Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Music: Clintone and the song “Full Circle” via the podsafe music network Music Alley.

Discussed during the show:

Minnov8 Gang 87: More Buzz About Mobile is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

• Apple sells 1 million iPads in 28 days. Took iPhone 74 days. Plus, Minnesota-based analyst Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray estimated that Apple sold about 300,000 units over the weekend, similar to the 300,000 Apple sold the first day of sales April 3. He said the 3G unit was sold out in 49 of 50 stores he checked, suggesting that long term, 3G units will make up about 40 percent of all sales while Wi-Fi units will make up the remaining 60 percent. In related news, is the iPhone code ban facing antitrust inquiry? and Apple Policy Said to Prompt U.S. Allegation by Adobe

• HTC’s Incredible Android Smartphone Hits the Market

• Twitter Launches Embeddable Tweets and PCMag’s Lance Unaloff thinks Twitter is the new CNN

• Governor Pawlenty says Minnesota needs to be more competitive. Healthy state economies will play a critical role in future job creation, but Minnesota does not rank among the nation’s top 10 “growth performers,” according to a U.S. Chamber of Commerce study rolled out Monday by Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

• KeyOn Announces Acquisition of Network Assets in Iowa and Minnesota. KeyOn is one of the largest providers of wireless broadband, satellite and voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) services in the United States, primarily targeting underserved markets with populations generally less than 50,000. (Good thing for rural Minnesota?)

• Google Acquires 3D desktop company Bump Technologies

• Microsoft’s IE Sinks While Google Chrome’s Market Share Triples

• Seven things you need to stop doing on Facebook and tech pundit Leo Laporte mentioned on TWiG 39 that he’s going to delete his Facebook profile over the incomprehensible social graph moves — and Leo’s inability to understand their impact on privacy settings (which he explains as, “If I can’t understand them…how can the average person!“) — made by Facebook at F8, their developer conference.

• Bill Gates says that Microsoft has some tablet projects in the works.

Newsbytes for Tuesday, May 4, 2010 is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

The ultimate recommendation is for universal access to broadband as, “…a minimum of 10 to 20 megabits per second download and 5 Mbps upload” which, in my opinion, might be fine today but will be woefully inadequate within five years and, unfortunately, was missing entirely recommendations on something much more important to the future of broadband in Minnesota: who controls it.

As I progressed through reading the report (PDF) when it was released, an interesting quote jumped out and it about sums up the importance of broadband to the future of Minnesota and came from Kate Rubin, President of the Minnesota High Tech Association (with my emphasis), ”Another key aspect of an innovation ecosystem is ubiquitous and affordable broadband access throughout Minnesota. Broadband is as essential as oxygen to ensure a high quality of life and a globally competitive future for our citizens, businesses, and communities.”

Yep. Broadband is as essential as oxygen, especially for anyone in technology who reads Minnov8! The kicker? The lion’s share of Minnesota citizen’s broadband footprint has “caps” on usage and that metaphorical “oxygen” is mostly controlled by the private sector. While the Task Force invested lots of time in the report detailing everything surrounding broadband BUT private control of this essential and fundamental conduit to the internet, my hope was that the Task Force would directly (and emphatically within the report) drive the point home that the Legislature must confront the question of public/private collaboration, public broadband policy, regulation and laws with something as fundamentally important to our future as access to the internet.

Instead, here was the lukewarm description of government’s leadership role:

Role of Government
Government has, or can have, a variety of roles to play with respect to broadband policy, broadband adoption, and consumer protection. Different levels of government (federal, state, local) have differing levels of jurisdiction and responsibility in the making of public policy regarding broadband.

Government plays an important planning and policy•making role with respect to establishing and achieving broadband goals. While it has regulatory authority too, it must also be recognized that actions the government takes or does not take have direct impacts on such things as time to market, the competitive playing field, and end-users paying for broadband services. In the final analysis, perhaps government’s overarching responsibility is to ensure affordable, ubiquitous access to broadband for all those who want and need such services, while making sure our state and nation remain competitive in the global economy. Further, government has a responsibility to make sure that our critical broadband infrastructure is safe and secure.

What I took from that section was a soft cautionary message to the Legislature in favor of the private sector (“actions the government takes or does not take have direct impacts“) and that perhaps the Legislature should just focus on the “have-nots” and leave the “real” broadband to the big boys in the private sector (“perhaps government’s overarching responsibility is to ensure affordable, ubiquitous access to broadband for all those who want and need such services“).

