Links
Broadband Communities List of Municipal Deployments
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.
Technical Strategies for Facilitating Public or Private Broadband Construction in Your Community
Commissioned by Google, prepared by CTC Technology & Energy
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.
400+ World Bank ICT projects
Wireless Broadband Infrastructure: A Catalyst For GDP and Job Growth
This report evaluates the economic and job-creation impacts generated by projected wireless infrastructure investments between $34 billion to $36 billion per year over the next five years.
Members of the US Broadband Coalition
Comprehensive list of members belonging to the US Broadband Coalition.
Sourcewatch Background Report Website
The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) publishes SourceWatch, this collaborative, specialized encyclopedia of the people, organizations, and issues shaping the public agenda. SourceWatch profiles the activities of front groups, PR spinners, industry-friendly experts, industry-funded organizations, and think tanks trying to manipulate public opinion on behalf of corporations or government. We also highlight key public policies they are trying to affect and provide ways to get involved. In addition, SourceWatch contains information about others who help document information about PR spin, such as reporters, academics, and watchdog groups.
Follow the Money website
The nonpartisan, nonprofit National Institute on Money in State Politics promotes an accountable democracy by compiling comprehensive campaign-donor, lobbyist, and other information from government disclosure agencies nationwide and making it freely available at FollowTheMoney.org.
Broadband’s Contribution to Economic Health in Rural Areas
This paper uses the latest data on both broadband availability and adoption to empirically gauge the contribution of broadband to the economic health of rural areas. Researchers utilize availability data from the National Broadband Map aggregated to county level, and county-level adoption data from Federal Communication Commission’s Form 477. Economic health variables of interest are gathered from a variety of sources and include median household income, number of firms with paid employees, total employed, percentage in poverty, and the percentage of employees classified as either creative class or non-farm proprietors. A propensity score matching technique (between a “treated” group and a control group) is used to make causal statements regarding broadband and economic health. Researchers measure whether the growth rates between 2001 and 2010 for different economic measures are statistically different for the treated and non-treated groups, restricting the analysis to non-metropolitan counties.
Congressional Budget Office Estimates the Current Impact of Recovery Act
According to the Congressional Budget Office, which produces independent analyses of the federal budget and economic issues, the Recovery Act provided jobs for at least 200,000 people and possibly as many as 900,000 during the third quarter of 2012. Similarly, the gross domestic product increased between 0.1 and 0.7 percent during the same period and the national unemployment rate was lowered between 0.1 and 0.5 percent also as a result of the Recovery initiative, CBO added.
National Broadband Plan relies on communities to drive innovation
Blair Levin is one of the premier communications strategists in the country who led in the creation of the National Broadband Plan and now serves as executive director of Gig.U. His remarks this summer during an exclusive interview remain of great value to the networking community in the Triangle, which is why it was chosen to represent the seventh day of this year’s 12 Days of Broadband.
A broadband solution to fiscal crises
By Reed Hundt and Blair Levin, Computerworld
After Congress and the White House close the gap between the Democratic and Republican approaches to the “fiscal cliff”, there is another gap that they need to bridge: the gap between how the worlds of technology and government approach the future.
Wilson’s Greenlight Leads North Carolina in Fast Internet
Following the collapse of key industries, a town of 50,000 in eastern North Carolina had to make a hard choice. It wanted to support existing businesses and attract new ones but the cable and telephone companies were not interested in upgrading their networks for cutting edge capacity.
So Wilson decided to build its own fiber optic network, now one of the fastest in the nation, earning praise from local businesses that have a new edge over competitors in the digital economy. In response, Time Warner Cable lowered its prices and modestly boosted available Internet speeds, contributing to the $1 million saved by the community each year.