Last week, I posted on two of our four advocacy priorities: cybersecurity and modernizing outdated regulations. This week we will tackle the remaining two:
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Building a Sustainable Nationwide Public Safety Network, and
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Collaboration on Broadband and Telecommunications
We’re going to save Building a Nationwide Public Safety Network for later in the week, and dive into a review of federal broadband activities. NASCIO is primarily interested in enabling state governments that are promoting broadband expansion to have a strong federal partner. We understand that states will take vastly different approaches to this—public-private partnerships, public investment, or other innovative approaches. Our goal is to ensure no matter the state's approach, there are strong federal supports for efforts that lower the cost of broadband to both public sector entities and consumers, or improve broadband speeds and service quality.
We also recognize that there are a great deal of implications for state governments as Congress considers a review of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, and the FCC looks at the issue of net neutrality. We are monitoring these issues on behalf of our members, and making them aware of the implications for their states.
If you're reading this blog, it's safe to say you're aware that broadband speed, connectivity, and how we connect to services on the internet have been making some big headlines in Washington and beyond. It made it into the equivalent of the superbowl for non-election years, the President's State of the Union.
President Obama highlighted initiatives to support high speed broadband build-outs. Beyond simply reiterating the reforms to the E-rate program we covered in December—with big implications for states on their own—perhaps the most interesting program mentioned by the President is NTIA’s new initiative BroadbandUSA. The program’s goals are “to help communities make sure their citizens have the broadband capacity they need to advance economic development, education, health care, and public safety.” NASCIO is in touch with NTIA in an effort to find opportunities to work together in this area, particularly in the realm of sharing best practices, technical assistance, and public-private partnerships. In a shameless plug, I will mention that members can help us kick off this discussion at the upcoming Broadband and Telecommunications Committee call later this month (check out the community for more details).
The Federal Communications Commission has also been active, and two big decisions could come by the end of the month. FCC Chair Wheeler just recommended the preemption of state laws limiting the use of municipal broadband, which could impact laws in 19 states. North Carolina and Tennessee’s laws impeding communities from providing broadband service directly to consumers will be considered before the commission on February 26, and could guide future state-local actions in this matter. In addition, the FCC will be looking at net neutrality rules. This could impact interconnection agreements and the role of states, and we will be monitoring them closely.
Something that has gotten (slightly) less attention is that fact that last month the Commission also changed the definition of broadband from 4 Mbps down and 1 Mbps down to 25 Mbps up and 3 Mbps down. This is a significant change that could impact how investments are made, broadband is discussed more widely, and how FCC subsidies for broadband expansion are distributed.
Stay tuned for more as Congress and the states react to all these changes.