Peter Orne Broadband Wireless Communities Blog

Digital Divide and the Role of State and Federal Government

W2i's Public-Officials Roundtable, Broadband and the Role of State and Federal Government, gathered together statewide broadband directors, Congressional staffers, think-tank experts, broadband-wireless industry and systems-integrator representatives in a structured brainstorm session at the Marriott Washington, DC, Hotel on the morning of Wednesday, December 12, 2007.

This first-ever roundtable was moderated by Mark Stencel, deputy publisher of Governing Magazine, and provided a welcome opportunity for three dozen broadband stakeholders from around the country to talk collectively on several fronts about broadband as a national challenge. The discussion ranged from leadership gaps to actors and vehicles for action, funding and resources, and technology opportunities and roadblocks. (Stencel's crib sheet from the session appears at bottom.)

How to Reach Policy Makers?

Reporting back on the during the Closing Session of the conference, Stencel asked five participants from the roundtable why policy makers aren't seeing the value in broadband that attendees at the Convention see. "How do we communicate that value effectively to those officials?" he asked.

Galen Updike, Telecom Development Director for the State of Arizona, argued for funding studies with convincing data: "The solution is to provide dollars for the kind of study that we need that certifies and brings together the question of the value."

Joe Mefford, Statewide Broadband Director for ConnectKentucky, noted the effectiveness of mapping. "A map has been very effective for us in Kentucky - to visualize the nature and depth of the problem with lack of broadband availability. Once policy makers see that, and see that in fact their constituents are impacted by broadband gaps, then they are ready to take action."

Jane Smith Patterson, Director of the E-North Carolina Authority, urged using organizations in Washington, DC, such as the National Governor's Association, the National League of Cities, the Association of County Commissioners, the National Conference of State Legislatures, and industry trade assocations for the private sector.

"You have to utilize the entities that are out there and say it is imperative for us that you make this a social imperative responsibility and a competitiveness issue for the United States that we have a broadband policy and that funds are available to assist states, and that all entities are on an advisory committee to help the Congress look at these issues," Patterson said.

Nancy Cobb, Director of the OneGeorgia Authority, highlighted the use of convincing stories backed by data. "There is strength in numbers, and perhaps instead of everyone individually telling the story of what is important about broadband in their states, we need to work together as a team to tackle this and to work together to articulate a message as a group as a team and then deliver that to Capitol Hill."

Cobb also noted that return-on-investment numbers are good at capturing attention. "All you've got to do is present that information, and it gets policy makers' attention."

Elizabeth Christopherson, Executive Director of New Jersey Network offered that we are awaiting "the Al Gore of broadband change so that we can really have the inconvenient truth that helps us all understand and move the needle on the discussion as is happening in this country on climate change."

What Should Leadership Look Like?

Stencel noted that existing legislation in Congress tackles questions about the ability of local governments to get into the broadband game in places where state law has kicked them out, as well as questions about the ways that broadband penetration is monitored. "One of the ideas is to advocate for legislation that moves the ball forward," he said. "But who's in charge here? Is it a federal, state, local, or private sector?"

"It's all of the above," Mefford of ConnectKentucky said. "The state and muni leagues will tell you that no change occurs unless it happens at the local level, but their hands are tied unless state and federal are on the same page. We've got to get all levels of government working from the same page."

Stencel asked how exactly a national framework might be created: "Is it something that needs to be done by Congress, the FCC, or something the states need to band together to do?"

Cobb of OneGeorgia noted that such a framework would need to be very broad because every state is not equal. "You need input from a variety of people across several states, and from that the states can come down and apply that framework more specifically to the needs in the various states."

Updike noted that about a year ago Arizona came up with a policy for a broadband authority that inadvertently backfired. "That got posited to the legislature in a straw bill, we saw the opposition begin to form...from the telco industry.... We see cable companies saying, we don't have a broadband problem. We've already solved it. We have 98.6% of Arizona covered. Why are we even discussing the matter? You should take your interest and push in other directions, and it was believed by some segments of our government, and they backed off."

"Each state has to have a broadband authority, because the states have to be left with the capacity to help their citizens continue to upgrade the speeds that are coming into the state," Smith Patterson of North Carolina added.

