Government Technology recently published my latest article on the FCC's plans for a national public safety network. Here's the text:

Emergency communications save lives.

The unfortunate corollary to this maxim: Communication failures kill. More attention is being focused on how to improve communication, not only within an emergency response organization, but also among first responders from different agencies. To remain fully connected, key communications officers have often adopted a "Bat Belt" approach with several communications devices - sometimes a half dozen or more - strapped to their waist. It's a necessity for communicating among the many federal, state and local agencies' wireless networks during an incident.

Today's IT is increasingly sophisticated, and emergency response agencies and hardware platforms are proliferating, which makes interoperable communications ever more urgent. Natural or man-made disasters require close interaction of many organizations, but the sad reality is that too many communications systems aren't interoperable; this can lead to on-the-ground snafus, inefficiency and tragedies - as was exemplified in the disaster response after Hurricane Katrina. Within these contexts, the FCC is working to open new radio frequencies to meet first responders' interoperability needs.

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I'm attending the Patents, Copyrights and Knowledge Governance Conference today over at the Carnegie Institute. It's full of hyper-knowledgeable people, though the discussions might be a bit dry to the uninitiated. Gavin Baker is live blogging during the panels.

I've been deeply concerned about the increasing amount of digital rights management (DRM) and other content controls that are finding their way into the services and applications that we all use. This recent xkcd comic sort of sums it all up:

Video from Friday's Wiki White House event (co-sponsored by Wired Magazine, New America Foundation, and Google) is now available:

It was a fun panel (though the director's chairs always leave me wondering where to put my feet).

I'll be presenting tomorrow over at Google's DC HQ as a part of a joint event co-sponsored by Wired Magazine, Google, and the New America Foundation. If you can't make it (and the event is now sold out, so if you haven't RSVPed, you may be out of luck, but...) don't worry -- it'll be webcast live for anyone who's interested in watching.

Here's more:

NOTE: Signups for this event have exceeded capacity, and are now closed. There is, however, a waiting list. Thank you for your interest, and we apologize for any inconvenience.

If you are a member of the media and would like to cover this event, please contact Kate Brown at brown@newamerica.net or 202-986-3058.

Technology evangelists believe that Barack Obama has the potential to fundamentally alter communication between the presidency and the people. Wikis in the White House? Online public comments on legislation? A real-time two-way conversation between citizens and their elected officials?

For better or worse, however, nothing is as easy as it might seem. Federal regulations, First Amendment issues, and just plain common sense are going to slow -- and potentially stagnate -- technological innovation in Washington.

The New America Foundation and Wired Magazine will host a discussion of what can, should, and must change when the Obama administration takes the reins.

Co-sponsored by New America Foundation, Wired Magazine, and Google.

Note: The live webcast requires Flash Player 9 or better. If you do not see a video player in the box at right, please download a free upgrade from the Adobe website.

No RSVP is necessary to view the webcast; please sign up only if you plan to attend in person.

Start: 01/09/2009 - 12:00pm
End: 01/09/2009 - 1:30pm

1101 New York Avenue, NW
Second Floor
Washington, DC 20001
See map: Google Maps

Participants

Featured Speakers
Craig Newmark
Founder
Craigslist

Mindy Finn
Director of E-Strategy
Mitt Romney for President

Ellen Miller
Executive Director
Sunlight Foundation

Sascha Meinrath
Research Director, Wireless Future Program
New America Foundation

Moderator
Nicholas Thompson
Fellow, New America Foundation
Senior Editor, Wired Magazine

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.

Folks over at Computer Power User magazine recently interviewed me for their December 2008 issue. Here's the teaser:

Technically Speaking

Interview With Sascha Meinrath, Research Director, New American Foundation Wireless Future Program

From: www.computerpoweruser.com
February 2009 • Vol.9 Issue 2
Page(s) 102-104 in print issue


Sascha Meinrath is the research director of the New America Foundation’s Wireless Future Program and coordinates the Foundation’s Open Technology Initiative. He is an expert on municipal broadband, community wireless networks, and telecommunications policy. He blogs regularly at www.saschameinrath.com.

by Barry Brenesal

CPU: This month, it’ll have been legally mandated that all high-power television broadcasts in the United States will be digital, between 54 and 698MHz. Because TV stations have “guard bands” separating broadcast frequencies, there are so-called “white spaces” between many channels. They’ve fueled a furious debate over who will control all this prime broadcast real estate. In early November 2008, the FCC finally ruled in favor of those who wanted unlicensed public access.

