TweetWASHINGTON, Friday  October 28, 2011.  The Federal Communication Commission unanimously voted to overhaul its outdated the Universal Service Fund and reform its intercarrier compensation fund at yesterday morning’s Open Commission Meeting. The FCC predicts that an effort to expand high speed internet to rural America over the next six years, will increase economic growth by [...]

September 19, 2011 – America’s unique concept of federalism – joint sovereignty between the states and the federal government – sometimes obscures some on-the-ground realities when it comes to the all-important topic of economic growth and development. The simple fact is that cities serve as the engine of life, commerce, culture and sociality.

Tomorrow, at the Broadband Breakfast Club event on September 20, 2011, at 8 a.m., we’ll engage on this subject. The discussion will feature Gale Brewer, a New York City Councilmember who has been one of the country’s leading advocates of better broadband. Gail has represented the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and currently chairs the Committee on Governmental Operations, where she has worked to make better use of technology to save money, improve city services, and bring residents, businesses and non-profits closer to government and their communities.

Gale Brewer will keynote this event, which is titled, “Making Cities of the Future Smarter Through Broadband.”

WASHINGTON, August 22, 2011 – The beauty of the internet has always been the disconnection of content and infrastructure.

Landline phone service was a one-to-one medium. It required the phone company’s infrastructure of wires and switches and telephones. Broadcast television was one-to-many. It relied upon the towers and transmitters of the broadcasters, plus a standard-issue television.

Let alone the fact that today we largely watch televisions connected to wires, and largely talk into mobile phones untethered to Ma Bell’s cords. There is the wealth of many-to-many communication through the multiplicity of applications that make the internet what it is today.

None of this, of course, is new – until one considers Washington’s subsidization schemes.

WASHINGTON, July 22, 2011 – Broadband experts examined whether New Zealand’s ‘Ultra-Fast Broadband Initiative’ contained lessons that could be applied to the U.S.’ own broadband situation Tuesday at a New America Foundation Panel (NAF).

Panelist Blair Levin, Communications and Society Fellow at the Aspen Institute and one of the primary authors of the National Broadband Plan, exhibited confidence in America’s broadband future.

If it were a piece of classical music, the “study” by Navigant Economics’ Jeffrey Eisenach and Kevin Caves could easily be titled “Variations on a False Narrative in the key of F.” They claim, after a review of three (count ‘em, 3) of the hundreds of broadband grants, the broadband stimulus cost too much for too little ROI.

The most misleading of the claims, though, is the alleged $349,234 spent per un-served household. Well, I should say the $7 million per un-served household, but I’ll come back to that in a bit.