A new concept from the friendly folks at the New America Foundation's Open Technology Initiative:

For Immediate Release
September 24, 2009

The New America Foundation's Open Technology Initiative (OTI) is calling for Truth-in-Labeling by our nation's broadband operators. OTI has developed a set of disclosure standards to provide the broadband market-place with a much-needed tool to allow consumers to better understand their broadband subscriptions and compare plans among different operators.

"As the Federal Communications Commission creates a national broadband policy to drive affordable broadband deployment, a key facet of this plan will be empowering customers with the information they need to make informed choices among Internet service providers," stated Sascha Meinrath, Director of New America Foundation's Open Technology Initiative. "'Truth in Broadband Advertising' is the key element that ensures that the general public can compare and choose their best broadband options."

OTI has created a sample Broadband Truth-in-Labeling disclosure, in an effort to establish a standardized label for operators to provide consumers with essential information about their broadband subscriptions, including Internet speed, service guarantees, prices, service limits, and other related elements. The label aims at educating consumers about the contents of broadband services to create transparency in the market and increase competition, innovation and consumer welfare.

For full text of the proposal: http://www.newamerica.net/publications/policy/broadband_truth_labeling.
Please contact Kate Brown with further inquiries at 202-596-3365 or brown@newamerica.net.

About the New America Foundation
The New America Foundation is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy institute that invests in new thinkers and new ideas to address the next generation of challenges facing the United States.

About the Open Technology Initiative
The Open Technology Initiative formulates policy and regulatory reforms to support open architectures and open source innovations and facilitates the development and implementation of open technologies and communications networks.

From: Federal News Radio:

Click here to listen to or download the interview. Here's more:

The U.S. is falling behind when it comes to broadband usage and access.

This is according to Sascha Meinrath, Director of the New America Foundation's Open Technology Initiative.

Meinrath recently testified at the FCC Workshop on Next Generation Wireless Technology.

He told the Daily Debrief more about why broadband is so important, why the FCC should do what it can to make sure everyone has access to wireless communications, and what broadband could do for federal agencies in remote locations.

"The FCC now, having realized that we are rapidly losing pace with a growing number of other countries, has decided it is time for us to develop a national broadband policy to, in essence, help spur broadband connectivity across the whole country. So, this would mean both faster speeds and better services in places that are already served and doing the necessary infrastructure development to ensure that those that have been unserved or underserved around the country are actually provided this incredibly important, mission critical resource."

Until the late 1990's, the U.S. was the leader of Internet connectivity.

Ten years later, however, there has been a dramatic shift.

Customers in the United States now pay more for worse services, slower speeds and more limitations than other countries around the world.

The federal government is trying to change this, Meinrath said, with a number of different plans.

"On the one hand, we have this broadband stimulus . . . and that's $7.2 billion, which sounds like a whole money on the face of it, but on the other hand, it's a tiny fraction of what we actually need to be spending as a country to really catch up to other countries around the globe to make a competitive infrastructure for next generation, 21st century economies."

Meinrath used the example of Australia for perspective, which has invested $ 31 billion and has a significantly smaller population.

"The U.S., with $7.2 billion, is spending about $24 per capita and Australia is spending $1,400 per capita. So, all of a sudden one can see that the investment that we're making is really just the tip of the ice berg in terms of what we actually need to be putting into broadband infrastructure."

The problem of getting technology out to rural areas is not new.

Meinrath said the same arguments being used today for broadband access were used at the beginning of the 20th century when the telephone first came into use.

"Today, people look at broadband connectivity as, in some ways, a luxury, because they don't see all of the add-ons that it makes possible -- as a resource, atop which all sorts of commerce and . . . efficiencies are made possible. Unless you keep that holistic view of what broadband makes possible, you fail to really take into account the real meaningful implications and ramifications that broadband connectivity makes possible for everyone."

In today's world, there are also detriments for those who are not connected, Meinrath added.

"As more people get online, those that do not have access to that resource face increasingly insurmountable odds, at everyone from developing and getting out their applications for jobs to accessing resources online to paying their bills -- a whole variety of different things that we take for granted now."

The FCC recently started a blog and joined Twitter to better inform the public about the issues surrounding broadband capabilities.

As far as implementing those changes, Meinrath said he is cautiously optimistic that the FCC Is on the right path.

"I haven't yet seen the plan and I haven't yet seen the meaningful changes being implemented that clearly need to be done. . . . I am quite willing to hold people's toes to the fire to ensure that the changes that need to happen, happen."

Meinrath said that the next three to six months will set a trajectory for the next decade of policies and regulations having to do with broadband.

