By Greg Richardson on
12/14/2009 7:01 AM
 The AJC reports that VP Joe Biden will visit Georgia this week to make a stimulus-related announcement.
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By Bailey White on
9/29/2009 9:36 AM
 While the RUS BIP process has been very quiet since Round 1 stimulus submissions, NTIA’s BTOP program continues to evolve and communicate its changes during its evaluation process. The following provides an update on what both states and applicants can expect.
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By Greg Richardson on
2/27/2009 7:46 AM
 The City of Johannesburg, South Africa has committed R1bn ($100M USD) to build a next-generation broadband infrastructure throughout the city. The initiative seeks to "reduce the cost of telecommunications, improve service delivery and increase access to IT for residents." The move follows South Africa's economic stimulus program to spend over R780-billion ($79B USD) on large infrastructure projects over the next three years. Joburg Mayor Amos Masondo recently unveiled
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By Greg Richardson on
2/25/2009 1:24 PM
The NTIA has posted a notice in the Federal Registry that it will begin holding meetings with interested parties on Monday, March 2, 2009, in connection with the broadband grant programs described in the Broadband Data Services Improvement Act and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. All interested parties are invited to schedule a meeting.
Details can be found here.
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By Greg Richardson on
2/18/2009 12:59 PM
 Yesterday in Denver, President Obama signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which has been referred to as the stimulus bill. Links to the final legislation can be accessed here. Our interpretation of the broadband-related provisions of the Act are provided below.
At a high-level, the Act provides for roughly $7.2B in funding for broadband-related projects. This $7.2B is to be administered by two organizations; the NTIA and USDA/RUS.
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By Bailey White on
11/4/2008 10:50 PM
Today, November 4, the FCC Commissioners unanimously approved the free use of vacant digital television frequencies for broadband and other services. These vacant frequencies have been called “white spaces” and are somewhat close to the frequencies just auctioned for cellular carriers.
What does this mean? First, some context. What are white spaces? They are the unused television channels at any US location between channels 5 and 51. How do they compare to the 70
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By Greg Richardson on
10/22/2008 7:40 AM
 Detroit's population was 1.8 million in 1950. Today it's estimated at 916,000, a decline of almost 50%. It would be easy to chalk this up to industrial decline, particularly with the slow death spiral of the American auto industry. But, this decline in urban population is not unique to Detroit. From 1950 to 2000, Chicago declined by 20%. Boston and Philadelphia by 26%. Washington DC by 28%.
Where did everyone go? Data suggests they headed to the burbs. The metropolitan areas surrounding these cities all increased their populations dramatically; ranging from 25% (in Philadelphia) to 178% (in DC.) Sadly, the great migration may be just getting started.&
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By Greg Richardson on
10/11/2008 9:26 AM
  Professional (community) planning has evolved since the early twentieth century to become a mainstream activity within almost all communities. I'd be hard pressed to find a community of any size that didn't have some form of comprehensive plan; dealing with issues such as land use, parks and recreation,transportation, water systems streetscaping and so on.
Technology master planning, on the other hand, has emerged in a few dozen communities only over the past decade, and in very few cases has it been tightly integrated with the professional planning process.
There are two schools of thought about whether and to what extent these two disciplines will continue to co-exist or converge going forward.
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By Greg Richardson on
9/29/2008 10:39 AM
   While the debate over network neutrality drones on between professors, theorists and policy wonks, the Internet marches on. Telephone, cable and Internet companies are waging war on each other, trading blows and counter-blows; bluffing spectrum bids; throttling peer traffic; forming new alliances; capping bandwidth usage.
The battle for the future of the Internet isn't being waged in Congress or at the FCC, but in the boardrooms of some of the world's most powerful companies. By the time lawmakers catch up, network neutrality will be like testimony at Microsoft's antitrust case - entertaining but irrelevant.
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By Jason Shannon on
9/27/2008 2:17 PM
Election Day is just around the corner. In this election, perhaps more than any other in history, science and technology issues are in the forefront due to such topics as oil dependency, energy and the environment. According to a national survey conducted by Research!America and ScienceDebate2008, 85% of US adults want to see Obama and McCain debate on science and technology issues.
