Andrew Cuomo

June 8, 2015 - Broadband conference this week in three time zones will consider the next stages of nation-, region- and state-wide broadband initiatives. The conferences, in the Mountain, Central and Eastern Time zones, begin on Monday and Tuesday in Vail, Colorado with the "Mountain Connect" program. The program includes keynote presentations by Connected Nation Exchange and Dave Zelenok, chief innovation officer for the city of Centennial. At Chicago's McCormick Place, the web site Light Reading's third annual Big Telecom Event on Tuesday and Wednesday includes an array of discussions about building Gigabit Networks across the country. On Tuesday, former National Broadband Plan Director Blair Levin participates in a panel discussion about "network services" for the Gigabit Age. And on Thursday and Friday, in Albany, the New York State Broadband Program Office hosts its third annual broadband summit.  The summit this week will highly New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's new $1 billion state broadband program designed to leverage public and private resources, and which the program office called "the largest and boldest state investment in universal broadband deployment in the country." At the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains in Vail, Moutain Connect aims to "facilitate and accelerate the maturation of broadband infrastructure transforming technology innovation, policy and sustainable economic prosperity for communities in Colorado." In 2014, the program featured keynote addresses from Phil Halstead, then-Executive Director of the Partnership for a Connected Illinois, plus individuals associated with a Wi-Fi network in Vail. This year, in addition to Centennial, the program includes individuals from communities in Colorado including Longmont, Montrose, Vail and others. Also addressing the audience will be a range of companies offering services to build public-private networks. Keep Reading