Without minimizing the extraordinary complexity of making public policy surrounding broadband–and the steep investments made by the private sector in fast broadband while mobile broadband also continues to accelerate–it’s naive for the Task Force to think a strategic deployment of “ubiquitous broadband,” an infrastructure that is “safe and secure” and one with inherent “consumer protections” is going to happen without significant governmental involvement. There should have been an entire section of the report devoted to both sides of the net neutrality debate so the folks in our State Legislature had a grasp of the issues they should be dealing with when crafting broadband public policy, regulations and laws.

As you may already know, the MN Broadband bill passed the House (Update: Senate passage likely this week and then off to Governor Pawlenty for signature). Rather than Minnesota showing “leadership” in this area, instead those of us who know internet access and speed is vital to the future of Minnesota, our nation and, of course, your innovation (regardless if that innovation conflicts with the competitive products offered by the same provider for your internet access) will have to rely on the Federal Communications Commission and their foresight and leadership to ensure internet broadband doesn’t turn in to a tollway.

Today, March 31st, 2010 is officially the last day of the Minnesota Ultra High-Speed Broadband Task Force.  Please click here to read the last Letter from the Chair marking this event and celebrating the teams accomplishments.

You can continue to visit the Minnesota Ultra High-Speed Broadband Task Force’s website to download the report and access other relevant information.

All,

I am not a betting man. Had I been one, I would have placed a pretty big bet on the Task Force succeeding as the odds would have been against me. I mean, seriously, who would have thought that 23 people, with diverse backgrounds and conflicting interests, would have worked so well together? That we would put an agreement on paper and influence others enough to likely pass legislation to codify our recommendations?

Well, we did it. And today, almost two years after its inception, the Ultra High-Speed Broadband Task Force ceases to exist. In what seems like the perfect farewell gift, the Minnesota Legislature will very likely approve a bill capturing our recommendations, and the Governor will sign it into law in the next two weeks.

Is the new law what I would have written had I had a magic wand and lived in the Land of Unlimited Resources? Maybe not.

It is, however, wise, forward-looking legislation that positions Minnesota as a leader in the nation. Now, with the National Broadband Report released, I think our wisdom as a state shines even brighter.

While the Task Force’s report was almost 150 pages long, our key recommendations were narrowly defined: we wanted universal access to Ultra High-Speed Broadband in Minnesota, we defined Broadband as a minimum of 10 to 20 megabits per second download and 5 Mbps upload, and we wanted the state to set a comparative goal within the U.S. and the world. Furthermore, we felt that there had to be some sort of ongoing institution to ensure that the objectives were pursued. It’s all in the bill.

With this, my last letter as Chair, I would like to recognize the talent and the hard work of each and every Task Force member, the supporting staff and friends across the state who freely gave us their work, ideas, advice and enthusiasm to create the report and pass the law (well, getting closer anyway – should be next week!). It has been my privilege to meet and work with each of you.

Together, we have contributed to making Minnesota a better place to live and work. And, a leader among the States in our great country.

I should have placed that bet.

Warmest regards,

Rick King

Your ex-chair

Did The Ultra High-Speed Broadband Taskforce Blow It? is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHmFekhcnmU

YouTube Interview with FCC Chairman Genachowski is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

Within this plan, the FCC has the unenviable task of encapsulating the complexities of the markets, technologies, other country’s use of broadband as a competitive advantage, possible use-cases for broadband (e.g., telemedicine, distance learning), demand for rural use (a market segment seen as horrifically expensive to build-out with wired broadband) and determine the possibilities for broadband in total, whether wired or wireless. Ensuring the public good, and that the internet remains a conduit for innovation and entreprenurialism, is a vital part of their mission.

In conferences I’ve been to, discussions I’ve had with broadband experts, and interviews I’ve held with internet-centric startups and entrepreneurs, all are adamant that nothing is more important to internet innovation and entrepreneurialism than ubiquitous and fast broadband (except for startup funding, of course).

But moving from a Plan to Congressional action in the way of law is another matter entirely.

