Broadband of Brothers

Same blog name with a new mission

Russ Steele

If you look closely the tag line of the Broadband of Brothers has been changes to reflect the new mission. We have retired the ERC Telecommunications Resource Committee title,  and given this group of volunteers new direction as the Nevada County Community Broadband Leadership Council.  Steve Monaghan, County CIO, has agreed to lead the NCCBLC.  We will be posting our meeting agendas and minutes here,  and any notices that pertain to acquiring more broadband communications coverage in Nevada County.

All citizens are welcome to our meetings and volunteer to work on specific working group as we redefine our charter and focus on making sure everyone that wants broadband access can have it at competitive prices with other communities.

See you at our next meeting.

USDA ANNOUNCES $267 MILLION RURAL BROADBAND LOAN

Russ Steele

WASHINGTON, March 25, 2008 - USDA Rural Development Under Secretary Thomas C. Dorr today announced that Open Range Communications, headquartered in Denver, Colo., has been approved to receive a $267 million loan from USDA Rural Development to provide broadband service to 518 rural communities in 17 states. More here:

California is one of the states listed, and this is for a WiMAX technology build out.

USDA Rural Development's investments in broadband are helping rural communities develop sustainable economic opportunities to improve the quality of life in communities across the nation. The loan to Open Range is expected to foster business development and create new jobs in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Wisconsin.

I will be following up to find our where in California and maybe we can get some of this investment in Nevada County.

Nevada County Community Broadband Leadership Council

Russ Steele

Here is the agenda for the  Nevada County Community Broadband Leadership Council meeting today.

March 21st, 2008
3:00PM Rood center, Empire Room

Introductions - All

Group History and Sponsorship – Russ
http://www.ncerc.org/blog_bbb.php

California Broadband Task Force and Report – Steve
http://www.calink.ca.gov
California Emerging Technology Fund http://www.cetfund.org
Community Partners http://www.communitypartners.org
California Community Technology Policy Group http://www.cctpg.org
Broadband Institute of California http://www.scu.edu/law/bbic/

SEDD Aggregated Broadband study project – Steve
http://www.sedd.org 

Nevada County broadband issues – Steve
http://www.ncerc.org/wireless.php
http://www.ncerc.org/documents/2007-09-19-RCRC-Broadband.pdf

Group Focus – Mind map - open discussion

Project identification – open discussion
Opportunities, needs
What can we really accomplish
Next steps – open discussion
- Volunteers
- Assignments

Next Meeting - Steve

FCC 700 Mhz Auction Update

Russ Steele

I was hopping that Google would win some of the 700Mhz Spectrum and use it for WiMAX wireless but is not going to happen. The 700-megahertz spectrum is considered valuable because it can go long distances and penetrate thick walls and wet trees which we have here in the foothills.

Here is the update from Reuters:

Verizon Communications Inc and AT&T were big winners in the U.S. government's auction of wireless licenses that raised a record $19.59 billion, the Federal Communication Commission said on Thursday.

Verizon Wireless, a joint venture with Vodafone Group Plc, won the nationwide "C" block of the auction, giving it control of a major piece of the airwaves being vacated by television broadcasters as they move to digital signals in early 2009.

AT&T won 227 licenses from among the "B" block of regional licenses, but Internet leader Google Inc, while it submitted a serious bid for the C block, in the end won no licenses, the FCC said.

Frontier Wireless, a partner of U.S. satellite television company EchoStar, gained airwaves in the "E" block of the auction, covering almost all of the United States.

Telcom Update and New Direction

Russ Steele

The ERC Telecommunications Resource Committee is taking a new direction, and I will be passing the leadership to others. We have not met for a long time as we did not have a specific mission that I believed could produce come concrete results. I did not want to meet, just to be meeting. Now that the California Broadband Task Force Report: The State of Connectivity has been published, it is time to revisit the broadband issues in Nevada County.

Recommendation Number 7 in the CBTF is to form a Community Broadband Leadership Councils. The ERC Executive Boards has agreed with a recommendation that we reconstitute the Telcom Committee as the Nevada County Broadband Leadership Council.

Steve Monaghan has agreed to lead the NCBLC and will be holding an initial meeting on the 21st of March at 3:00PM, Empire Room at the Rood Center.  If your are interested in more broadband in Nevada County please come and support Steve and the NCBLC.  I will continue to participate in the NCBLC activities, and look forward to Steve's leadership.