---

On the Web:


New America Foundation -- Prepared Testimony of Sascha Meinrath Before the FCC Wireless Technology Workshop

FCC -- broadband.gov

FCC on Twitter -- twitter.com/fccdotgov

(Copyright 2009 by FederalNewsRadio.com. All Rights Reserved.)

A bit late -- but have been slammed. I speak again on September 9th on the consumer issues panel. Should be a really interesting time of things:

Prepared Testimony of Sascha Meinrath Before the FCC Wireless Technology Workshop

By Sascha Meinrath, New America Foundation
August 13, 2009

I work for a DC-based think tank - holding down the technology arm of the foundation's work.

The Open Technology Initiative formulates policy and regulatory reforms to support open architectures and open source innovations; and facilitate the development and implementation of open technologies and communications networks.

OTI promotes affordable, universal, and ubiquitous communications networks through partnerships with communities, researchers, industry, and public interest groups; and is committed to maximizing the potentials of innovative open technologies by studying their social and economic impacts - particularly for poor, rural, and other underserved constituencies.

***

Today we are living through a critical juncture in telecommunications history.

A trifecta of recent societal shifts are combining to create a "perfect storm" for advancing policies to better meet the needs of all U.S. residents.

• First, technological advances are creating a whole host of new platforms and hardware to better connect people, dramatically increasing the utility of communications tools.
• Second, consumers everywhere are clamoring for access to advanced services and new applications - driving multi-media production and information dissemination.
• Third, generational shifts amongst our country's key decision-makers are generating the potential for seismic changes in our country's regulatory environment.

Taken together, these factors should be driving a communications renaissanceakin to the introduction of the printing press, telephone, or the Internet itself.

Instead,what we are seeing is a systematic entrenchment of vested interests that are diligently:

1. working to prevent many of the most innovative technologies from ever seeing the light of day;
2. who are engaging in draconian attempts to limit media production and stifle information dissemination; and,
3. as Amy Schatz reported yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, launching unprecedented lobbying efforts to stagnate or prevent meaningful and much-needed reforms.

Here inside the Beltway, an epic battle is about to be waged between those seeking to create a participatory, distributed, and democratic digital public sphere and forces seeking to re-establish a command-and-control regime over next-generation telecommunications infrastructure.

As the populace shifts from wireline to mobile communications as theirconnectivity norm, wireless technologies are at the very heart of this battle.

Instead of building next-generation networks focused around lowering costs forconsumers and maximizing user control over the services and hardware we have bought, providers are architecting systems that maximize billable moments -commoditizing every new space and function possible.

Instead of fostering interconnectivity of networks and interoperability of devices, theforces of command-and-control seek new ways to capture market share and generate path dependencies to limit customer churn.

Handset exclusivity and the lockdown of cellular phones and PDAs are symptomatic of this business model; but so too are the myriad limitations we've already seen to prevent users from doing everything from streaming video, to Google Voice andSkype.

Historically,over the past 75 years, we have dramatically increased wireless capacity by opening up higher and higher frequencies as the technologies have made these bands viable. Allocations for new uses have paralleled these reforms.

However, assignments to license holders in years' past, being based upon the cutting edge technological capacities of their day, are remarkably in efficient by today's standards.

Today, cognitive and software defined radio technologies allows us to "in-fill"throughout the public airwaves - dynamically reusing empty or underutilized frequencies.

This opportunistic spectrum reuse - and its potential to dramatically decentralize and improve communications - is one of the most powerful tools available for breaking the current strangleholds we face over how we communicate.

Today's technological capabilities have far outstripped many current business practices- straining infrastructure that was built for the wrong purpose.

Tomorrow, this disruptive potential is certain to grow and - so long as current systems remain locked down and service provision fails to meet consumer needs - may achieve explosive proportions.

The question we must all face and answer, is "How do we transition to a moredistributed, participatory, democratic telecommunications system?"

After years of burying our head in the sand, a continuing failure to forthrightly address systematic shortcoming in our wireless communications infrastructure will dramatically increase the headaches (and economic costs) that we will eventually have to face.

Leadership from Congress, from private industry, and from the public interest sector is desperately needed to ensure that these necessary transitions are graceful instead of unmanageable and liberatory instead of harmful.

But most importantly, the onus lies with the FCC to ensure that the future of wireless communications lives up to its democratic potential.

The FCC, through incentives and regulatory fiat has the responsibility to ensure that the public airwaves serve, first and foremost, the best interest of the residents of the United States and leverage the capabilities of open hardwareand software; cognitive radio technologies; and peer-to-peer, distributed infrastructures.