If you think the healthcare debate has been heated and lobbying by the insurance industry vitriolic, just wait until the FCC Broadband Plan is released and the telecom and cable companies accelerate efforts to influence Congress and you and I. (I’m certain we’ll hear lots of talking points like “the government is socializing broadband”, “government takeover of the internet” and cries that spending on broadband infrastructure isn’t warranted since “we have the best broadband in the world”).

BusinessWeek expects a long haul on the Broadband Plan turning in to law:

“…the FCC may face resistance from lawmakers unwilling to approve additional funding and from parts of the communications industry, such as satellite providers, largely left out of the plan. “If it were easy, [this reform] would have been done a long time ago,” Blair Levin, the Federal Communications Commission official who’s spearheading the National Broadband Plan.”

“Besides asking broadcasters to give up some airwaves, the plan will also propose a nationwide wireless broadband network for use by public safety agencies and urge an overhaul of a federal program that supplies funding for telecommunications carriers which provide phone service in rural areas, FCC officials have said in recent weeks. The plan is also expected to push for the broader adoption of electronic health records and so-called smart grid technologies designed to help consumers and utilities better monitor energy use.”

In his own words, let FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski tell you why broadband matters as he’s grilled by the Fast Money folks on CNBC, a group typically focused on short-term quarterly profits and opportunities for incumbent companies vs. having a strategic eye on America’s global competitiveness, the public good, or the sorts of infrastructure that creates openings for innovators or entrepreneurs. It will give you a taste of the stakes in this game and why the battles have only just begun:

Why the FCC Broadband Plan Matters is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

I learned of this new Comcast service from my friend and Minnov8 buddy, Tim Elliott, since he’s engaged with Comcast on the marketing side for Comcast Business Services. He and I have had many spirited debates about net neutrality, speed tiers and charging for them, the profit motive, and much more.

While I’m a capitalist and strongly believe Comcast should be rewarded for their efforts delivering so many great services, I also know that they would never have been able to achieve their existing cable infrastructure footprint had it not been for governmental interventions enabling rights-of-way to be gained for Comcast (and other cable companies) back in the 1980′s and 1990′s. Though Comcast’s new rollout is a business class service, the gap between what they’re offering and what telecom companies offer is so large, it’s clear to me that business-centric internet dominance in Minneapolis/St. Paul is a foregone conclusion (unless the telecom companies instantly react with cheap T1 or T3 lines, which I doubt they will).

This speed-for-a-great-price gap will continue to grow in both the consumer and business sectors, solidifying Comcast’s lead which threatens to severely restrict the emerging internet TV marketplace and your choices as a consumer.

WHAT’S THE PROBLEM WITH MORE SPEED?
At my home I have the Comcast 16Mbps/2Mbps service and at our office we have the 50Mbps/10Mbps one. IN BOTH CASES we have NO other alternative for services that come anywhere close to the price/speed of what Comcast offers. Isn’t that the classic definition of a monopoly?

Defining a monopoly and then regulating it is incredibly hard and beyond the scope of this blog. Suffice to say that monopolistic control either slows or can even stifle innovation and this is something we care about deeply at Minnov8.

Several of my strategic concerns have been aired on my own blog, and here on Minnov8, in the posts, “Internet Providers Want Control Over Your TV“,  ”Sorry, No Internet for You” and “OK. Internet for You….but with CONTROL“. These discuss the level of control Comcast already enjoys and the barriers to competitive entry that are already in place strategically in order to protect their cable TV business from upstart internet TV competitors. The best example of that is their 250GB bandwidth cap which they position as an “extremely large amount of data, much more than a typical residential customer uses on a monthly basis” but a consumption level of 250GB is easy to hit when streaming video at HD resolutions.

While that sort of measurement of bandwidth consumption by consumers is true today, it won’t be for long as more and more of us watch video over the internet and on our HDTVs and the cable providers, Comcast included, are trying their best not to allow that to happen without them staying in the position of control.

STRATEGIC EXTENSIONS OF COMCAST’S MONOPOLISTIC CONTROL
So we have the 250GB cap and something called “authentication“ which is being rolled out in order to make certain you and I will only be able to watch The Colbert Report on Boxee if we already subscribe to Comcast Cable TV service. If we don’t subscribe, we’ll be unable to stream those shows through Boxee, or any other provider, over the Comcast internet service for which we pay.

