Urban Broadband Users in Minnesota

This is an important ruling by the FCC that came out on August 1;

In the Matters of Formal Complaint of Free Press and Public
Knowledge Against Comcast Corporation for
Secretly Degrading Peer-to-Peer Applications
Broadband Industry Practices
Petition of Free Press et al. for Declaratory Ruling
that Degrading an Internet Application Violates
the FCC’s Internet Policy Statement and Does Not
Meet an Exception for “Reasonable Network
Management”

CLICK HERE for the FCC document.

CLICK HERE for Susan Crawford's commentary

CLICK HERE for Harold Feld's commentary

CLICK HERE for Larry Lessig's letter to the FCC commending them on their decision

Read the (unapproved) minutes from our first meeting...

CLICK HERE

Sorry folks, but there is an inextricable connection between broadband and politics.  Might as well get used to it.  Larry Lessig expresses a lot of things I believe in this piece (CLICK HERE)

Key points;

• We're losing ground
• The reason we're losing ground can be traced to policy decisions
• Net Neutrality is an important part of the discussion
• So is the degree to which we have enforceable policy (rather than policy that's based on the good faith of major providers)
• The possibility exists to reverse that direction...  Or not.

Friday, August 15, 2008

9:30 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.

Thomson Reuters

D4 - Special Events Room
610 Opperman Drive
Eagan, MN 55123

Just a quick note.  The official site for the committee is working now.

I've asked if they can do an RSS feed (which i might be able to stitch into this site).  Any other ideas?

Vint Cerf is in the news today with a suggestion of

ISP-guaranteed minimum data rates

so I thought I'd use that link to kick off a pricing-model discussion.  Fill us in with cool alternatives to consider.