Urban Broadband Users in Minnesota

"Homes with tails" an alternate approach to broadband

I like this paper a lot.

CLICK HERE for the paper.

These folks lay out the "condominium" model of fiber ownership, where individuals buy their own fiber connections.  Decentralized investment.  Diversity of buyers.  Open PoP's for competing providers.  Tax credits aimed at home-owners.  Lots of good ideas here.

Minnesota dropping in the "New Economy" index

Here's a link to the annual New Economy Index results from the Kauffman Foundation;

CLICK HERE for the study

The punchline?  Minnesota drops from 11th to 14th in one year.  We're losing ground when it comes to building our "new" economy.

Dept of Justice Study on Broadband

Here's a link to the recently-released study by the DOJ on broadband;

CLICK HERE for the study

I read it and found it weird.  'Course, I find a lot of things that the Bush Administration does to be weird.

Absolutely reads like something out of the late '90's...  A two-provider oligopoly constitutes "competition", unrealistic hopes for wireless, best path to success is deregulation.  How quaint.

Here's a really good post that lays out the implications of the FCC "White space" rule-changes for everyday folks like us;

http://www.circleid.com/posts/20081126_fcc_white_space_regulations/

The question that has been on my mind is whether the arrival of white-space radios has implications for our task force.  I'd be curious to hear your thoughts.  Is this the solution for rural areas?  Is this the solution, period?  In both cases my immediate answer is "No, this is a great solution for lots of problems and a great platform for innovation, but it's unlikely to support the ultra high speeds that we're looking at in the task force."

What do you think?

I signed up to lead sub-committee of the task force that's charged with writing a first-draft chapter called "How did we get here?"

I'm starting to rummage around for a history of broadband in Minnesota, along with the broader context of what was going on nationally and internationally.  Anybody out there got one of those you'd like to share?  Or good stories about the early days?  Major events you think we should include?  Post 'em in the comments, or send me copies of documents if that works better.

The Blandin Foundation's annual Connected Communities Broadband Conference is coming up in a couple weeks.  I know, I'm the representative of urban users on the Task Force, but I also sit on Blandin's broadband advisory board and have a great interest in this conference.  A gaggle of Task Force members will be at that conference to listen to what people have to say.

In preparation for that session, Blandin just issued an invitation for YOU to provide ideas and comments in advance of the session.

We have scheduled an opportunity for folks who want to share their two cents about state broadband issues with Minnesota Broadband Task Force members at the conference. If you are interested in participating in this forum, please complete our online form:

http://www.blandinfoundation.org/BBConf08/comments.html

and let us know the specific topic that you would like to address.  We want to include as many voices as possible so presentations will be limited in length and, we hope, varied in issue area.  Sample topic areas might include the rights of municipalities to provide broadband services, the need for broadband services to every home and business in the state, the need for ultra-high speed Internet, economic development considerations, etc.  This is your chance to advocate for your community's broadband needs.  Please take advantage of it!

Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and I spent an hour talking about broadband here in Minnesota and nationally.  Unfettered by reality or the need to moderate my views I went to the edges of the universe and beyond -- talking about how cool it would be if part of a depression-style Federal stimulus included dropping fiber into every home in the country, and other outlandish notions.

Click HERE to listen to the 1-hour podcast.

Paul Krugman just wrote a column (click HERE to read it) in which he says;

I don’t expect another Great Depression ... [but] We are ... well into the realm of what I call depression economics. By that I mean a state of affairs like that of the 1930s in which the usual tools of economic policy — above all, the Federal Reserve’s ability to pump up the economy by cutting interest rates — have lost all traction. When depression economics prevails, the usual rules of economic policy no longer apply: virtue becomes vice, caution is risky and prudence is folly.

To see what I’m talking about, consider the implications of the latest piece of terrible economic news: Thursday’s report on new claims for unemployment insurance, which have now passed the half-million mark. Bad as this report was, viewed in isolation it might not seem catastrophic. After all, it was in the same ballpark as numbers reached during the 2001 recession and the 1990-1991 recession, both of which ended up being relatively mild by historical standards (although in each case it took a long time before the job market recovered).

But on both of these earlier occasions the standard policy response to a weak economy — a cut in the federal funds rate, the interest rate most directly affected by Fed policy — was still available. Today, it isn’t: the effective federal funds rate (as opposed to the official target, which for technical reasons has become meaningless) has averaged less than 0.3 percent in recent days. Basically, there’s nothing left to cut.

He goes on to make the case that the only place left to go is massive Federal spending to stimulate the economy, much like we saw in the early 1930's with Roosevelt's New Deal.  Krugman is thinking on the order of $600 billion.  Obama has already indicated that such stimulus spending is probably in the cards, and that he wants to focus on infrastructure.

I think we ought to be making the case that some of that infrastructure-stimulus spending ought to be aimed at broadband infrastructure.  Since this train is likely to be leaving the station in the first few months of 2009 as the new administration gets under way, I think that we (the Broadband Task Force) ought to be formulating some kind of position quickly.

What say you?