This move for authentication is all about ensuring that you and I don’t disconnect our cable TV subscription and use the high speed broadband we’re buying from Comcast to watch content on an AppleTV, PC/XBox/Mac media center, or other internet streaming video box.

But what if it goes beyond controlling our internet-based TV watching, and instead sets up Comcast as a “man-in-the-middle” to also get internet TV providers to pay them as well? That’s exactly what I think they’re doing with a move to “cache” movies, TV shows, and internet TV videos in storage and servers that Comcast controls.

Since video streaming has potentially enormous negative impacts on a network infrastructure (including the internet itself), content delivery networks (CDN’s) have arrived in order to deliver media and content all over the world (e.g., Akamai, CacheFly) and minimize latency for viewing it. But those CDN’s deliver to and through Comcast’s network and Comcast has to deal with you and I streaming data to our computers or TV’s over the cable conduits they manage.

At the last Minnesota High Technology Association (MHTA) conference, I asked a question of Comcast Business Services VP, David Diers, in the broadband session in order to understand what they were doing to cache video content since that is THE missing piece in my theory of Comcast trying to wrest significant control of the streaming video marketplace.

So I asked the question of Mr. Diers at the MHTA broadband session about whether or not they were going to offer CDN-like caching services in order to make the consumer TV watching experience better. Listen to his short 1:28 response by hovering over the speaker here (or just downloading the mp3).

He talks about the huge amount of data transferred over their network and the positives of a “national fiber backbone that we control” and that they’re establishing two massive data centers: one in Pittsburgh and one in Denver in order to provide more on-demand content.

BENEFITS TO YOU:

• Faster access to streaming video content

• Potentially stutter free playback of HD content, even through slower tiers of service from Comcast

• More choices for content that Comcast would provide (though that content availability will undoubtedly prioritize Comcast-delivered on-demand programming vs. the hundreds of other options available to you through an internet connection including moves by Hulu, Apple and Google with YouTube)

BENEFITS TO COMCAST:

• Better network management of streaming video content

• The capability to offer more free and paid on-demand movies and TV shows

DOWNSIDES: There are many but to me the top ones are:

• Control over what content is available over your internet connection, which is already in place with the “authentication” scheme described above

• Charging a “pay to play” fee structure for upstart internet TV providers. If you’re one like Revision3, access to your content will likely be slow, stuttered and in lower HD resolutions unless you pay Comcast to cache your shows and/or ensure network availability. If you’re a provider of streaming media content — YouTube, Vimeo, Viddler, WordPress (with WordPress’ video) — then you’re likely to have poorer performance too. This means that if YOU are delivering streaming video content for your organization or yourself, anyone watching your stuff over a Comcast internet pipe will likely have a degraded experience

• Devices from Comcast will continue to offer laughingly poor user experiences. When I compare my Comcast cable TV box user interface, capabilities and DVR functionality, it pales in comparison to a TiVO box, my Mac mini media center (running the open source Boxee and PlexApp) and, especially, to an AppleTV.

Bottom line? If Comcast controls both your internet and TV watching services, there will be significant and tight control over what you can watch. The other is — like the telephone companies who still haven’t innovated with web browser-based management of telephony services, voicemail-to-email or other innovations “upstarts” have provided for years —  with that sort of control will come content and devices which will lack innovation while stifling it as well.

It’s clear that Comcast is trying to get ahead of the curve with respect to cable TV unsubscribes as well as all the other providers stomping all over their TV delivery turf. This is one of the reasons that I believe that regulation or splitting the company in two (internet & cable TV) are options the FCC and the Minnesota High Speed Task Force should explore.

Comcast: Faster Services = More Control is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

If you haven’t heard of DOCSIS 3.0 (Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification which is explained in this video) and don’t know why this is important, it’s the next generation of cable standards for delivering data over cable with theoretical speeds between 170mbps and 340mbps download with upload speeds of 120mbps.

Not only is Comcast’s new offering significantly faster than what a telecom company offers (e.g., a T1 line speed is 1.544Mbps upload and download speed), it is also substantially cheaper than a T1 usually offered at $500 or more. Even three T1′s, combined in a T3 offering, is only 43Mbps and can run in to the multiple $1,000′s per month. Once this new speed tier hits other major markets, the telecom companies will have a hard time winning the race for broadband internet connections in the SMB space.

