Public Tech Notes

Joy Howell, director of APT’s Broadband Changed My Life!^TM campaign, was interviewed on March 13th by WMIS-FM in Minnesota, a female-oriented lifestyle station a few hours from Minneapolis. The topic was how broadband is changing education. Howell talked about the U.S. being the largest broadband market in the world, and how broadband is enabling many people to earn degrees from educational institutions thousands of miles away from them. Vinnie Valente was a contestant in the nationwide Broadband Changed My Life!^TM contest, and proudly said that he was able to earn two associate degrees from a community college in Ann Arbor Michigan while living in Rhode Island. Another example is parents who are able to home school their children using broadband. The second place winner in the Broadband Changed My Life!^TM contest, Stephen Wooten, comes from a rural area near Appalachia whose family got broadband when he was in high school. He said “my mind became the child sponge it once was” and he surfed the Net learning about all kinds of topics for hours, ultimately deciding he was a smart kid who should go to college. He was the first person in his family to attend college, and went to Appalachian State University. Howell also explained how teachers and students can connect to each other from remote locations to enrich the learning experience by using high speed Internet access, sharing ideas and learning from each other. Yet another example is the PEBBLEs program, which uses robots with broadband connections to create a tele-presence in the classroom for medically fragile children while in their hospital rooms or confined to home so that they don’t fall behind in school. Yes, broadband is transforming people’s lives every day.

Health Radio Network Interviews Former APT President and Telehealth Doc with Broadband Changed My Life!^TM Director

APT’s former president Max Stachura, who directs the Center for Telehealth at the Medical College of Georgia, and Joy Howell, Director of APT’s Broadband Changed My Life!^TM campaign, were interviewed on March 11th by the Health Radio Network on the use of broadband in health care applications. Both of them pointed to the health care cost savings estimated at $800 billion and the major benefits of remote health care monitoring, which alone could reduce health care expenses by 25% or $350 million annually. Dr. Stachura gave examples of stroke diagnosis and treatment en route to the hospital via broadband. Patients have a three hour window from the onset of a stroke to get effective treatment and knowing what kind of stroke it is determines which drug is administered. Thanks to high-speed networks and services, patients no longer just get treatment in physicians’ offices. We are moving to treatment wherever the patient is—anywhere, anytime, anybody healthcare.

Many of the people who wrote in describing the impact of broadband on their lives for APT’s recent Broadband Changed My Life!^TM contest were using broadband to research health care options and treatment. Some talked about accessing health care services from their homes via broadband. And some people talked about how wonderful it is to have remote access to specialists. One woman who used to drive her son over 300 miles to a pediatric specialist now can drive ten minutes to a clinic and have him checked by a physician 600 miles away. Yes, broadband is changing people’s lives—for the better!

APT & The Children’s Partnership to Co-sponsor Brown Bag Lunch

Watch for your invitation to the May 15th brown bag lunch being co-sponsored by the Alliance for Public Technology and The Children’s Partnership in the 10th floor conference room at 919 Eighteenth Street, NW. Another in the Broadband Changed My Life!^TM series of events, this ongoing “conversation among friends” will center on the role of broadband technologies and services for ensuring healthy and productive lives for all children.

TELECOM NEWS

COAT Access Resolution Passed by NARUC

The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners passed a "Resolution to Support Equal Access to Communication Technologies by People with Disabilities in the 21st Century." The resolution generally supports the goals of the pending legislative proposal endorsed by COAT, and specifically endorses those sections of the proposal that:

Would allow use of the Link-Up and Lifeline Assistance Programs to discount the cost of broadband services for individuals who rely on video communications over the Internet; and
Would create a small set-aside of funds from the Universal Service Fund to help pay for the costs of specialized telecommunications products for individuals who are deaf-blind.

It endorses Lifeline and Link-Up support for broadband services and $10 million annually in universal service funds to support distribution of CPE (or customer premises equipment) for people who are deaf-blind.

Click here to view the full resolution.

FCC Begins Process of Transitioning USF Support to the Digital Age

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently began the process of changing its policy to make Universal Service Fund (USF) monies available for the building of broadband networks in unserved and under-served areas of the country. Specifically, the FCC established a comment cycle for its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on creating a pilot program for reforming the current USF system to support the construction and maintenance of broadband networks.

The most notable development is the FCC’s request for comment on a proposed new Broadband Fund. This fund would support the construction of broadband networks in areas where they do not currently exist, help fund the improvement of existing broadband networks with insufficiently fast connections, and continue the support already given to broadband providers in underserved or high-cost areas. The FCC has taken pains to note that this new Fund would be paid not by new federal funds, but rather from savings gained by transitioning away from current USF programs supporting traditional copper wire-based telephone networks in high-cost (mostly rural) areas as well as integrating state matching funds.