She also cited the switch, on February 17, 2009 to HDTV broadcasting by all the big broadcasting companies. "They certainly convinced the United States of America we had to move to HDTV...and in Washington it looks there are going to be some funds available to people who can't afford to do a box, and money will go to them. Here broadcasters are taking a move at the federal level, why can't we do that for broadband?"

A Broadband Minimum Speed?

On the topic of technology, Stencel noted an inevitable overlap when you start talking about upload/download speeds and creating an architecture that all these state, local and commercial endeavors come together on, and the need for open standards.

"In any effort, state or local, you should push for the interoperability of the systems working together," Patterson added, "whether at the local level or the state level, and you need to really talk to whomever is developing the guidelines in your state."

The technology topic was accompanied by a discussion about whether there should be a minimum standard for the definition of broadband. Stencel added: "Instead of specifying whether it should be 1.5 Mbps, we raised the question of whether there should be a minimum speed, but we agreed that symmetrical was important, but that the definitions being used now we're a little too loosey-goosey and too slow from a global competitiveness standpoint."

"if you use the definition now at 200 [Kbps], I would be embarrassed to tell anyone from another country what that is," Smith Patterson said. "I mean, it's an embarrassing statistic and makes us look like we are a backwater in terms of our broadband. It's a broadband backwater."

"I think it's more important to focus on applications, because application will drive demand, and if you focus on assisting local communities in adopting broadband applications, that's going to take care of the size of the pipe because providers will react and provide whatever level of demand is created with those communities," Mefford of ConnectKentucky added. He argued agains setting a broadband speed as an entry level. "Quite frankly, I don't know any providers that we work with that provide anything less than 1.5 Mbps at this point, and I live in a very rural area of Kentucky, and my cable provider offers a 10 Mbps connection...."

Stencel summarized the Vehicles for Action, including funding models and business models. "Media was an interesting point that was raised in terms of their role in this. There was a lot of talk over digital inclusion, and whether those would help drive the policy discussion at high levels and help connect the dots. There was discussion of Congressional oversight of the FCC being a little bit lacking, and some important points about local involvement. On the technology front: a technology neutral point of view. It's about the speed and connectivity."

WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?

WHY
-- Make Infrastructure a Priority: Not focused on like other needs (transportation, energy)
-- Communicate Value: Public officials at all levels do not understand need / importance (quantifiable measure / ROI)
-- Applications create demand
-- Mobilize grassroots

LEADERSHIP
-- Immediate Action: Monitor and advocate effective legislation
-- What's the Landscape: Need better data about extent of access now?
-- Policy Coordination: Who's in charge here? Create a national framework
-- Turnover at All Levels of Gov't: challenge to consistent policymaking and prioritization
-- Need for local voice at the table
-- Need champions (the "Al Gore" of broadband, party aside)

MONEY / RESOURCES
-- Adapt Federal Funding Models: Tap USF, other tax credits
-- Business models and vendor pricing

ACTORS / VEHICLES FOR ACTION
-- Appropriate Congressional oversight of FCC
-- Local Innovation: allow local deployments, esp. where there are gaps now
-- Focus on communities with needs: rural, urban, tribal communities, others
-- Connect Kids: Use access for children to bring parents along (school meals model)
-- Digital Inclusion
-- Telecom Industry: need for ROI, pricing and costs?
-- Role of media -- corporate and user generated (rights and obligations)?
-- Need to allow public/private partnerships

TECHNOLOGY
-- Capacity
-- Set Open Standards: Push to an open and mandatory standards ("push to X"; avoid mistakes of public safety communications)
-- wireless and wired
-- How? Many options (using power lines, range of vendor solutions), but also confusing
-- Architecture: How do the pieces fit together?
-- Defining Minimum Broadband (minimum speeds and symmetric -- price/speed or specific speeds?)

Peter Orne is editorial director for the Wireless Internet Institute.

Steve Reneker
While getting high speed broadband to the home is an important element to the digital divide, it does not benefit our families that cannot afford these services. Local govenment needs to continue to take a leadership role in seeking innovative ways to provide free broadband through wireless initiatives that extend carriers abilities to provide bundles services and provide communications capabilities from local government that are too cost prohibitive to running local fiber (offsetting WiFi costs through anchor tenancy).
05:27 PM, 03/13/2008

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