Here is more information on Recommendation #7:

Community Broadband Leadership Councils: It is vital to spur local leadership that increases demand for broadband in unserved and undeserved communities. Currently no organized forum exists for these communities to developa business case for broadband; however, a statewide-public private
partnership could create this mechanism and facilitate both the creation of Community Broadband Leadership Councils (CBLCs) and the sharing of information across CBLCs. Individual CBLCs located in unserved and underserved communities and comprised of local residents who are passionate about broadband can articulate that the level of demand is substantial enough to warrant investment
by providers and develop the business case for broadband deployment. CBLCs can identify potential anchor tenants, critical infrastructure, state or local infrastructure, partnerships with surrounding communities, and residents and businesses who will commit to purchasing broadband. The CBLC model will be strengthened if representatives from each Council meet regularly, under the auspices of a formal
network, to share best practices and strengthen one another’s work. In fact, a similar model, pioneered in Kentucky, has a proven track record of success.

A typical CBLC, staffed by passionate, committed local champions will publish a business case for the local community and a set of lessons learned that other communities may use to develop financial models supporting broadband deployment. Examples of CBLC activities include: convening public discussions to assess infrastructure needs and explore broadband opportunities; holding farm demonstration projects for on-farm voice, data and telemetry applications; and developing presentations that examining water-management systems, on-farm mesh networks, and community public safety projects.

Intel's rural connectivity application

Russ Steele

I found this on C/Net:

Intel's rural connectivity platform We wrote about this a year ago. Now it's almost ready for roll-out sometime this fall. It's a low-cost way of providing roughly 10 megabits-per-second connectivity to remote areas. The RCP needs a clear line of sight to work, but when set up without obstructions, Intel says the wireless long-distance nodes can connect every 60 miles. (I was told that one test offered up 4 megabit speeds up to 100 miles away.) Intel says it tweaked the Media Access Control protocol with a TDMA modification. The hardware is comprised of a small box which includes a single computer board, a lower power processor, a compact flash card for storage, and mini PCI wireless cards.

See picture here It is at the bottom of the page.

California Broadband Task Force Releases Final Report

Russ Steele

Steve Monaghan who was on the CBTF Economic Working Group forwarded this link to me this morning: http://www.calink.ca.gov/taskforcereport/

This is from the Executive Summary:

The CBTF adopted three key goals:
• California must ensure ubiquitous and affordable broadband infrastructure, made available through a variety of technologies to all Californians.

• California must drive the creation and use of applications that produce the greatest economic, educational, and social benefits for California’s economy and communities.

• California must construct next-generation broadband infrastructure, positioning California as the global economic leader in a knowledge-based economy.

There is a lot of information to digest, I will comment as I read the report. Check out the graphics on broadband availability, it looks like part of Nevada County was left out. We are not in the Northern Counties or the Mother Load Counties. In my quick review, it look like we got left on the editing room floor.   

SmarterBroadband to the Rescue

Our son was visiting us for the holidays. His job requires that he keeps in touch with his company every day via VPN (virtual private network) on the Internet. His attempts from our house failed, he could not make a connection. If he could not "check-in" periodically, he would have to leave and return to the Bay Area. After some investigation, my son and I guessed that something in the SmarterBroadband connection might be blocking the VPN connection. I sent a email to SmarterBroadband describing the problem and asking for help. This was late on Sunday afternoon. I was hoping for a reply Monday morning. Much to my surprise, we got a telephone call from SmarterBroadband shortly after I sent the email. They spent almost an hour on the telephone with us diagnosing the problem. They were able to make changes in their network so that my son could make his VPN connection that same evening. We were all quite relieved that we could spend the holidays together thanks to the outstanding customer service from SmarterBroadband.

Schwarzenegger: Free market best solution for broadband

Russ Steele

This from an article on c/Net News by Declan McCullagh

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger showed up in Los Angeles on Tuesday to give a keynote speech at a state broadband conference, but didn't say much in his speech about broadband after all.

Although the event was held by the USC Annenberg School's Center for the Digital Future, Schwarzenegger spent most of his time talking about old-fashioned infrastructure, primarily roads, water, and levies in the Sacramento delta.

What he did say about broadband:

During a question-and-answer period afterwards, the governor did allude to a recent study from the Sacramento Regional Research Institute that estimated California could gain 1.8 million jobs a year--assuming that the broadband use of the state's population grew by 3.8 percentage points a year.

Schwarzenegger struck a free market note on how best to accomplish that. "I've been pushing the (Public Utilities Commission) in becoming much more aggressive in pushing broadband," he said. "If we get more out of the way"--that is, if the government doesn't interfere--it will "move technololgy forward in a free way."

Full article here.

Economic Effects of Increased Broadband Use in CA

Chuck Neeley

A new report out this month by the Sacramento Regional Research Institute speaks well of the economic impact of broadband, and forecasts incredible new job potential through 2010.  It is definitely worth reading, and can be found here:

http://www.srri.net/AboutUs/EconEffectsBB_Summary.pdf