Comcast clearly sees the market need in small to midsize businesses (SMB) due to the acceleration in cloud computing and SMB adoption, VoIP services, online storage backup and other bandwidth hungry uses. Having an affordable high speed option is an SMB imperative and I’m really pleased to see Comcast rolling this out in the Twin Cities first.

Comcast Launches 100Mbps Tier in MSP is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

Though they’re unlikely to win any branding awards for the snappy name “Blogband” (sounds like bunch of high schoolers who launched their garage band to sing about blogging), the FCC has launched that blog in order to foster public dialogue about the National Broadband Plan (PDF), an initiative with just over 180 days before the FCC’s deadline to send that plan to Congress.

“Like our unprecedented two-dozen public workshops and the upcoming fall public hearings, Blogband is part of the FCC’s commitment to an open and participatory process. Blogband will keep people up-to-date about the work the FCC is doing and the progress we’re making. But we want it to be a two-way conversation. The feedback, ideas, and discussions generated on this blog will be critical in developing the best possible National Broadband Plan.”

So if you care about broadband (and issues like net neutrality), then snagging this RSS feed and putting it in your news reader or just following the blog would be a good idea.

FCC Launches Blogband is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) was signed into law on February 17, 2009. The Broadband Initiatives funded in the Act are intended to accelerate broadband deployment across the United States. The Recovery Act authorizes the FCC to create the National Broadband Plan, that “shall seek to ensure that all people of the United States have access to broadband capability and shall establish benchmarks for meeting that goal.” This website contains information on the FCC National Broadband Plan. Please visit www.fcc.gov for more information about other FCC efforts, or browse the “Initiatives” section of this web site to learn what exciting efforts other agencies are pursuing to support the goals of the Recovery Act.

Check it out. I can’t tell you how pleased I am that there is a serious effort underway with this important infrastructure that is, in my opinion, more important going forward than the interstate highway system.

FCC Launches Broadband Site is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

These findings illustrate a departure from the stagnation in home high-speed adoption rates that had prevailed from December, 2007 through December, 2008. During that period, Project surveys found that home broadband penetration remained in a narrow range between 54% and 57%.

The greatest growth in broadband adoption in the past year has taken place among population subgroups which have below average usage rates. Among them:

• Senior citizens: Broadband usage among adults ages 65 or older grew from 19% in May, 2008 to 30% in April, 2009.
• Low-income Americans: Two groups of low-income Americans saw strong broadband growth from 2008 to 2009.
  • Respondents living in households whose annual household income is $20,000 or less, saw broadband adoption grow from 25% in 2008 to 35% in 2009.
  • Respondents living in households whose annual incomes are between $20,000 and $30,000 annually experienced a growth in broadband penetration from 42% to 53%.

Overall, respondents reporting that they live in homes with annual household incomes below $30,000 experienced a 34% growth in home broadband adoption from 2008 to 2009.

• High-school graduates: Among adults whose highest level of educational attainment is a high school degree, broadband adoption grew from 40% in 2008 to 52% in 2009.
• Older baby boomers: Among adults ages 50-64, broadband usage increased from 50% in 2008 to 61% in 2009.
• Rural Americans: Adults living in rural America had home high-speed usage grow from 38% in 2008 to 46% in 2009.

The Pew Internet Project’s April 2009 survey interviewed 2,253 Americans, with 561 interviewed on their cell phones.

As I read the report, it was clear that this acceleration in broadband adoption is, in my view, being driven by a number of variables: economic downturn causing a seeking of alternatives, efficiency and cost savings; friends, family and colleagues online (many using social media) creating compelling reasons for others to connect; and a continuing growth of online services in news, information, entertainment and more.

All that said, the important thing to Minnesota innovators is that people are increasingly online at home and participating, and that’s important to all of us in the internet and web innovation space!

U.S. Home Broadband Adoption Hits 63% is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

After the jump, you can watch Mike’s interviews (broken in to chunks due to YouTube’s limits on filesize). They’re very enlightening if you care about this topic! 

