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Texas industry group refutes common myths about municipal broadband

Texas has an opportunity to take advantage of vast new broadband-driven digital transformations that promise to unleash a wave of innovations that can transform the way we learn, work, and live as well as bridge the digital divide. Cities across the state are hoping to accelerate this opportunity and are stepping forward with creative solutions for extending the benefits of ubiquitous broadband access to city residents. Like their counterparts in other States,the municipalities of Texas also want to do their part to help America shed its embarrassingly low – 13th in the world — global ranking for broadband Internet access. This isn’t the time to be erecting new barriers to broadband when we have communities throughout the state that are ready, willing and able to extend the reach of the Internet through advanced broadband networks. Rather than embracing this future, some opponents of municipal broadband projects are hiding behind a set of unfounded myths in order to pass legislation that would stall, stifle or stop these innovative community-based efforts.

US Broadband Coalition Website

The US Broadband Coalition is a large and diverse coalition of entities that seeks to develop consensus on as many of the components of a national broadband plan as possible. On December 8, 2008, at an event on Capitol Hill, the Coalition issued an unprecedented Call to Action to President-elect Barak Obama and Congress to develop a comprehensive national broadband plan. The Call to Action included a framework for such a plan as well as a commitment by the members of the Coalition to continue to work together to explore the relevant issues in detail. For this purpose, the Coalition formed six working groups: Needs and Opportunities, Goals, Metrics, Availability, Adoption and Use, and Implementation.

Economic Impact of the ARRA, Five Years Later

From the White House Council of Economic Advisors

As part of the accountability and transparency provisions included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) was charged with providing to Congress quarterly reports on the effects of the Recovery Act on overall economic activity, and on employment in particular. In this final report, we provide an assessment of the effects of the Act through the fourth quarter of 2013 as well as an assessment of subsequent jobs measures.

Arthur D. Little: “National Fibre Strategies”

The socioeconomic benefits of advanced telecommunications infrastructure and services are intuitive, as well as definitive. Global studies by Arthur D. Little on the socioeconomic benefits of broadband have demonstrated the links between advanced telecommunications and the diversity and strength of economies.

A Gigabit Garden Begins to Grow: Lessons from the First Planting

Is the wireline network that serves your community good enough to meet your  needs 10 years from now? If the answer is “yes”, you’re in luck. Because we can guarantee you will be able to have that network. If the answer is “no”, then the question is: what are you going to do about it?  Because if current trends continue, what your community has today might well be what it has a decade hence.

An approach to forecasting requirements for the period 2013-2023

This paper sets out the methodology and results of a model that seeks to forecast UK domestic demand for broadband capacity. As far as we are aware, it is the first such model to be put into the public domain. It has been developed by Communications Chambers, and commissioned by the Broadband Stakeholder Group (BSG) with support from BSkyB, BT, Ofcom, TalkTalk, Three and Vodafone.

Cost of Connectivity 2013

From New America Foundation

Last year, the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute published The Cost of Connectivity, a first-of-its-kind study of the cost of consumer broadband services in 22 cities around the world. The results showed that, in comparison to their international peers, Americans in major cities such as New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC are paying higher prices for slower Internet service. While the plans and prices have been updated in the intervening year, the 2013 data shows little progress, reflecting remarkably similar trends to what we observed in 2012.