Meanwhile, referring to the furious debate that was waged for years over this issue, a former chief engineer of the FCC, Ed Thomas, described it as “basically a lobbying food fight.” Do you consider that a fair description?

Meinrath: Certainly on one side, you have lobbyists for the National Association of Broadcasters, and on the other side, for Microsoft and Google. But you also have a lot of community organizers, advocates, public interest groups, consumer rights groups, and WISPs (wireless Internet service providers) fighting beside high-tech industry. So while a lobbying food fight places things in its simplest terms, there’s a much larger coalition on the side fighting for white space devices. It’s also the case that if it was....

On January 9th, I'll be speaking on what is certain to be an insightful and entertaining panel over at Google DC headquarters. We'll be highlighting some of the new thinking over at New America and contemplating public policy interventions during the next years of the Obama administration. I'm very much looking forward to swapping notes with Craig, Mindy, Ellen, and Nick. Should be an exceedingly fun time. Join us if you can -- here's more.

Wiki White House: Can Obama Use Technology to Transform Government?

Technology evangelists believe that Barack Obama has the potential to fundamentally alter communication between the presidency and the people. Wikis in the White House? Online public comments on legislation? A real-time two-way conversation between citizens and their elected officials?

For better or worse, however, nothing is as easy as it might seem. Federal regulations, First Amendment issues, and just plain common sense are going to slow-- and potentially stagnate-- technological innovation in Washington.

The New America Foundation and Wired Magazine will host a discussion of what can, should, and must change when the Obama administration takes the reins.

Friday, January 9, 2009
12:00pm - 1:30pm

Lunch will be provided

Google DC
1101 New York Avenue, NW
2nd Floor
Entrance on Eye Street
Washington, DC 20001

Featured Speakers:

Craig Newmark
Customer Service Representative and Founder
craigslist

Mindy Finn
Director of E-Strategy
Mitt Romney for President

Ellen Miller
Executive Director
Sunlight Foundation

Sascha Meinrath
Research Director, Wireless Futures Program
New America Foundation

Moderator
Nicholas Thompson
Fellow, New America Foundation
Senior Editor, Wired Magazine

Co-sponsored by New America Foundation, Wired Magazine, and Google

To RSVP for this event, click on the red button or go to the event page:
http://www.newamerica.net/events/2008/wiki_white_house

For questions, contact Stephanie Gunter at (202) 986-2700 x315 or gunter@newamerica.net

Here in Los Angeles where the weather is fine and the USC marching band does a earsplitting cheer and big brass wake-up call at 6am on the day of a football game. Due to time zone changes, I was already well awake -- but it was a bit surreal all the same. Meanwhile, we're gearing up for today's Internet for Everyone Town Hall meeting (more info below) where we'll be discussing consumer choice, openness on the Internet, affordability and access, and a host of other areas.

My role is going to be to take feedback from the audience and translate it into themes -- since we're expecting 150-200 people, it'll be interesting to see how quickly we can collect note cards, organize them, and provide useful aggregation. Here's more on the Internet for Everyone Town Hall meeting -- if you're in the LA area, feel free to stop on by:

For Immediate Release

Contact:
Jen Howard, InternetforEveryone.org, (202) 265-1490 x22 or (703) 517-6273
Lindsy Embree, InternetforEveryone.org, (630) 292-8347 (in Los Angeles)

TOMORROW: L.A. to Address Digital Divide at Interactive Town Hall
Rep. Maxine Waters to speak at public forum aimed at making Internet for everyone a national priority

WASHINGTON -- Tomorrow, InternetforEveryone.org -- a broad-based initiative to connect every American to a fast, open and affordable Internet -- will hold a town hall meeting in Los Angeles to discuss the digital divide. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) will address hundreds of participants at the interactive forum, the first in a nationwide series of public conversations about making universal Internet access a top priority of the Obama administration and new Congress.

WHAT: InternetforEveryone.org Town Hall Meeting
WHEN: Saturday, Dec. 6, 12:30 - 5:30 p.m. PT
WHERE: The Radisson at the University of Southern California, 3540 South Figueroa Street, Los Angeles

High-speed Internet, or "broadband," is becoming a crucial public necessity -- with unprecedented social, economic and educational potential. But more than 40 percent of all U.S. homes are not connected to the Internet or use slow "dial-up" technology. In California, more than 16 million residents can't access or afford a high-speed Internet connection, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

"High-speed Internet is one of the most transformative technologies in human history," said Timothy Karr, campaign director of Free Press, the organizer of InternetforEveryone.org. "Yet millions of Americans across the country are being left behind in the digital world. Los Angeles' diverse and talented community offers the perfect place to kick off the push for Internet in every home and business in America."