I look forward to hearing how each of my co-panelists sees their company's rolein supporting this mandate and look forward to your questions.

About a half-decade ago I wrote up a piece for the Journal of Community Informatics, "Community Wireless Networking and Open Spectrum Usage: A Research Agenda to Support Progressive Policy Reform of the Public Airwaves". My focus was on spectrum policy, but the first key point I raised was valuable across the board -- to create a truly progressive telecommunications policy:

"First, identify major research that has already been conducted and impacted (or been cited) in regulatory/policy debates, as well as the independent research labs that are most active in contemporary spectrum research areas. This assessment would survey the literature that "counts" -- encompassing technical, economic, social, and other domains that should be taken into account and help inform contemporary regulatory/policy debates. This literature could then be used to help set the agenda for future policy debates."

Now fast forward to today's press release from the FCC (and which happens to be put out by my friend and colleague, Jen Howard, who just started her new gig at the FCC last week):

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 14, 2009

NEWS MEDIA CONTACT
Jen Howard
(202) 418-0506
Jen.howard@fcc.gov

Harvard’s Berkman Center to Conduct Independent Review of Broadband Studies to Assist FCC

WASHINGTON – The Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University will conduct an independent expert review of existing literature and studies about broadband deployment and usage throughout the world. This project will help inform the FCC’s efforts in developing the National Broadband Plan.

“Advanced communications have the potential to enhance the lives of all Americans, improve public safety, create jobs, and support our economic recovery,” Chairman Julius Genachowski said. “As the Commission embarks on the important task of crafting a National Broadband Plan, better data will inform and animate the activities of the agency. The Berkman Center’s independent review of existing information will help lay the foundation for enlightened, data-driven decisionmaking. I appreciate the Berkman Center’s invaluable assistance and look forward to seeing the results.”

Yochai Benkler, the Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard, and faculty co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, said, “I am pleased that the Berkman Center can contribute positively to the process Chairman Genachowski has envisioned for developing a national broadband strategy by providing to the Commission, and thereby the public, the results of our compilation and assessment of the existing literature on this important and timely subject.”

“A comprehensive assessment of these plans will be enormously helpful given our short timetable,” said Blair Levin, who is coordinating the FCC’s National Broadband Plan. “We don’t want to reinvent the wheel. Knowing what has already been learned will improve our ability to deliver the best possible National Broadband Plan.” Consistent with Chairman Genachowski’s recent public statements regarding an open and transparent National Broadband Plan process, the results of the Berkman Center review will be made publicly available.

Awesome!

I spent my morning yesterday on Connecticut Public Radio (WNPR) discussing the digital divide. It was a fun show (I always enjoy the call-in formats since listeners often bring up the best questions and comments). Here's more along with a link to the Where We Live show archive:

WWL: Closing the Digital Divide | Connecticut Public Broadcasting Network

The internet might have been born here in the US, but we’ve fallen behind much of the industrialized world when it comes to making sure everyone can access the web.  Non-white households, rural households, and low income households are still significantly less likely than wealthier, whiter, more urban populations to have fast, reliable internet at home. And that's a problem. Connectivity has consequences for the economy and for education, and increasingly, for democracy.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act includes $7.2 billion in stimulus funding for broadband deployment to under served areas—to be distributed by next summer. Many are calling this a golden opportunity to close the digital divide, a move towards internet access for all Americans. Coming up, Where We Live, a discussion with policy experts and activists.

How do we get affordable broadband into housing projects? Over mountain passes? Out to remote farms? And why does it matter? What do you think? Has internet access become more than a luxury…is it a right?

 
Related Content:
• Curtis Hill
• Wally Bowen
• Sascha Meinrath
Links for this Episode:
Open Technology Initiative at The New America Foundation
Mountain Area Information Network
Speed Matters
Concepts for Adaptive Learning
St. Cloud Florida-Cyber Spot

I've been working with Senator Klobuchar's office to draft up an open access fiber bill and, after a couple month's work, got the message that Klobuchar and and Mark Warner were finally introducing their text. Alas, pretty much nothing of the work we'd done on this was in the text -- in fact, it's basically the same text as Eshoo's office introduced -- which is entirely devoid of any meaningful anything.

What a pickle -- the potential for such good sacrificed at the altar of political expedience. Worse than that, it's the potential to claim that an issue has been addressed without actually doing anything meaningful to fix the problem. After talking with staffers, I know that they're getting push-back from those that don't want cheap broadband for the masses, but seriously, we're in the midst of a half-decade long, massive broadband market failure. One need just look at the numbers to see that the US, once #1 in the world of broadband connectivity, has slipped precipitously from this perch.

