Utah’s Broadband Tech Summit to Convene in Gigabit City of Provo

PROVO, Utah, October 6, 2015 – One of the highest-bandwidth cities in the country will next week host the Utah Broadband Tech Summit here on Wednesday, October 14.

The event, sponsored by the Utah Broadband Outreach Center, will bring national experts from Washington together with practitioners of Gigabit Networks throughout the state. Provo, one of the early Google Fiber cities, has enjoyed a renaissance of technology-centric business activity.

The Utah Broadband Outreach Center was the entity for broadband mapping and planning under the State Broadband Initiative program recent run by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration of the Department of Commerce.

Although federal funding has ceased for the program, the Utah legislature authorized and appropriated funds to continue operations under legislation introduced earlier this year by state Rep. Steve Handy. Handy will be one of the afternoon keynote speakers.

Among the Washington-based officials addressing the conference are Brian Gibbon and Andy Spurgeon of the NTIA, plus John Windhausen, executive director of the Schools, Health and Libraries Broadband Coalition.

Windhausen’s group has been a vigorous advocate for the high-bandwidth needs of community anchor institutions throughout the country.

Other keynote presenters include Val Hale, executive director, of the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development, triathalete James Lawrence, and the regional information technology director for the United Parcel Service.

Panel topics will range from the Gigabit Economy to innovative networks for schools; and from the smart grid to “connected roads.”

I’ll be a leading a panel entitled, “There’s An App for That: Finding ‘Light Bulb’ Applications for the Gigabit Economy,” which will take place from 10 am. to 10:50 a.m., immediately after the opening keynotes.

A summary of the discussion is as follows:

Electricity is history. Today we face the next-generation infrastructure: gigabit networks. Global visionaries here in Utah see the need for these communication networks, even as they struggle to explain the “light bulb” that will make it plain why a super-fast Internet network is as necessary as running water and a universal electric grid.

Our panel will consist of:

• Ray Timothy, Utah Education Network
• Kobus Van der Merwe, University of Utah
• Jeff Christensen, Entry Point Networks
• Wayne Pyle*, Chairman, UTOPIA
• Drew Clark (Moderator), Of Counsel, Kirton McConkie and Chairman, BroadbandBreakfast.com

To register for the event, please visit: http://broadband.utah.gov/2015-broadband-tech-summit/

Earlier this year, the Utah Breakfast Club and BroadbandBreakfast.com hosted an event on GigUtah: How Fiber Networks are Transforming Salt Lake City, Provo and Utah.” You can watch the video from the event here.

Drew Clark is the Chairman of the Broadband Breakfast Club. He tracks the development of Gigabit Networks, broadband usage, the universal service fund and wireless policy @BroadbandCensus. He is also Of Counsel with the firm of Best Best & Krieger LLP, with offices in California and Washington, DC. He works with cities, special districts and private companies on planning, financing and coordinating efforts of the many partners necessary to construct broadband infrastructure and deploy “Smart City” applications. You can find him on LinkedIN, Google+ and Twitter. The articles and posts on BroadbandBreakfast.com and affiliated social media are not legal advice or legal services, do not constitute the creation of an attorney-client privilege, and represent the views of their respective authors.