Vint Cerf interview (Mike’s original post):

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYzvHrb9Un4

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7QTU9Uy7-0

www.youtube.com/watch?v=GInJyd6TLgE

www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8_bAiaRsDw

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZGkNluShzU

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtXU0LAF9a4

www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1DetZ9Rqvc

Robert Stephens interview (Mike’s original post):

www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8543T8IQL4

www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6bqdcseHlY

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mudU5N3fovM

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI3O8ze-PA4

Broadband Perspective is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

We talk with Mike O’Connor from the MN Ultra High-Speed Task Force, a self-described community organizer, entrepreneur and tech-geek (blog here & bio here) turned business-leader (and, I might add, a gentlemen farmer turning his Wisconsin 420 acres back to its original pristine state).  Mike also became moderately famous in Minnesota as one of the people who popularized the Internet back in the mid-90’s and, in fact, started an ISP with his gang of cohorts in St. Paul called “Go-Fast.net” which he later sold. 

Mike also has alot of experience in public policy matters having been with the St Paul Mayor’s Y2k Taskforce (chair), St Paul Mayor’s Education Taskforce (chair), Minnesota Legislative Coordinating Commission Working Group on Taxation of Telecommunications (member), St Paul Mayor’s High Tech Council (founding member), State of Minnesota Information Policy Council (member, Steering Committee), and the Lowertown Cyber Village Association (founding member).

Mike graduated from Grinnell College with a Bachelors Degree in Economics, and received an MBA from Cornell which, as you’ll hear on this show, clearly helps him have a solid perspective when it comes to funding, public policy and how broadband could act as a catalyst for innovation in our State.

We wanted to talk with Mike for those reasons and, most importantly, since he has gained a global perspective (e.g., he’s on the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers (ICANN) Business Constituency group) but because he’s one of the Governor Pawlenty appointed members of the MN Ultra High Speed Broadband Task Force.

(Note: photo credit for Mike caught singing karaoke while podcasting in making announcements at a local tech event is Graeme Thickins — with a little Photoshop work by Steve Borsch).

Hosts: Steve Borsch,Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins

Links from this show:

+ Minnesota Ultra High-Speed Task Force

+ Mike’s UrbanUsers blog (he represents urban areas of Minnesota on the task force)

+ From our story about Daren Cotter who founded CotterWeb due, in no small part, to his access to broadband when attending Mankato State University and how it acted as a catalyst that sparked his entrepreneurial endeavor

+ Blandin Foundation‘s Broadband Initiative and this blog on it

+ Technology Information Education Services (TIES) provides technology and information resources to school administrators, educators and students and Dennis Fazio, now Director of Technology at TIES and formerly with the now defunct MR.Net (MN Regional Network and here’s a Wayback Machine MR.Net page from 1996)

+ Mentioned Internet2 (and here’s a PDF map of this network).

(Note: We had some trouble with the conferencing bridge today so, unfortunately, Mike’s audio is a bit choppy. I apologize for that — Steve).

Minnov8 Gang Podcast – Episode 14 is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

If you’re reading Minnov8 you use, understand and undoubtedly rely upon the internet and your broadband connection. You may also be building a business or revenue stream upon the internet-as-a-platform for innovation, and as such you absolutely must stay close to net neutrality, FCC rulings and, most importantly, what our Minnesota Ultra High-Speed Broadband Task Force is doing to meet their legislative mandate (the task force site is now live and definitely worth checking out).

Ironically in a day when early adopters, influencers and the Minnesota tech cognescenti long ago embraced RSS as an efficient means of staying informed easily, the task force site doesn’t even have a feed, but instead asks you to sign up for an “e-newsletter” (how quaint….but I digress).

Thankfully I follow the task force member representing Twin Cities interests, Mike O’Connor, and the UrbanBroadbandUsers blog via his RSS feed, and I was pleased to have a heads-up on the first meeting minutes (PDF) and, especially, his compiled links on today’s feed:

• CLICK HERE for the FCC document.
• CLICK HERE for Susan Crawford’s commentary
• CLICK HERE for Harold Feld’s commentary
• CLICK HERE for Larry Lessig’s letter to the FCC commending them on their decision.

If you do nothing else this weekend but invest even a half an hour reading these, you’ll have a pretty good handle on the issue, the importance of this August 1st ruling by the FCC, and why this matters to you if the internet is at all central to your life or you see it as important to your business or Minnesota’s future.

FCC Broadband Ruling & MN Task Force is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

My Dad and his cousins tell stories of being kids on weekend holiday in the 1930′s, taken out to the farm to look around and rubbing the store windows so they could peek inside at all the old clothing, canned goods and assorted sundries, all left intact when Thomas locked the store and he and Mary moved to nearby Preston. Many of our other relatives moved there since Preston thrived when the railroad was built and passed through it instead of smaller Forestville to the south.