Of course, the introduction of a bill is only the opening gambit in a far larger political tango. To be fair, the goal is to get something on the table that can then be marked up. My concern is that when you open with such a remarkably weak hand, it makes it all the more difficult to affect meaningful change. Hopefully, this doesn't become a situation whereby a few elected officials grab the public spotlight for a few news cycles but don't actually plan to carry out any of the hard political lift that productive reform requires.

For now, I'm cautiously optimistic -- here's the press release we just put out on the topic:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New America Foundation Applauds Klobuchar, Warner Fiber Conduit Legislation for Broadband Superhighway

Legislation Will Link Conduit Deployment with Federally-funded Transportation Projects

Washington, D.C. June 15, 2009 -- U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar announced today that she will introduce legislation with U.S. Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) to promote more rapid, cost-effective expansion across the country of broadband networks that carry high-speed, high-capacity communications.

The "Broadband Conduit Deployment Act of 2009" would require the integration of underground fiber conduit into the construction and reconstruction of our nation's transportation infrastructure by requiring the installation of broadband conduit as part of any federally-funded transportation project.

The New America Foundation applauds this forward-thinking legislation.

"As the nation looks to develop a national broadband plan to move the U.S. ahead, it is critical that we look for innovative and efficient ways to bring broadband into communities across the country," said Benjamin Lennett, Policy Analyst for the New America Foundation's Open Technology Initiative and Wireless Future Program. "In linking an essential component of broadband deployment with the ongoing construction and repair of transportation systems (e.g. highways, roads, bridges, tunnels, and railways), the U.S. can start 'baking broadband' into our nationwide infrastructure investments, much as we do for essential utilities such as water and electricity, rather than view it as a distinctly separate endeavor."

The legislation draws inspiration from a proposal put out by the New America Foundation's Wireless Future Program and Open Technology Initiative in January 2009. "Building a 21st Century Broadband Superhighway," calls for earmarking $1.2 to $3.6 billion in the 2009 Omnibus Transportation Bill to mandate and fund the build-out of open access, conduit and fiber-optic infrastructure into the construction, resurfacing and upgrading of our nation's highway system. The New America plan contains seven key elements:

1. Fiber bundles of between 144 and 288 strands laid in an easily accessed ductwork and conduit system;
2. Fiber links should have easily accessible interconnection points that allow providers access on a non-discriminatory basis;
3. Common carriage and wholesale access on these network links;
4. AUP-free use of these fiber assets and any additional links necessary to reach an open interconnection point;
5. Access to any and all entities seeking to offer data services, both for-profit and nonprofit, including municipalities;
6. An accurate assessment and mapping the build-out process and functionality; and,
7. A revenue-sharing agreement wherein users contribute to a "Digital Excellence Fund" to support continuing fiber build-outs and provide funding for digital literacy and educational programs to increase broadband adoption.

"Senators Amy Klobuchar and Mark Warner are leading the charge to bring universal, affordable broadband access to underserved communities throughout the United States," stated Sascha Meinrath, Director of New America Foundation's Open Technology Initiative. "The onus is now upon the rest of us to support the implementation of broadband best practices and ensure that good ideas are not sacrificed to political expedience."

A clear obstacle to bringing high-speed broadband to rural areas and promoting increased broadband competition is access to the underlying fiber-optic infrastructures that connect local broadband networks to the Internet. The vast majority of the cost associated with bringing high-speed fiber deep into rural communities and promoting alternatives fiber links along public rights-of-way is associated with digging-up and repairing the road to install the buried fiber. Among the key goals of the Klobuchar/Warner legislation is to spur the build-out of that essential broadband infrastructure by reducing the largest deployment cost, thereby offering a cost-efficient means to promote the deployment of fiber into communities across the country.

"The Klobuchar and Warner bill begs the question, 'If so much can be done with such modest support, why hasn't the United States invested adequately in such a critically important resource?" said Meinrath. "After a half-decade of broadband stagnation, the United States now has an opportunity to catch up and implement a truly innovative proposal."

To download a copy of NAF's paper on the subject, visit http://www.newamerica.net/publications/policy/building_21st_century_broadband_superhighway.

For media requests, please contact Kate Brown, Media Relations Manager, at 202-596-3365(w) or 202-213-7051(m).

Contacts:
Sascha Meinrath
Director, Open Technology Initiative
meinrath@newamerica.net
(202) 986 - 2700

Benjamin Lennett
Policy Analyst, Wireless Future Program and Open Technology Initiative
lennett@newamerica.net
(202) 986 - 2700

###

New America's Open Technology Initiative formulates policy and regulatory reforms to support open architectures and open source innovations and facilitates the development and implementation of open technologies and communications networks. For more information, visit, http://www.newamerica.net/programs/oti.