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By Jason Shannon on
9/25/2008 1:24 PM
 In the fall of 1964, inventor and physicist Robert Moog displayed a prototype of a subtractive synthesizer at the Audio Engineering Society Convention in New York. At first glance, this device didn’t seem practical for the typical musician and was viewed mostly as a curiosity by spectators at the AES Convention. Few would have guessed that despite its inherent limitations and its difficult usability that this strange keyboard instrument would eventually grow to disrupt the market of the traditional piano...
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By Bailey White on
9/24/2008 10:17 AM
As I come back from a week of vacation and look at the news, I don’t think I could have picked a more turbulent week in which to travel in my lifetime. The United States is investing $85B in a single firm, AIG, and expecting to make up to $700M more available through various means to keep our country solvent. The US has already let Lehman Brothers go while previously backing Bear Stearns. Investment banking, traditionally the most assured vehicle for wealth accumulation for Ivy Leaguers, has partially and arguably largely collapsed. Outsized bonuses for staff and enormous packages for CEOs have evaporated as searching for a job becomes paramount. Remaining independent banks are transitioning to more traditional structures with increased federal insurance and the oversight that comes with it.
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By Greg Richardson on
9/24/2008 5:57 AM
 Comcast set off a firestorm by announcing a 250 GB bandwidth cap for its residential broadband customers. Om Malik over at Gigaom did a nice job of outlining how such caps would stifle innovation, which I tend to agree with. But, private providers are not bound by any law or obligation to promote innovation, at least not that I'm aware of. In fact, I tend to view placing bandwidth caps on a service - at least in situations where these caps are disclosed to the consumer, as well within any provider's right - even if I don't like it.
The bigger problem, in my view, is how bandwidth caps can have the effect of favoring these providers' own content and services, while disadvantaging similar content and services from other providers.
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By Jason Shannon on
5/22/2008 9:00 AM
In light of the recent announcements by EarthLink to discontinue operations of municipal Wi-Fi networks throughout the U.S., I thought it would be appropriate to share some of my insights from a technical perspective of Municipal Wi-Fi 1.0. I've personally been involved in the design and optimization of more than a dozen active municipal Wi-Fi networks, and experience suggests that a dense, urban- scale municipal Wi-Fi network will likely fail to provide a universally available, technically viable, low-cost alternative to existing broadband services. This isn't to say that Wi-Fi doesn't have its place in the broadband ecosystem. In fact, it has become obvious that Wi-Fi will be a fundamental means of access for some time. With this in mind, it is important to know the limits of the technology.
So, what really were the technical issues with Municipal Wi-Fi 1.0? I've made a list of the six issues that are at the top of my list:
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By Greg Richardson on
5/19/2008 1:59 PM
 On May 13, EarthLink Corporation issued a press release stating that it would discontinue its municipal Wi-Fi operations in Philadelphia. Due in part to Civitium’s past affiliation with the project, and our status as an advisor for public communications projects, we have received numerous inquiries from clients, partners and the press since last week. This memo seeks to provide our perspective on the factors that led to the breakup of the Philadelphia-EarthLink partnership and how these developments may be used to inform decision-making for cities involved in similar initiatives.
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By Greg Richardson on
5/10/2008 2:02 PM
 This is a post that I’ve wanted to write for a while. With the market correction in municipal Wi-Fi, the exiting stage left of EarthLink, and the recent announcement by Cablevision, my random thoughts and observations about the issue of free vs. paid finally took shape. So, here goes.
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By Greg Richardson on
11/18/2007 2:27 PM
Anchor tenancy has long been part of the dialog in municipal wireless. Basically, the term anchor tenancy has been used to describe one form of revenue assurance that is made by local government to a private-sector partner who commits to deploy a wireless network in a city. As the pullback of private investment in municipal Wi-Fi networks has played out this year, anchor tenancy has moved onto center-stage. But despite all the attention it has received, there has been little thoughtful analysis to look at whether and when it’s appropriate, what level of commitment should be required, and at what point does an anchor tenancy commitment go overboard
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