The Minnesota Historical Society later purchased their property (and what was left of the town) and turned it into a State Park, complete with interpretive storytellers in period costumes. It’s definitely worth a summer visit some weekend.

The lesson here is how important transportation was for physical goods in the late 1800′s during a time of shifting from a predominantly agrarian economy to one that was primarily industrial. The location of a railroad line dictated the fate of a town (though post-Civil War economic doldrums didn’t help). You may remember (or have heard stories about) how imperative it was for businesses to be “located on a siding” so railroad cars could load and unload easily, but what’s less obvious is the economic explosion that always accompanied the laying of track and the development which occurred alongside it, and how being bypassed by the railroad could doom a town or region.

If you buy in to the premise that we’re living in a time of the greatest shift in communication and connection in history driven by the internet — and that the transport of digital bits is as important (if not more so) than the movement of physical goods over the past 100 years or so — it almost goes without saying that location is not only less important today, in many ways it’s irrelevant unless you don’t have access to the internet and fast access at that.

What happens to your town if it’s bypassed by high-speed broadband like Forestville was by the railroad in 1868?

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development recently released a report on global broadband (PDF and more at the OECD Broadband Portal) and found the United States ranks 15th worldwide with a broadband density of 23.3 subscribers per 100 inhabitants. Notwithstanding our massive geography in the US and the significant investments necessary for ubiquitous and truly high-speed broadband, this is still a dismal situation growing more concerning by the year, especially if Minnesotans expect to participate in a global economy, and do so competitively, moving forward.

The good news? Minnesota is doing something about it.

A FOCUS ON BROADBAND
In early 2007, I became aware of the Blandin Foundation’s Broadband Initiative and added their blog “Blandin on Broadband” to my RSS reader. I’ve been impressed with their assistance to outstate Minnesota communities, the rolling-up-of-shirtsleeves to assist these towns and regions with their own initiatives, and the attention they’re driving about the imperatives represented by the need for truly high-speed broadband within our State.

Much to my delight and strategically satisfying to my way of thinking, in the last Minnesota legislative session both the House and Senate passed legislation (HF2107/SF1918) to “…create a High-Speed Broadband Task Force to develop a broadband deployment goal for the state and a strategy to achieve it.”

“…the bill is something that will bring Minnesota into the 21st century by asking the governor to appoint the task force to make legislative recommendations regarding the creation of state high speed broadband goal and a plan to implement that goal.

The governor would appoint 19 members to the task force, in addition to four appointed by the Legislature. A report and recommendations will be due from the task force by Nov. 1, 2009, that;

• identifies a level of broadband service, including connection speeds, reasonably needed by 2015;
• describes a set of policies and actions needed to achieve that goal, and estimates the costs of doing so;
• identifies areas in the state that lack infrastructure necessary to support broadband service; and
• evaluates strategies and financing mechanisms used elsewhere to support broadband development.

On Monday June 30th, Governor Pawlenty announced the appointment of 20 leaders (26 members total) to the Minnesota High-speed Broadband Task Force:

Governor Tim Pawlenty today announced the appointment of Stephen Cawley, Brent Christensen, Thomas Garrison, Dr. Jack Geller, Ph.D., Barbara Jo Gervais, John Gibbs, JoAnne Johnson, Richard King, Tim Lovaasen, Mike O’Connor (editors note: Mike is a friend of Minnov8), Dr. Kim Ross, Ed.D., Vijay Sethi, Richard Sjoberg, Karen Smith, John Stanoch, Chris Swanson, Craig Taylor, Mary Ellen Wells, Peg Werner, and Robyn West to the High-Speed Broadband Task Force.  All 20 are appointed to terms that expire on March 2, 2010.

If Thomas were alive today, I can only imagine that he’d be incredibly involved with Blandin’s initiatives and active in the legislature helping drive ubiquitous and ultra high-speed broadband to every town in Minnesota since he saw first-hand what happens when your town is passed over with the transport system of the day.

Minnov8 will be staying close to this task force and will bring you their findings as they unfold. Nothing is more important to the future of Minnesota innovation in internet and web technology, our educational system and Minnesota’s economic development and global participation going forward.

The Railroad and Minnesota Broadband is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.