This month’s meeting — Help me with tough questions for providers
Hi all,
This is the reminder that our monthly meeting is coming up at 9:30 this Friday and you're invited. Click HERE for a link to the announcement page -- it's got the location, agenda and like that.
The focus of the meeting this time is a series of presentations by providers. We're going to hear from panels of telephone companies, cable companies and wireless providers plus an expert type person.
Here's where I need your help. Post your "tough questions for providers" in the comments before 6am tomorrow (Friday) morning and I'll ask them during the meeting. After 6am, you can still send me questions, but you'll have to email them to me because I'll be away from the web but my Blackberry will be on.
If you're attending the meeting, feel free to email me questions during the presentations and I'll try to ask your questions on the fly. Click HERE for my email address.
December 18th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
These are more 'strategic consumer/business user' sorts of questions -- and may be obvious and have only implied regulatory aspects for chosen providers -- but wanted to toss 'em in anyway:
+ What is your current publicly stated position on net neutrality? What are your strategic planning around net neutrality?
+ Within your network management efforts, do you currently perform packet shaping or have in place competitive service offering limiters of any kind? If yes, be specific. If no, are any planned, what are they and when?
+ Would you agree to a publicly transparent disclosure of specific network management practices, processes and methodologies?
+ Do you currently, or have planned, bandwidth caps? If so, be specific in either amount or date(s) for deployment of these caps.
+ What are your specific risk management plans for an acceleration in demand caused by epidemic, terrorism, or other catastrophic event?
+ What are your demand forecasts for broadband adoption and what do you anticipate for throughput demand due, in no small part, to an accelerating use of hosted internet services by an ever-increasing always-on, always-connected populace? (e.g., HD video; online storage; collaborative sites; near-real-time communications like Twitter)
+ What are your strategies for delivering *guaranteed service levels* (and what are those guarantees) for mission-critical online access? (e.g., telemedicine). How would you define "mission-critical"?
--
Steve
December 18th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Mike,
In the spirit of “if you could be any animal what would you be and why?”...
If you could write the playbook for your arch enemy state what would you include to ensure their failure in terms of broadband use and deployment?
Or what policies keep them up at night? On election day the FCC voted on White Spaces, which got a ton of media coverage. The day before, the FCC shelved a discussion on the Universal Service Fund only after opposition from Congress. I saw relatively little coverage of the USF vote while that might be the one to keep me up at night more than the white spaces issue.
Don’t feel obliged to ask - just add these to your list if they fit in.
Thanks! Ann