Broadband Census Executive Director to Speak at Federal Communications Commission Summit
WASHINGTON, November 3 – Drew Clark, Editor and Executive Director of BroadbandCensus.com, will speak in Silicon Valley on Thursday, November 6, at the summit on broadband data sponsored by the Federal Communications Commission and the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners.
Press Release
Executive Director Drew Clark to Provide Legislative Update on Broadband Data Improvement Act
WASHINGTON, November 3 – Drew Clark, Editor and Executive Director of BroadbandCensus.com, will speak in Silicon Valley on Thursday, November 6, at the summit on broadband data sponsored by the Federal Communications Commission and the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners.
Clark, the journalist who launched BroadbandCensus.com in January 2008 as a means of providing the public with an objective measure of where broadband is available and which carriers offer it, was invited to speak at the “Broadband Summit: Connecting America.” The joint FCC-NARUC summit is co-located with the Wireless Communications Association Symposium and Business Expo in San Jose, Calif.
Clark will provide a “Legislative Update: Broadband Mapping Bill,” from 12:40 p.m. to 1:10 p.m. He will speak in particular about the Broadband Data Improvement Act, S. 1492, which passed Congress and was signed into law by President Bush on Friday, October 10. He will also address other versions of broadband data legislation.
Clark’s remarks at the conference will be preceeded by FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, FCC Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate, Indiana Utility Regulatory Commissioner Larry Landis, California Public Utility Commissioner Rachelle Chong, Alaska Commissioner Mark Johnson and Iowa Commissioner Krista Tanner.
Ray Baum, Oregon Commissioner and Chair of the NARUC Telecommunications Committee, will also offer an opening statement.
Together with Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Texas at Austin, and Virginia Tech’s eCorridors Program, BroadbandCensus.com organized a conference, “Broadband Census for America,” in Washington on September 26, 2008. BroadbandCensus.com has announced a follow-up conference, “Broadband Census for America: The New Administration,” tentatively scheduled for March 27, 2009.
The purpose of the Broadband Census for America conferences is to bring together government officials, academic researchers and other key stakeholders in industry and the non-profit community to improve the understanding of current practices in broadband data collection and discuss ways of improving and expanding publicly-available data within the United States.
Commissioners Chong and Landis both spoke at the “Broadband Census for America” conference on September 26.
Others speaking at the FCC-NARUC joint summit include: Sharon Gillett, Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable; Michael Ramage, Executive Director, Connected Tennessee; Joe Camicia, Chief of Staff, Office of the Chief Information Officer of California; and Susan Walters, Senior Vice President of the California Emerging Technology Fund.
About Broadband Census.com:
BroadbandCensus.com seeks to provide the public with free information about local broadband speeds, prices, availability, reliability and competition. In order to make this information as useful to the public as possible, BroadbandCensus.com believes that the names of the companies that provide broadband – and the speeds and prices at which they actually deliver service – must also be made available as part of any serious effort to map out the state of broadband in America. The content on BroadbandCensus.com is released under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License, meaning that states, local governments and educational institutions may copy and reuse the contents for free.
BroadbandCensus.com has partnered with the Pew Internet & American Life Project, the Benton Foundation, the Consortium for School Networking, Internet2, the Virginia Tech eCorridors Program, the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors, and others, in the quest to make this broadband data public. BroadbandCensus.com also sees itself as an ally and partner of local communities, cities, counties and states in the all-important issue of building good internet access block-by-block.
BroadbandCensus.com is produced by Broadband Census LLC, which is organized as a Limited Liability Company in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Drew Clark is the principal member of Broadband Census LLC.
