Category: Other Materials

International Perspectives on the US National Broadband Plan

Video detailing the Broadband Breakfast Club. The site hosting the video describes the event as including “key industry officials and was moderated by Lynn Stanton, Senior Editor, TR Reports.” Any relation of this event to the acclaimed John Hughes coming of age film is tenuous at best.

Retransmission Consent: Time For a Complete Overhaul?

Every season, viewers and sports fans seem to be held hostage to disputes between broadcasters and cable and DBS providers over the terms of carriage of broadcast stations and affiliated programming. Is the must carry/retransmission consent model that underlies these disputes in need of a complete overhaul? This is an especially important question now, because thousands of carriage agreements will be up for renewal this year. This program will examine the real issues underlying retransmission consent disputes and the economics and politics driving these issues.

Broadcast v. Broadband: You Decide

Blair Levin, Executive Director of the FCC’s Omnibus Broadband initiative, will join hosts Jim Baller and Marty Stern to discuss the latest thinking on repurposing broadcast spectrum for wireless broadband as part of the National broadband Plan, and how the idea has evolved since it was raised in late 2009, including the recently proposed “Mobile Future Auction.”

A National Town Hall on the Broadband Stimulus Program

Separate Notices of Funds Availability (NOFA) and programmatic rules have just been released for the second and final round of funding under the Broadband Stimulus with several Billions of dollars in funding available in this last round. Applications for this second round are due in just over a month, on March 15, and this interactive live workshop will provide a first look at what’s changed from the first round and what applicants need to know in putting together successful broadband grant and loan applications.

Harvard’s Berkman Center: Broadband policy from around the world

Fostering the development of a ubiquitously networked society, connected over high-capacity networks, is a widely shared goal among both developed and developing countries. High capacity networks are seen as strategic infrastructure, intended to contribute to high and sustainable economic growth and to core aspects of human development.

Economic Stimulus Analyses and Related Matters

Federal Developments 2009-2010

Round Two

Round One

Key Stimulus Websites

Original Sources

Samples of Baller Herbst Analyses

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Section 6001(k)

Section of Reinvestment Act wherein “) Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of this section, the Commission shall submit to the Committee on Energy and Commerce of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation of the Senate, a report containing a national broadband plan.”

Free Press: “Dismantling Digital Regulation

On a cold February morning 13 years ago, President Bill Clinton made history by signing the  Telecommunications Act of 1996 into law. It was the first signing at the Library of Congress and the first to be streamed live over the Internet. This symbolism was intended to capture the legislation’s promise of bringing  the information revolution to the doorstep of every American. As President Clinton signed a bill he described as “truly revolutionary” and that would “protect consumers against monopolies,” he spoke of the future the law would bring. “Soon, working parents will be able to check up on their children in class via computer,” he said. “On a rainy Saturday night, you’ll be able to order up every movie ever produced or every symphony ever
created in a minute’s time.”

Americans are still waiting on the promise of this digital revolution.

Congressional Research Service: The Evolving Broadband Infrastructure

Over the past decade, the telecommunications sector has undergone a vast transformation fueled by rapid technological growth and subsequent evolution of the marketplace. Much of the U.S. policy debate over the evolving telecommunications infrastructure is framed within the context of  a “national broadband policy.”

Congressional Research Service: What’s Different About Broadband?

Broadband network deployment projects represent large scale, long term investments that affect the overall productivity of economic activity in the geographic areas in which they are built, and thus fit the conventional definition of infrastructure. But they also have several characteristics that distinguish them from traditional infrastructure projects. These unique characteristics may dictate that government programs in support of broadband deployment be structured differently than conventional infrastructure programs.