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.)

The Open Technology Initiative has released four application guides for those looking to apply for broadband stimulus funding.

The guides include general information on each of the four main broadband stimulus programs (BTOP and BIP broadband infrastructure, computer centers, and broadband adoption) as well as:
1. Primary sourcing to each application's requirements;
2. Check lists for the various records, written documents, budget items, etc. needed for the application;
3. Role breakdowns for building an application team; and,
4. Estimated timelines laying out the how long it will take your application team to fill out the application.

You can download the guides, along with the strategy memo and resource guide released by OTI and the Columbia Telecommunications Corporation from:

http://www.newamerica.net/programs/oti#programtabs-2

Or get the guides directly...

BIP BROADBAND INFRASTRUCTURE APPLICATION GUIDE:

http://www.newamerica.net/publications/policy/broadband_infrastructure_application_guide_bip

BTOP BROADBAND INFRASTRUCTURE APPLICATION GUIDE:

http://www.newamerica.net/publications/policy/broadband_infrastructure_btop_application_guide

SUSTAINABLE BROADBAND ADOPTION APPLICATION GUIDE:

http://www.newamerica.net/publications/policy/sustainable_broadband_adoption_application_guide

PUBLIC COMPUTER CENTER APPLICATION GUIDE:

http://www.newamerica.net/publications/policy/public_computer_centers_program_application_guide

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

My friends and colleagues, Todd Wolfson and Hannah Sassaman, have a great OpEd in today's Daily News discussing the City of Philadelphia's open process for applying for BTOP grant funding. Strong leadership from City officials melded with active support from community organizers has been part of Philly's process from the get-go and is an exemplar for other communities. Here's more:

Posted on Wed, Jul. 8, 2009

The Internet for everyone

By TODD WOLFSON & HANNAH SASSAMAN

PHILADELPHIA is lining up for a race with a big prize - tens of millions in stimulus money to expand Internet access. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has authorized $7.2 billion for broadband programs, with everything from tricking out community centers with high-speed lines to mapping broadband availability already on the table as fundable programs.

The other day in Erie, Vice President Biden announced the guidelines, and set a 45-day window for the first round of applications, closing Aug. 14. That's especially exciting for us, since only about 50 percent of Philadelphians have daily Internet access and even fewer have access at home.

With all the economic problems the city and the country face, why has the administration prioritized the Internet? As Biden said, these grants are "a first step toward realizing President Obama's vision of a nationwide 21st century communications infrastructure - one that encourages economic growth, enhances America's global competitiveness and helps address many of America's most pressing challenges."

With Internet access, low-income families can access jobs, young people can create media about their lives and neighborhoods, small businesses can innovate and develop, and communities can take greater part in government. Access to broadband communication gives poor people power that they need more than ever.

It's great that we have a chance at money to build a communications system that serves everyone. But the feds are being very careful about how that money gets used. "Service" can't just mean that Verizon will come to your home and install a line for a monthly fee many can't afford. It will mean training, hardware and the leadership to get people online in real ways.

That's why the National Telecommunications and Information Administration is looking hard at the applications. It isn't just big corporations or shiny ideas that will walk away with these dollars - the more community engagement the NTIA sees, the better the chances of getting the cash.

But Philly is ready. Our chief information officer, Allan Frank, deserves credit for leading the most open process in the country when it comes to designing the city's application for broadband stimulus. A series of conversations with community groups and institutional leaders, launched with an all-day meeting on June 23, will lead to an application designed by everyone from high school students to shelter managers and community organizers.

The results from that meeting will be used by the city and a partner coalition of digital-inclusion specialists to design a winning bid. The communities who need the broadband connectivity are working with the city to design the plan to get it - this is bold thinking Mayor Nutter should fully support.

Only a few things can trip up the city now. Philly is standing at the starting line with other national competitors for this money: city and county governments, tech companies, community groups. The city will win big if it keeps its plan to solve the problem of the digital divide for low-income and disenfranchised communities.

To do that, the city must keep community groups at the table in a real way and the grantwriting process transparent. Other cities (San Francisco, Seattle, Boston) are building networks to conduct major city services and business, to provide public safety and help poor people get online. Now it's our turn.

We have a chance to build a city where everyone has Internet access. If we keep communities at the table and support our CIO, we can change how Philadelphians communicate, for good. *

Todd Wolfson represents the Media Mobilizing Project and Hannah Sassaman the Digital Justice Coalition.

Initial details regarding the actual parameters of the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) are finally beginning to be released. The information is rather limited, but here's what we can glean thus far from the Recovery.gov website:

• Applications for the first wave of funding requests are going to be due[released by] June 30, 2009 (to be awarded in December 2009). This is remarkably short notice to turn around a well thought out proposal -- especially since the details of what these proposals should actually look like haven't been released.
• The second wave of funding requests will be from October to December, 2009.
• The third wave will take place from April to June 2010.
• All awards must be made by September 2010.
• $350 million will be available for broadband mapping.
• $250 million will be avialable to encourage sustainable broadband adoption.
• $200 million will be available to increase public computer center capacity.
• The key metrics for measuring success (and thus, evaluating the competitiveness of each grant application) look to be:
  Jobs created
  Census tracks served
  Homes/businesses passed
  Investment funding ARRA leverages
  New equipment/capacity/users of the network

Hopefully, more information will be release soon as this info is woefully incomplete. In the interim, many of us continue to search for insight into what NTIA and RUS have planned regarding the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

If you have more info, please let me know.

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."

Below is my testimony before NTIA from March 16, 2009. While most of the other folks who presented focused on the impacts for corporations, I wanted to bring the conversation back around to what was primarily important -- the potential positive impacts on local communities. Here's what I said:

Thank you very much. It is good to be here.

For those who know me, I will be taking a slightly different perspective on things. I spent the past decade in addition to my work at the New America Foundation also doing community technology deployment. I have been climbing on roofs, building coalitions and suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous local politics, and I have been successfully implementing solutions in communications that people said were impossible to deploy.

So let me begin by restating what I hope is obvious, which is that private profits are the byproduct of the critically important digital inclusion work -- work that needs to be done desperately in this country -- but they are not the end goal of the stimulus funding.

Our fundamental goal should be to search for the most efficacious eligible entities, both public and private, and maximize the social and economic benefits of this national intervention. It is critically important for NTIA to evaluate each application on its own merits, and not disallow any specific entities or organizations from applying a priori.

The fact is that broad band stimulus is so desperately needed is indicative of the woeful state of current service provisioning within many communities. It's very existence that of the BTOP program points to the need for new thinking and innovation and new strategies that dramatically differ from prior attempts.

The types of eligible private entities we must support must go far beyond usual suspects. Within the private sector NGO's of all types must be eligible and must include nonprofits, hybrid partnerships with municipal entities, etc., etc., etc.

Current measures, business models and implementation plans have far too often marginalized considerable resources and expertise within local communities. The deprioritization of local control and accountability has too often led to far less effective IT training for local residents, lowered educational outcomes, decreased salience to local constituents of the systems that are deployed, and the marginalization of these communities that these resources are supposed to be serving.

So NTIA has an opportunity to begin to address these digital injustices. We have both an obligation to ensure that the very best organizations receive public funding, and the concomitant duty to ensure that the most socially and economically just outcomes are deployed. Diversity ensures that universal and broadband access and the widest span of digital resources becomes a reality.

To sum up, digital inclusion is not just about the services offered, it's about the local control and accountability of these organizations. It's about finding the right institutions and organizations to deliver these services in the first place.

I very much look forward to the following discussion and public comment. Thank you.