InternetforEveryone.org is supported by more than 120 public interest organizations and industry groups, including: ACLU, American Library Association, BitTorrent, blip.tv, Center for Rural Affairs, Children Now, Computer & Communications Industry Association, Consumer Electronics Association, Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, Credo Mobile, Ebay.com, EDUCAUSE, Facebook.com, Free Press, Future of Music Coalition, Google, Green For All, InterActiveCorp, Media Alliance, National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors, National Hispanic Media Coalition, National Organization for Women, Native Public Media, New America Foundation, One Economy, OneWebDay, Participatory Culture Foundation, Public Knowledge, Skype, Sunlight Foundation, TechNet, TechRepublican, United Church of Christ, U.S. PIRG, Vuze, Writers Guild of America-East, Writers Guild of America-West, and YouTube, amongst others.

For more information, visit www.InternetforEveryone.org

My colleague, Victor Pickard, and I drafted up this quick essay for the Internet for Everyone Campaign. The notion is, if we're going to get serious about affordable broadband, we need to serious address the lack of meaningful competition among broadband service providers. Here's more:

The Internet is not a luxury, it is a necessity. As a lifeline to crucial resources for millions of American families, businesses, educational institutions, and municipalities, high-speed Internet should no longer be considered a commodity, but rather a critical utility on par with water and electricity. Our national policies should reflect the importance of connectivity and prioritize universal affordable access for all. But instead, many policymakers have looked on while our international ranking for Internet adoption has plummeted, leaving millions of Americans offline.

Our current path leads inevitably to a tiered society, one divided along unequal opportunities for education and work, as well as access to arts, culture, and a higher quality of life. This divide runs exactly counter to the ideal of the American Dream. According to this vision, our nation was not designed to maintain an aristocracy and a permanent underclass, but was supposed to be a meritocracy where anyone could succeed and everyone was given the tools they needed to create a better life for themselves and their families.

Universal broadband should be a national imperative, particularly for rural, low-income, and other underserved areas. As the Internet rapidly becomes the platform for a growing percentage of all media, broadband connectivity serves as the critical infrastructure of the 21st century. It is too precious a resource to be solely overseen by an oligopoly of profit-driven corporations who care for their bottom line first and foremost. Our lack of foresight and attention to ongoing digital divides harms our economy and future prospects not just among marginalized constituencies within the United States, but also in relation to our international competitiveness.

Unfortunately, in too many markets across the U.S., people are at the mercy of duopolies, granted a choice between one cable provider and one telephone company for their Internet services. This lack of choice and competition is the key reason why broadband services in the U. S. have lagged behind a growing number of other industrialized countries and why customer service has been so remarkably substandard where broadband connectivity is available. This massive market failure largely accounts for the fact that Americans typically pay twice as much (and often 1000% as much) for half the speeds compared to people in other countries. In 2008, a 100 megabit per second symmetric connection in the U.S. is likely to cost hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars per month. This compares with $25/month in Japan, $32/month in South Korea, and $35/month in Hong Kong. And it’s not just Asian countries who are pulling rapidly ahead of the U.S. In Sweden and Romania, open access networks have created vibrant competitive markets, dropping the pricing for 100 Mbps symmetric lines to $16/month in Stockholm and $11/month in Bucharest. Imagine if you could get broadband connectivity that is an order of magnitude faster for a tiny fraction of the price. This pattern is borne out in a growing list of countries—where competition is fostered, pricing drops and broadband speeds increase dramatically.

The U.S. has thus far failed to grasp this lesson, but it doesn’t have to be this way. If the U.S. government elevates affordable Internet access to a top priority and expands open access infrastructure requirements, all Americans will have an opportunity to better their lives and pay prices equivalent to many other countries. The U.S. government must create the same conditions that other countries have fostered—anything less will ensure that the price-gouging of American consumers will continue. Buildout of open access wireline infrastructures and increased unlicensed access to the public airwaves is the logical place to start. In addition to fostering increased competition, an open internet architecture needs to be protected by maintaining interoperability, network neutrality, and non-proprietary protocols. Taken together, these measures will help ensure an open, affordable Internet that is available to all.