ITC Steering Committee Continues Work on Broadband

Nation Cities Weekly
June 29, 2009

by Julia Pulidindi
NLC’s Information Technology and Communications (ITC) Steering Committee met this month in Nashville, Tenn., to address the policy agenda set at its March meeting in Washington, D.C.

Led by chair Steve Peterson, councilmember, Bloomington, Minn., and hosted by Nashville Councilmember Vivian Wilhoite, the committee addressed several issues surrounding the need for a better technological infrastructure.

In April, NLC, along with its national partners, submitted comments in response to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Utility Service joint request for information to facilitate their distribution of the broadband money in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

The committee also heard from the executive director of Connected Tennessee, a division of Connected Nation Inc., on the role of cities in advancing broadband access. Connected Tennessee is an organization that develops and implements effective strategies for technology deployment, use and literacy in Tennessee. It aims to increase the availability and use of technology to impact business, community and economic development, healthcare, education and governance.

Link to article

Update from Connected Nation

From Blandin on Broadband
June 6, 2009

Last week the Wall Street Journal ran an article on the Connected Nation maps. There were some numbers in the report that jumped out at me. The CN folks had told me a while ago that the spoke to fewer than 100 providers in Kentucky; the article said that CN spoke to 300. Well, it turns out CN has talked to about 335 providers across 6 states. The WSJ was wrong.

To read more, click here.

Rural Americans long to be linked

USA Today
June 8, 2009

By Leslie Cauley

PLAINS, Texas — The people who live here are still waiting for the digital revolution to arrive.

The local phone company, Windstream, offers high-speed DSL service in part of Plains (population: around 1,450). But those who live outside the city limits, including farmers such as Jeff Roper, don't have a lot of choice.

Roper currently uses ERF Wireless, which provides service in more remote areas. He says the service, which costs $40 a month for a 1.5-megabit connection, is pretty good, though it sometimes goes down for days at a time.

To help run his 2,400-acre farm, he spent $65,000 on equipment for a satellite-based GPS service for his tractors, useful for navigation in the field. Broadband, handy for a variety of diagnostic and operational purposes such as irrigation and real-time weather monitoring, isn't available — so Roper and other farmers in this West Texas community do without.

Rural folks aren't prone to complain, Roper says. They work hard, love their communities and wouldn't think of living anywhere else. But that doesn't mean they don't want, and need, to be connected to the outside world.

"Just because we live in rural America doesn't mean we shouldn't have broadband," says Roper, a third-generation peanut farmer. "We're all Americans. We shouldn't be treated less than anyone else."

Link to the entire article