This evening, the Personal Telco Project has posted its comments on the July draft of the City of Portland’s Broadband Strategic Plan. The comments are in the form of a 5 page memo, responding to material on the various pages of the draft plan. To understand the comments in context, you will need to read the draft and the comments side-by-side.
Monthly Archives: July 2011
Broadband: The Currency of Democracy
This video addresses what is at stake in our communications future here in Portland and around the world.
Sandy moving ahead with a municipal fiber network
So far, Sandy residents seem solidly behind the project. In a survey the city conducted to gauge interest in building the network, one resident wrote, “I am so proud to be part of a city that is this forward thinking.”
The Oregonian is reporting that the City of Sandy, Oregon is moving ahead with a municipal fiber network, as other communities have in various ways around the country and around the world. You know, living here in Portland, I sorely wish I could be proud too.
Broadband Strategic Plan City Council Work Session July 26 at 9:30 a.m.
From Mary Beth Henry, Deputy Director of the office of Cable Communications and Franchise Management with the City of Portland:
You are welcome to attend the upcoming City Council Work Session on Portland’s draft Broadband Strategic Plan: Connecting to our Future on July 26, 2011 at 9:30 am in Council Chambers, City Hall, 1221 SW 4th Avenue, Portland. The session will feature Anthony Townsend, co-author of The Future of Cities, Information and Inclusion http://member.iftf.org/user/20 and Amber Case, Cyborg Anthropologist http://caseorganic.com/about among other speakers. The agenda and speakers biographies can be found at http://www.portlandonline.com/cable/index.cfm?c=55322. The session will stream live on cable CityNet 30 http://www.portlandonline.com/index.cfm?c=28262&a=230361. Thanks!
Personal Telco has a booth at Mississippi Street Fair 2011
The Mississippi Street Fair is tomorrow (July 9, 2011), and once again Personal Telco Project is going to have a booth. This year, we are planning to use the opportunity to talk to the 30 thousand visitors about what an open-access fiber network could look like in Portland. We could use some help! If you’ve been reading this blog or have seen me talk at Ignite Portland 5, or PDX11 or OpenSourceBridge, please consider taking this golden opportunity to volunteer a few hours to help spread this message to the general public where it can do some good.
Europeans win with competition
Wm Leler forwarded a link to an Engadget article analysing why the Europeans have so much cheaper bandwidth than we do and blaming our Government. The reason? We allow operators to exclude competition. As I’ve said before, Competition is the key to shaking off the abusive fees we have now.