New America's Wireless Future Program develops and advocates policy proposals aimed at achieving universal and affordable wireless broadband access, expanding public access to the airwaves and updating our nation's communications infrastructure in the digital era. For more information, visit http://www.newamerica.net/programs/wireless_future.

About the New America Foundation
The New America Foundation is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy institute that invests in new thinkers and new ideas to address the next generation of challenges facing the United States.

I've been fascinated by the recent announcement that Australia is spending $31 billion USD to upgrade its broadband. With all the excitement and fuss over the broadband stimulus funding in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, it may seem strange to be claiming that the $7.2 billion is a pitifully small amount -- but let me bring this home for you:

Australia has a population of roughly 22 million people and is spending $31 billion USD. That works out to over $1400 per person.

The U.S. has a population of roughly 306 million people and is spending $7.2 billion USD. That works out to a bit under $25 per person.

To be commiserate commensurate with Australia, the US should be spending over $430 billion on its broadband infrastructure.

Government Technology just published a feature article I wrote -- should be hitting news stands soon, in the meantime, the article is up on their website. Thanks to Mark Cooper, John Windhausen, Ben Lennett, Debbie Goldman, Robert Atkinson, Wally Bowen, Derek Turner, and everyone else who provided insight, comments, and feedback for the article.

Here's the text:

The economic crisis that's hammering the U.S. has created space for innovative thinking and new ideas. "The age of market fundamentalism, with its ideological belief that markets are always right, that wealth should trickle down and that less government is better, is simply over," said Mark Cooper, research director of the Consumer Federation of America. Furthermore, Cooper said, "Public policy must start from a new understanding of the role of government and the private sector." This new reality has created an opportunity to improve broadband build-out.

For the past six months, a multibillion dollar expenditure battle has waged in Washington, D.C., that will help decide America's communications future. With hundreds of billions of dollars being spent by Congress to stimulate the economy, broadband is finally getting its due. John Windhausen, president of Telepoly Consulting, sums up the rationale: "Big broadband networks promote economic growth and jobs; companies locate businesses in communities that have faster broadband networks; and, in a global economy, local broadband networks help the U.S. attract businesses from overseas."

However, until congressional leaders decided what provisions to include when they reconciled the House and Senate versions of the Economic Stimulus bill, no one really knew exactly how much funding would be made available and through which specific processes and agencies. The compromise plan, we now know, provides $4.4 billion to extend broadband and wireless services to rural, suburban and urban areas through the U.S. Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration and $2.8 billion to expand broadband access to rural areas through the Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service. Spurred by this investment, a healthy debate has sprung up over the details of what an "ideal" broadband plan should entail - a debate that will continue to have relevance as decisions are made on exactly how this stimulus money is spent.

As a co-author of one of these broadband proposals, I've focused on trying to solve the "middle-mile problem" - the lack of competitive service providers connecting last-mile networks to the Internet backbone. I've talked with many key policy proposal drafters in Washington, D.C., and several overlapping facets among these proposals point to better ideas that could be incorporated into an ideal long-term broadband infrastructure build-out. At its heart, however, is a dawning understanding that the days of Internet connectivity being a luxury item are long behind us. Today's debates center on what it means to live in a 21st-century society and work in a modern economy.

 

Is Broadband a Luxury?

We live in a civil society - a place where primary education is free to all, anyone can enjoy a walk through public parks or on sidewalks and freely drive on streets. Libraries in the U.S. loan books for free - literature that can be read on a spring day in parks or beneath the streetlights of Main Street on a warm summer's evening. You don't have to tip the firefighters or pay for police protection. In a civil society, public safety is freely available to everyone.

Americans enjoy myriad services and resources that they don't pay for each time they use them. Yet each of these key facets of contemporary society is part of a new social contract, adopted only after years of battle and turmoil to overcome a status quo (e.g., private fire protection and educational services, or for-fee libraries and parks). Eventually, however, some newfound service models are deemed to provide such an enormous benefit to the population that society is willing to invest in ideas that "lift all boats." As a society, each of us is better off when certain basic services are freely available to all.

At the dawn of the digital era, during this first decade of the 21st century, the most important new commodity is Internet access. A growing canon of research has documented the enormous benefits for those who have broadband access (and the detriments faced by those without it). Connectivity is the currency of the Information Age, much like the computer era integrated machines (from laptops to PDAs, and cell phones to iPods) into our daily regimens, the Industrial Revolution brought manufactured goods to public life and the agrarian revolution helped alleviate famine. A new social contract that includes Internet connectivity for all is not a particularly expensive endeavor - free broadband for everyone would cost a tiny fraction of the Wall Street bailout and would be cheaper than one year of the Iraq war.

