Speed Matters

From my "Ask the Expert column located at TMCnet

I was pleased to be invited to a meeting on the “Broadband Revolution” that was hosted at the Senate Hart building hosted by Jim Baller and the New American Foundation. The meeting featured FCC Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, along with Jane Smith Patterson of the e-NC authority; Diana Oblinger, CEO of Educause; and Stan Fendley of Corning (the fiber people).

The meeting focused on a report prepared by Jim Baller and his team that was developed for the e-NC Authority, illustrating the benefits that Broadband is bringing to economic development, public safety, health, education, and the environment. The report compares broadband deployments around the world the impact upon our competitiveness within the world community.

I was not surprised to learn that the US continues to lag in delivery of Broadband via wired networks such as DSL, Cable, and Fiber. We also lag in the delivery of Wireless Broadband services, particularly against Canada, Europe, Japan, and the Nordic countries, each of which are leaders in high speed wireless networks and the associated infrastructure. I also found a report called “Speed Matters” that I highly recommend reading if you have any interest in the economic impact of broadband on your daily life.

Some interesting contrasts came out of the meetings as well. For example, Commissioner Copps referred to the recent FCC auction around Advanced Wireless Services as a “huge success”, while Commissioner Adelstein referred to the implementation of the Swedish Government-sponsored last mile fiber infrastructure as a successful model. These are obviously two diametrically opposed approaches to the same problem.

Commissioner Copps praised the report prepared by Jim Baller for e-NC as the “foundation for America’s National Broadband Strategy”. The Baller document centers on the creation of Private/Public partnerships as a solution for America’s future broadband needs, and it also promotes such partnerships as a solution for a variety of utilities.

The FCC had encountered a wall of resistance when it tried to auction the Public Safety 700 MHz spectrum in the form of a Public/Private partnership. Yet, at the same time the State of Ohio has formed “Connect Ohio” in a move to create a statewide inventory of both public and private Broadband resources that appears to be quite successful and has generated considerable praise from private carriers.

Ultimately the forum’s participants were in strong agreement on one thing: our country must have a “National Broadband Strategy” and, from the remarks of FCC Commissioner Copps, it appeared that most liked what they saw in the Private/Public Utility approach of the Baller document. Others agreed on the need to achieve the political momentum with community action at the local level.

So I encourage you to spend time at the local level with your community leaders to help educate them and your neighbors on the economic and social value of achieving a “Broadband Nation” within our lifetimes.

References from this editorial:

e-NC Report – 3 Mb 100 page pdf document

e-NC Report Summary – 12 page summary

Speed Matters – Report on High Speed Networks

Video of the Broadband Summit – New America Event

Connect Ohio – Interactive Map of Broadband

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Enjoy and happy reading!!

Mark

The Broadband Revolution

The Broadband Revolution starts with each ONE of us. This video of the “Broadband Revolution” sponsored by the New American Foundation featured the e-NC authority of North Carolina and included speakers Michael Copps – FCC Commissioner, Jonathan Adelstein – FCC Commissioner, and Jim Baller of the Baller Herbst Law Group.

Held a the Hart Senate building, had over 200 attendees and I noticed personally that staff members of Senator Obama, Senator Stevens, and Senator Murkowski were all in attendance.

Arctic Diamond

Each year in Fairbanks Alaska teams gather to express themselves in some of the most pristine ICE in the world

Phase I

Well this about sez it all!

Wissing Family

What a great family

Happy Mothers Day

Emeril Lagasse's GMA Breakfast in Bed
May 9th 2008
by Mark Hewitt

This past Friday I had the pleasure of helping with the GMA "Breakfast in Bed" with Emeril. This was "Live TV" at its finest. Paul Erdek was the operations & logistics producer and pulled off an amazing event.

20 minutes before going on the air a squirrel shorted out a power transformer cutting power to the entire neighborhood. Without missing a beat we ran extension cords from the generator on the Mobile Home and switched over to battery on cameras, etc.

You can see the segment on ABC's player - and here is the link --> GMA Breakfast in Bed I also posted a few stills taken during the event --> Wissing Family

This was truly an amazing family - I got a chance to meet several of the family members and have to say this is truly an addition to the gene pool.