor, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON – September 29, 2009 – From the beginning, BroadbandCensus.com has aimed at providing academics, consumers, government officials and industry with the high-quality data needed about the state of broadband throughout the country.
We believe in public and transparent broadband data. Without public and transparent broadband data, each of these constituents are lacking in what they need.
It is heartening that the highest levels of the Obama administration see and espouse the virtues of transparency and of a data-driven approach to broadband policy.
Again today, it came clear that the FCC now seeks to do that which BroadbandCensus.com has been doing since February 2008 – comparing actual speeds with advertised speeds – on an even more finely grained basis.
Now comes the hard part: translating the rhetoric and positive feelings about public and open broadband data into concrete decisions that will drive better-quality broadband data.
Last week I began this five-part series during One Web Week. I focused on the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to obtain broadband data in 2006, and on the founding of BroadbandCensus.com in the fall of 2007.
Much has happened on broadband data in the past week: FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski announced a new...
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Saturday, September 26th, 2009
Editor’s Note: This is the one of a series of panelist summary articles that BroadbandCensus.com will be reporting from the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference, September 25-27, at George Mason University School of Law in Arlington, Va.
By Drew Clark, Editor, BroadbandCensus.com
ARLINGTON, Va., September 26, 2009 - Whether internet service providers will accelerate early efforts to prioritize bandwidth, and what impact such measure might have upon the open internet, were actively discussed by panelists at the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference here.
Traditionally, internet traffic has been managed by the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), the engineering standard for almost all internet transmissions. When there is a great demand for internet content than is available to flow over the network at any given point in time, "each flow of the network gets a roughly equal share of the bottleneck capacity," according to Steve Bauer, a professor of computer science at MIT.
Bauer was presenting a paper on "The Evolution of Internet Congestion," with Professor David Clark and William Lehr, also of MIT.
Such a standard for routing internet traffic has been dubbed "TCP Fair," and this approach remains the standard for dealing with congestion. However, a variety of internet providers, including Comcast - which was punished by...
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Tuesday, September 8th, 2009
By Christina Kirchner, Reporter-Researcher, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, September 3, 2009 - The Federal Communications Commission broadband workshop on Thursday addressed “big ideas” with the “potential to substantially change the Internet,” in which a range of prominent thinkers attempted to peer into the future of connectivity.
Although there is reason why internet service speeds remains at the center of the policy discussion, “speed of broadband is not the only essential topic of expansion,” said David Clark, professor and senior research scientist at the MIT computer science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. “However, it is the most obvious.”
Increasing speeds of broadband have created a domino effect on applications.
A concern brought up by Van Jacobsen, research fellow at Palo Alto Research Center, is that advancing broadband speeds do not ensure higher quality of security. That will need to be addressed as new services roll out, he said.
“Internet is a big part of our lives,” said Jacobsen. We use it for online banking, to pay bills and to check updates on our checking account. When you want to transfer funds online, are you giving your account number to the bank or to the host that is supposedly representing your bank?”
University of California at Berkley Professor of Computer Science...
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Monday, July 13th, 2009
By Douglas Streeks, Reporter-Researcher, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, July 13, 2009 - A group of academic and industry representatives agreed Monday that some government regulation will be necessary to ensure a robust and competitive broadband market and continued innovation. The group spoke during a panel discussion sponsored by the Technology Policy Institute.
Public Knowledge Legal Director Harold Feld said government policymakers have made a shift in how they think about broadband from merely a service to an entire ec0logy. While past policies focused on the number of lines laid and producer incentives, Feld said that going forward, new policies will focus on how all of these factors act together and affect our economy as whole.
But whether the role of government will be to "nudge the participant" into action or "actually building something" itself is still up for debate, he said. “Ten years ago, we thought convergence would create competition at every level,” but “whether competition is enough to meet our policy goals” is still unclear, he said.
Any debate must knowledge that the market is functioning well and is competitive, Verizon Communications Associate General Counsel David Hill said. Hill cited studies showing more than 90 percent of people in the U.S. have access to broadband...
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Wednesday, April 29th, 2009
By Andrew Feinberg, Deputy Editor, BroadbandCensus.com
BOSTON, April 29, 2009 - Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick announced Wednesday his appointment of former MIT researcher and state regulator Sharon Gillett as director of the Massachusetts Broadband Institute. The institute was chartered by Patrick in 2008 with the goal of bringing universal broadband service to state residents by 2011.
Gillett's appointment was unanimously approved by the institute's nine-member governing board. She has previously served as a Director of the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable and has over a decade of experience with state telecommunications regulatory issues.
Governor Patrick's choice was met with praise from Gillett's colleagues in the state telecommunications community. “Commissioner Gillett is the perfect choice to lead the MBI at this critical juncture,” said California Public Utility Commissioner Rachelle Chong. Chong, a former member of the Federal Communications Commission, called Gillett "one of the leading telecommunications experts in the nation."
"Commissioner Gillett has been an invaluable member of the NARUC Telecommunications Committee," said Oregon Public Utility Commissioner Roy Baum, who chairs the telecommunications committee of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. "Her keen intellect and in-depth knowledge of broadband issues will be sorely missed."
Before her previous appointment, Gillett was a Principal Research...
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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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Wednesday, June 18th, 2008
News
By William G. Korver, Reporter, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, June 17 – Black and Hispanic Americans need to be more prominent and “in positions of authority” within the media in order to appeal to a growing multicultural society, a former Clinton administration telecommunications official said Tuesday.
Addressing the Center for Social Media's conference here at American University titled “Beyond Broadcast,” Larry Irving, former chief of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, said that blacks and Hispanics consume more media than do white Americans.
The media needed to embrace the opportunity to reach out to all racial and ethnic groups and to become “more of a brotherhood,” said Irving, currently president of Irving Information Group.
He said conference participants should engage in helping to set a well-articulated political agenda readily understandable to non-techies like their parents and grandparents. Only with a well-informed society, Irving argued, can a transformation be wrought in America's businesses, culture, and media.
Irving also said that the president elected in November must find ways to ensure that new technology benefited all Americans , regardless of race, sex and class.
Besides Irving, afternoon sessions speakers included Ernest Wilson, dean of the University of Southern California's communications school; Henry Jenkins, director of the comparative media studies...
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