Many politicians, from municipal representatives to President Barack Obama, actively support broadband build-outs. And the January debate about the economic stimulus package made nationwide Internet infrastructure development a key component of the intervention. A multifaceted solution is needed. For instance, fuel-efficiency and car-safety standards have helped shape the national transportation grid, but the U.S. had to make a major public investment in the infrastructure. Broadband poses a similar challenge and opportunity.

My colleague Benjamin Lennett of the New America Foundation and I have been working on one proposal, Building a 21st Century Broadband Superhighway: A Concrete Build-out Plan to Bring High-Speed Fiber to Every Community, to create a national broadband superhighway that would provide fiber capacity to cities, towns and rural areas across the U.S. Its core idea is very simple: Each time we rip up, repave or build a road, we should also lay fiber infrastructure along that route anyone can use. Over the next five years, this initiative would create a web of connectivity - a critical new infrastructure for the digital age.

Communities, Internet service providers and municipalities are engaging in demand-side aggregation, but affordable Internet access is lacking - a bottleneck that our proposal solves. Thousands of networks around the globe provide free connectivity to participants. For example, residents of Philadelphia and St. Cloud, Fla., already receive free broadband. Groups like the Tribal Digital Village and CUWiN Foundation have been building free networks to serve local communities for years. There are opportunities in the U.S. to implement broadband solutions that dramatically improve everyone's lives. Therefore, the question is: Does this new administration have the gumption to create a "broadband Apollo project" to maximize the potential of the Information Age?

 

Building Better Broadband

"In the broadband space, for us it is clear that the cozy duopoly of telcos and cable companies has failed to deliver adequate service at reasonable charges as required by the Communications Act," Cooper said during a recent forum at the New America Foundation. "The stimulus package provides an ideal opportunity to try a different approach."

The challenge, then, is finding overlapping areas among the numerous proposals that are being presented. Debbie Goldman, a research economist for the Communications Workers of America, said the No. 1 goal should be to find areas of agreement among key stakeholders. Goldman sees the key as a focus on creating jobs. "If we're going to talk about creating and maintaining jobs, we've got to be technology-neutral and neutral in terms of where this money goes," Goldman said. "We have to make sure it's going to companies and organizations that know how to spend the money, operate and build networks, and can do it fast." To facilitate this, the Communications Workers of America supports targeted tax credits for new investment. And it's not alone.

Robert Atkinson, president and founder of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, agrees with the Communications Workers of America's assessment. "We think there should be rural tax credits [and] a speed tax credit," Atkinson said.

Wally Bowen, founder and executive director of the Ashville, N.C.-based Mountain Area Information Network, believes the most efficacious intervention would be community-based. "It makes far more sense to direct broadband infrastructure funding to local networks - the local and regional nonprofits, telephone and utility cooperatives and municipalities that have been springing up all around this country," Bowen said. "These are the networks most likely to have ‘shovel-ready' broadband projects, [and] they are more easily held accountable for the taxpayer dollars that are in the stimulus package [because] local network operators live in the communities they serve."

Lennett, a senior program associate of the New America Foundation, said one key problem is perspective. "We are not viewing broadband as infrastructure, we're still viewing it as basic connectivity or a luxury," he explained. The broadband stimulus bill, in its current form, is a one-off intervention. Lennett said this sort of intervention may garner political hay, but the problem is really that "we continue to focus on short-term Band-Aid approaches without having any sense of where we need to go and building in policy mechanisms and recommendations that are going to be focused on long-term approaches ... that will handle the demands of the future."

A key feature of the many proposals that would future-proof broadband networks is ensuring that they remain open to innovation and competition. "Requiring openness for public money is absolutely critical," Lennett said. "The whole point of public subsidization and public investment is that you're trying to benefit as many people as possible. ... If you encourage closed networks that limit who can benefit, that goes against the whole point of public investment."

Derek Turner, research director of the media reform group Free Press, makes the case succinctly: "We don't want to be using federal dollars to fund networks that are closed and discriminatory." In addition, many public-interest groups want to see a package that's specifically targeted to intervene in unserved and underserved U.S. regions. The thinking is that the most bang-for-the-buck will occur "where the investment equation is such that no broadband investment would probably take place there absent some sort of grant infusion from the government," Turner explained. "It's also the best use of money from an economic efficiency standpoint because a lot of these areas have pent-up demand, and you're able to maximize consumer surplus by putting your money there rather than in an area that's already served."

