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, November 18th, 2009
By Lou Carlozo, Special Correspondent, BroadbandCensus.com
CHICAGO, November 18, 2009 - The title of Wednesday’s panel at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners sounded militant enough: “Broadband Plan of Attack.” Yet the speakers on hand gave the distinct impression that across public, private and academic sectors, conclusive battle plans remain to be drawn.
Regulators from Washington, telecom providers and researchers agree that the push forward for wider broadband access remains both a certainty and an imperative. Yet not everyone seems to be dancing the same step just yet—a fact reflected in the frank appraisal of Robert Curtis, director of deployment for the national broadband plan at the Federal Communications Commission.
While the FCC is closing gaps in its broadband plan, “There’s a heavy push to get from where we are to where we want to be in the next couple of months. I’d encourage anyone who has any input to get involved now,” said Curtis. “There’s evidence of a significant economic bottleneck, particularly between the second mile and middle mile. And there’s a middle mile gap, particularly in rural areas, where we might have broadband available, but not everyone has access to it.”
Curtis added: “There’s also a last mile gap in the...
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Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
By Andrew Feinberg, Deputy Editor, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, November 18, 2009 - The Universal Service Fund is in need of an overhaul to equalize costs among stakeholders and modernize programs to include broadband services, a group of industry representatives and regulators told the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet during a Tuesday hearing.
The hearing examined a discussion draft of the Universal Service Reform Act of 2009, authored by subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., and Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb.
The Universal Service program, which existed for decades before being codified in the 1996 Telecommunications Act, is under "tremendous pressure" and requires a comprehensive effort to reform its operations, Boucher said during opening remarks.
Reform is needed because new technologies for long distance voice communications have reduced the available revenue that can be tapped to fund current programs, leading to soaring costs for consumers – a projected 14 percent of revenues in January of 2010, he said.
Such an increase and a maintenance of the status quo is simply "not sustainable," Boucher said. The Boucher-Terry bill would cap the high cost portion of the fund while requiring wireless carriers who participate to do so through a competitive bidding process. Such legislative...
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Thursday, October 22nd, 2009
By Mercy Gakii, Reporter-Researcher, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, October 22, 2009 – The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners on Tuesday filed comments at the Federal Communications Commission urged the agency to select its web site,
www.BroadbandBestPractices.org, as the commission’s “clearinghouse” for examples of broadband successes.
NARUC praised the FCC for its efforts to utilize the so-called “Section 706” Joint Conference members and structure as part of the national broadband plan that the FCC is charged with carrying out by February 17, 2009. The group is a “joint conference” of state regulators and the FCC, and has been following broadband data and mapping efforts for some time.
NARUC said that it would be inefficient for the FCC to consider launch a duplicative broadband clearinghouse effort.
NARUC said that D.C. Public Service Commission Chairman Betty Ann Kane headed up the effort to create an interactive a “best practices” webpage.
This interactive portal is designed to link to various broadband projects, and one key objective, NARUC said, is to consolidate the information contained in several useful, but incomplete, state-focused websites.
The website,
www.BroadbandBestPractices.org, aims to grow over time. Presently, it is being maintained by the National Regulatory Research Institute, an independent research agency specializing in...
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Monday, October 12th, 2009
By Drew Clark, Editor, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, October 12, 2009 - Carl Weinschenck, writing in
IT Business Edge, speaks about "Broadband Mapping: Treasure for a New Age." Carl discusses the rash of interest in broadband data and mapping since the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, in February 2009, and highlights the work of several data companies. Among the companies highlighted are Ridgeview Telecom, Connected Nation, and BroadbandCensus.com.
Here's an excerpt of what he writes:
Critics are not shy about saying that something untoward is going on. Vince Jordan, the president and CEO of broadband engineering, construction and management firm RidgeviewTel, says that Connected Nation isn’t doing a thorough job. “These guys basically are taking whatever the telco and cable guys feed them and regurgitate it, and say that’s where the coverage is,” he says.
Data that is given by carriers to the broadband mapping companies is protected under non-disclosure agreements. Thus, actual cases in which speeds are overstated are impossible to identify. But appearances are vital. Drew Clark, the editor and executive director of BroadbandCensus, a news and commercial data services organization, says he believes that the telecommunications carriers shouldn’t...
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Friday, October 9th, 2009
By Andrew Feinberg, Deputy Editor, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, October 9, 2009 - An advisory board to the Federal Communications Commission consisting of state utility regulators has developed a new web portal for tracking and referencing broadband expansion projects nation-wide.
The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act has allocated more than $7 billion towards broadband deployment and adoption projects, and the site,
http://broadbandbestpractices.org, provides an easily searchable database for programs being established across the country.
Users of the site will be able to research different projects and add their own information to collaborate on letting the best projects rise to the top, said the Federal-State Joint Conference on Advanced Services in a press release. The site will be maintained by the National Regulatory Research Institute, an independent research agency specializing in utility regulation.
"BroadbandBestPractices.org will be the place to go for those responsible for pursuing greater broadband deployment in their State,” said NARUC President Frederick Butler. “The site will be an interactive, dynamic atmosphere that will embody the spirit of Web 2.0: Collaboration.”
And State Chair of the Joint Conference Larry Landis said the site will be a "crucial resource" for State commissions as they determine how best to utilize ARRA grants.
“The intent is to provide...
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Monday, September 28th, 2009
By Andrew Feinberg, Deputy Editor, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, September 28, 2009 - State utility commissioners want the Federal Communications Commission to put broadband carriers on notice that the agency’s own broadband data collection does not relieve operators of the obligation to comply with state requests.
In papers filed with the FCC on Friday, The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners asked the commission to issue a declaratory ruling which would clarify that in collecting data from broadband carriers, the commission is not asserting any preemption over state-level mapping efforts.
NARUC endorsed such a ruling at its July 2009 meeting, during which it passed a resolution asking the FCC to provide states with the Form 477 data in compliance with the 2008 Broadband Data Improvement Act.
The resolution further requests the commission to clarify that it has not asserted "any general preemption of any State actions," specifically those having to do with broadband mapping.
"Congress has been crystal clear...that it wants to promote the deployment and adoption of advanced services," NARUC said in its petition "and that it wants States to play a key role in those efforts."
NARUC passed the resolution in response to carriers resistance to state-level broadband mapping efforts, said District of Columbia Public Services...
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Tuesday, September 8th, 2009
By Christina Kirchner, Reporter-Researcher, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, September 1, 2009 – State and local governments said during a Federal Communications Commission workshop on Tuesday that extending broadband is important for economic development purposes.
Among the programs discussed at the workshop were those with the past goal of expanding broadband services into areas which were once inaccessible to any form of internet service, and providing education for these services.
“Areas of the country that don’t have access to broadband services of at least 10 Megabits [per second (Mbps)] in the next five years will be as economically disadvantaged as those areas in the first half of the 20th century that did not have paved roads or electricity,” said Ray Baum, commissioner of the Oregon Public Utilities Commission and head of the National Association of Regulatory Utilities Commissioners committee on telecommunications.
He said that 10 Mbps was the minimum necessary as the base of broadband for services, including health care and education.
However, before the expansion of accessible broadband reaches rural areas, digital literacy, or education in the use of computers and broadband services is a necessity, said Jane Smith Patterson, executive director of e-NC Authority in North Carolina.
“There was a development at the local level [called] public...
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