More on Mapping — WSJ, Connected Nations and Minnesota
Connected Nations is cranky about an article that recently ran in the Wall Street Journal ("Battle Brews over Broadband Mapping" -- click HERE for the article). Note that Consumer's Union (publisher of Consumer Reports) is in the group lobbying against Connected Nations. Anything CU is tracking is something I want to track too.
Anyway, Connected Nations just sent us Task Force members a couple of PR pieces to blunt the damage. I'm not going to post them -- let them post their own dang PR. But Minnesota's own Diane Wells wrote comments to the NTIA regarding Connected Nations (click HERE for her April 19th, 2009 comments) and Connected Nations used it in their PR;
“In February of this year, Connected Nation provided to the State web-based maps of broadband
availability in Minnesota, displaying broadband service in a searchable and verifiable format, down
to the household level. […] As a result, the State of Minnesota now has an invaluable set of tools
for identifying unserved and underserved households in our state, understanding why households
are still unserved, and developing specific policies to promote expansion of the broadband market
to ensure all Minnesota residents have access to broadband. The State selected Connected Nation
as a result of the company’s innovative model that works on behalf of the State to develop high
quality and verifiable products. Further, the State of Minnesota decided that Connected Nation’s
approach to mapping, based on voluntary collaboration with the provider community, is the most
expedient and effective way to produce this important policy tool. Now having this tool in hand
to inform our public policy, we are confident we made the correct choice. Connected Nation and
Connect Minnesota have been excellent partners for Minnesota. As you develop a plan for mapping
broadband availability across the United States, we invite and encourage you to look closely at
Minnesota’s broadband mapping process. We believe you will find an excellent model for mapping
broadband availability in such a way that is transparent, verifiable, continuously updated, and
perhaps most importantly, practical and valuable for identifying those unserved and underserved
areas of Minnesota.”
Um. As you know, from following this blog if nothing else, Connected Nations is "complicated." They, and their corporate backers, are playing a complex game to a) garner a big piece of stimulus mapping money and b) shape the dialog about broadband availability and rollout. They're darn slick. My posture is to watch them carefully and be very thorough when evaluating their results. I think that there are real issues of transparency, mapping-methods and control. I'm far more skeptical than Diane is.
My guess is that the State wants to get a big piece of Stimulus money, so they want to show how cool our maps are since that might put them closer to the front of the line. My bet is that's why Diane wrote the testimony to the NTIA (them as what give out the grants) the way she did. I don't think we'll get a big piece of ANY stimulus money (broadband or otherwise) because that bill is primarily a jobs bill aimed at places that have been badly hurt by the recession and we ain't as bad off as a lot of the coastal states. So I'm going to stick to my "keep an eye on Connected Nations" guns. I sure hope we have some viable competitors to choose from (and that the enabling legislation doesn't exclude them like the current round did) in the bidding for the NEXT round of mapping that Minnesota contracts for.
August 27th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
[...] on of his earlier posts about Connected Nation, O’Connor also addressed his suspicions about Connected Nation well [...]