Call for Paper Proposals

Beyond Broadband Access: Data-Based Information Policy For a New Administration

This is a Call for Proposals (Abstracts) for papers for a three day by-invitation Experts Workshop on approaches to developing data-based information policy. The deliverables are expected to be policy recommendations, a book and a new research agenda. Abstracts are due by April 15, 2009.

Scope and Overview:

The stimulus bill just passed by the United States Congress and signed into law by President Obama allocates $7.2 billion to loan and grant programs for the deployment of broadband. Most recently the governments of Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, France and the United Kingdom have committed more spectrum to wireless broadband services, However, it is widely acknowledged that in order to fully realize the potential of broadband for the promotion of social progress, economic development and democracy, mere access is not enough. Technology, applications, education, awareness, skills, and content are among many factors that are to be taken into account. Understanding the interplay of all these factors is essential in order to take information policy to the next level. However, this demands both firm empirical and theoretical foundations.

This Workshop is intended to propose a strategy for developing such a foundation -- a comprehensive, data-based approach for understanding policy consequences and improving policy outcomes through the utilization of meaningful empirical analyses, statistical methods, and the development of new conceptual frameworks. The Workshop will assemble a small group of highly skilled experts to seek breakthrough insights, which can be applied to current policy challenges.

Important policy decisions are being made worldwide about information services that promote innovation, knowledge development, social equity and democratic values. These decisions can be improved if informed by empirical data that will assist decision makers in understanding the likely consequences of their policies.

Many numbers are thrown around in the global information policy discourse regarding matters such as "e-readiness", the "digital divide", and the "information society". What do these numbers actually mean? Are they the numbers that matter? Are they loaded for or against certain outcomes? Can the underlying methods and data be transformed into truly useful policy tools? Most of the existing approaches to measurements that affect information policy produce results which are descriptive and comparative (e.g., which nation has more Internet access), which are only useful up to a point. Clearly, what is needed are approaches which are explanatory and predictive, that help understand not only what has happened but also why, and to assist in making predictions about what will happen. This presents significant methodological challenges that must first be guided by theory, and in this field, theory is remarkably lacking.

Description

The Workshop will bring together a group of about twenty experts on information metrology from around the world. They will meet for three days in Washington, D.C., where, during morning and afternoon sessions, they will make presentations, share research, hear guest experts, discuss concrete approaches and new theories, identify problems and challenges, and develop conclusions and a future research agenda. Each participant will write and present an original paper to the group, which will then be the subject of questions and discussion, followed by a final Workshop summary session. Participants will be selected based on their abstracts and their identified ability to make a significant contribution based on their expertise or experience.

Date and Location

DATE: September 22-24, 2009
PLACE: The New America Foundation
1899 L Street NW, Suite 400
Washington, DC 20036

Topics:

Proposals should be based on current theoretical or empirical
research, and may be from any disciplinary perspective. Subject areas of interest include, but are not limited to the following:

Theory: Specification of objectives; development of theoretical models; identification of testable hypotheses; selection of appropriate methodologies for analysis.

Data: Identification of key indicators; development of consistent data standards; data collection and verification; data access.

Modeling: Development of empirical models; dealing with institutional diversity and complexity; coping with dynamic technological change. Multidimensional visual modeling of large bodies of data.

Application: Formulating answerable questions; Making predictions about outcomes; Analyzing relevant data; Using outcomes to refine theory and hypotheses.

Policy Development: Organization of statistical resources; conversion of results of statistical analysis into policy guidance; incorporation of results in shaping policy or legislation; political use of findings.

Submission Deadline:

Submissions are due by April 15, 2009. Submissions should be made to expwkshopDBIP2009@psu.edu. Abstracts are not to exceed 500 words. Abstracts should be accompanied by a brief biographical description of the author(s)(no more than two pages). Decisions will be announced by May 29, 2009.

Accepted papers will be due on Sept. 1, 2009, and authors are expected to present the accepted submissions.

Support Funds:

Final funding plans are still being developed, but it is expected that some funding will be available to help offset the costs of attendance for accepted papers, with a priority given to international participants.