Reactions by the FCC’s commissioners to the decision were somewhat mixed. Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein hailed the move as a “landmark development,” in the history of the drive to reform the Universal Service Fund programs. “ I have long argued that the universal service fund is an integral component of our efforts to meet the broadband challenge,” noted Adelstein. Commissioner Deborah Tate, one of the Commission’s three Republican members, was similarly enthusiastic. “I am particularly pleased that we are taking this significant step forward in the journey toward comprehensive reform of the high-cost universal service program,” said Tate.

Commissioner Michael Copps took a much different view, describing the $300 million proposed for the new Broadband Fund as insufficient to meet the country’s persistent broadband gap. “That’s like fighting a bear with a flyswatter,” said Copps.

Copps is not alone in calling the $300 million proposed for the Broadband Fund insufficient to meet the nation’s broadband gap. The National Exchange Carrier Association (NECA), which represents local telephone companies, has estimated that the cost of upgrading the nation’s 5.9 million rural telephone lines to 8 mbps speeds at $11.9 billion. Only at such speeds would the so-called “triple play” of voice, video, and data service be available to rural broadband customers, argued NECA.

Comments are due on April 3, 2008, and Reply comments are due on May 5, 2008 (WC Docket Nos. 05-337, 96-45, FCC 08-4). Find more information here.

You can also see the Benton Foundation’s synopsis.

New Legislation will create a Broadband Deployment Fund in West Virginia

New legislation designed to meet Governor Joe Manchin’s goal of statewide high-speed access by 2010 was passed by the West Virginia legislature on Saturday, March 8th. The legislation will create a Broadband Deployment Fund and Broadband Deployment Council in order to extend high speed Internet access to areas of West Virginia that are currently without it.

The Broadband Deployment Fund will collect money from gifts, donations and budget appropriations and award funding to parties that apply for financial backing for access projects. The Broadband Deployment Council will be chaired by the Governor and made up of seven members, including a representative from the Communications Workers of America (CWA).

Washington Legislature Unanimously Passes High Speed Internet Access Proposal

The Washington State legislature unanimously passed a bill to increase high speed Internet access across the state on March 12th. The final bill combined aspects of bills sponsored by Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles (D – Seattle) and Rep. Zack Hudgins (D – Tukwila) to create a strategy for achieving high-speed Internet access across the state, especially the underserved rural areas.

"Gaining access to broadband can make a huge difference in expanding economic opportunities and creating jobs, particularly for those not having it now, such as a small winemaker or an orchard worker in rural Eastern Washington, a student living on a small island in the San Juans, and a resident in a low-income urban area in Puget Sound," said state Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles.

The bill also creates the Community Technology Opportunity Program, which is designed to provide low-income, disabled, and underserved people access to high-speed Internet technologies and training. Like many other states, Washington is moving forward with its own initiative to increase high speed Internet access and could serve as a model for other states.

E2SB 6438 now only awaits the governor’s signature to be enacted into law.

Connected Nation and U.S. Chamber of Commerce to Launch National Broadband Awareness Campaign Connect!

A series of regional dialogues will be held across the United States over the coming months beginning with Columbus, Ohio on April 24th. The dialogues are a project of the Connect! Campaign being launched by Connected Nation and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to promote the economic value and social benefits of broadband and related technologies. The dialogues will address the ability of broadband to impact everything from economic development and U.S. global competitiveness to telemedicine, education and traditional industrial sustainability.

The campaign will be launched on Wednesday, April 2nd at a joint press conference in Washington, DC with participation from Brian Mefford, President and CEO, Connected Nation, Inc.; William Kovacs, Vice President, Energy, Environment, & Technology for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; and Leroy Watson, Legislative Director for the National Grange and a former member of the APT Board of Directors.

UPCOMING EVENTS

April 2
Connected Nation-U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Connect! Campaign Launch
Washington, DC
More Info

April 4
FCC
Consumer Advisory Committee Meeting
Washington, DC
More Info

April 4-5
American Foundation for the Blind
Josephine L. Taylor Leadership Institute
San Francisco, CA
More Info

April 8
One Economy Corporation
Bring IT Home America Launch
Washington, DC
More Info

April 24
Connected Nation-U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Connect! Campaign Dialogue
Columbus, OH
More Info

April 24-26
National Conference of State Legislators
2008 Spring Forum
Washington, DC
More Info

May 15
APT-The Children’s Partnership
Brown Bag Lunch
Washington, DC
More Info