Program Organizers:

• Johannes Bauer, Ph.D., Professor, Telecommunication, Information Studies, and Media, Co-Director, Quello Center for Telecommunication Management & Law, MSU (https://www.msu.edu/~bauerj/)
• Sascha Meinrath, Research Director, Wireless Future Program, New America Foundation (http://www.newamerica.net/people/sascha_meinrath)
• Jorge R. Schement, Ph.D., Dean, School of Communication, Information and Library Science, RU (http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/directory/jschemen/index.html)
• Richard Taylor, J.D., Ed.D., Palmer Chair and Professor of Telecommunications Studies, Co-Director, Institute for Information Policy (http://comm.psu.edu/people/rdt4)
• Bin Zhang, Ph.D., Professor, School of Economics and Management, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (http://www.intramis.net/?q=node/4)

For information or questions, contact: Richard Taylor at rdt4[at]psu.edu

From the Guardian, here's an editorial I wrote on our responsibility, within a civil society, to provide universal broadband access:

Life, liberty and connectivity for all

Internet access is more than a commodity – it's a public good. The US should seize the opportunity to invest in broadband

We live in a civil society – a place where primary education is freely available to all, where anyone can enjoy a walk through our public parks or down our sidewalks and freely drive through the streets. Libraries across the country loan out books for free – literature that you can read on a spring day in our parks or beneath the streetlights on main street on a warm summer's evening. You don't have to tip the firemen who show up at your house or pay for police protection – in a civil society, public safety is freely available to everyone.

We enjoy myriad services and resources that we don't pay for each and every time we use them. Yet each of these key facets of contemporary society was part of a new social contract, often adopted only after years of battle and turmoil to overcome a prior status quo (from private fire and educational services to for-fee libraries and parks). Eventually, however, new models are seen to provide such an enormous benefit to the entire population that we're willing to invest in ideas that lift all boats. We realise that, as a society, each of us is better off when certain basic services are freely available to all.

At the dawn of the digital era, during this first decade of the 21st century, the most important new commodity is internet access. A growing canon of research has documented the enormous benefits that accrue to those with broadband access (and the increasing detriments faced by those without it). Within many civil societies, in much the same way the agrarian revolution helped eliminate famine, the industrial revolution brought manufactured goods into everyone's lives and the computer era integrated machines (from laptops to PDAs and cell phones to iPods) into our daily regimes, connectivity is the currency of the information age. A new social contract that includes connectivity for all is not a particularly expensive endeavour – free broadband for everyone for life would cost a tiny fraction of the cost of the Wall Street bail-out and far less than the expense of one year of our war in Iraq.

Today's politicians, from municipal representatives to President-elect Barack Obama, are actively supporting broadband buildouts. Current debates over the economic stimulus package place nationwide internet infrastructure development as a key component of the intervention. An optimal free broadband system would include both wireless (for mobility and cost efficiency) and wireline (for capacity and reliability) components. And, as it turns out, two proposals are currently pending that could make free broadband connectivity for life a reality.

The first is an innovative public interest obligation on licensed spectrum. Since we already own the public airwaves (over which everything from television signals to FM radio is broadcast), as landlords, we can set the rental conditions. Every time a mobile phone company, TV broadcaster or other entity receives a license from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) it comes with conditions. Earlier this year, the FCC auctioned off a small portion of the 700 MHz spectrum for $19.6bn. Sadly, of that sum, zero dollars went to support free broadband. But if a small portion of spectrum auction revenues had been earmarked for free broadband for all, we would already be well on our way toward universal connectivity.

Currently, a small piece of spectrum (2155-2175 MHz) is up for license, and the conditions being proposed include providing free broadband connectivity for everyone in the US. One company in particular, M2Z Networks, has been vocally advocating to license this piece of the public airwaves with this condition. However, M2Z faces fierce competition from telecom incumbents like T-mobile, and the plan is currently stalled at the FCC.

But financial support and spectrum licensure reforms are not enough on their own. A multi-faceted solution is needed. Fuel-efficiency and car-safety standards have helped shape today's national transportation grid, but the US had to make a major public investment in the infrastructure itself. Broadband poses a similar opportunity.

Building the 21st-Century Information Superhighway is a proposal synthesised by the New America Foundation in consultation with numerous interested parties that would create a national information superhighway, providing fibre capacity to cities, towns and rural areas throughout the US. At its core, the idea is very simple: each time we rip up, repave or build a road, we should also lay fibre infrastructure along that route that anyone can use. Over the next half-decade, this initiative would create a web of connectivity – a critical new infrastructure for the digital age. Across the country, communities, internet service providers and municipalities are engaging in demand-side aggregation, but lack entree to affordable internet access, a bottleneck that this proposal solves.

Residents in places like Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and St Cloud, Florida already receive free broadband. Groups like Tribal Digital Village and the CUWiN Foundation have been building free networks to serve local communities for years. There are thousands of networks all around the globe providing free connectivity to participants. In the US, we have an opportunity to implement broadband solutions that dramatically improve the lives of everyone living in the country. The question, therefore, is whether this new administration has the gumption to create a "broadband Apollo project" to maximise the potential and possibility of the information age.