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"August and September, in partnership with the International Economic Development Council (IEDC), I conducted a national survey of IEDC members and others affiliated with IEDC. The primary goal was to get a snapshot of how broadband impacts local economic outcomes. A secondary goal was to gather some insights to leveraging broadband as an economic development asset. This is the only survey that goes directly to the people who work in the trenches daily impacting local economic outcomes. Here is where I separate some of the hype surrounding broadband's power to transform local economies with some reality checks. Some of the findings from this year's survey include: only 11% of economic developers believe broadband's biggest economic benefit to individuals is helping them find jobs; 18% of respondents have insufficient speeds to produce economic outcomes listed and have given up hope for a solution; another 13% do not have enough speed to get the job done, but are actively trying to find or create a solution; 43.5% of respondents' jurisdictions exist under duopoly conditions, 15.5% are in communities that live with a broadband monopoly; about 12% of respondent' say their communities plan to start building broadband networks in the next 18 months, another 22% hope to build a network at some point in the future; 64% of respondents reject convention broadband remedies for urban areas to say "faster speeds, cheaper services" will have the biggest impact on economic development (value of computing centers compromised by crappy infrastructure in poor communities); fiber continues to outshine wireless in terms of expected impact on economic outcomes, with the biggest gap in expectations in the areas of attracting businesses to a community and making local companies more competitive; and 41% - 48% of respondents believe broadband can increase the number of home-based businesses; and significant percentages of respondents say broadband adoption doesn't mean j

Google may be rolling out 1Gbps Internet access to Kansas City, but there are about 19 million American households and businesses that still lack any access to broadband, according to the Federal Communications Commission. Most of them are in rural areas, and some will soon benefit from broadband projects financed by one of the last pillars of the FCC's National Broadband Plan: the Connect America Fund. "I'm pleased to announce today that nearly 400,000 residents and businesses in rural communities who currently lack access to high-speed Internet will gain access within the next three years," declared FCC Chair Julius Genachowski on Thursday.

Last year the U.S. broadband stimulus program finished awarding public, private and  nonprofit organizations over $7 billion to build new broadband infrastructure, create  public computing centers and implement broadband adoption programs. Concurrently,  hundreds of millions have come from private and other public sources for broadband.  Improving economic development is a driving force behind these investments.  What have we achieved for our investments, particularly in underserved urban and rural  communities? It is a little early in the process, though, and only a small portion of the  stimulus checks have been issued. Perhaps the more important question is, what  economic outcomes can we hope to achieve in the next two or three years? This  survey's results provide a number of clues. 

"Australia's National Broadband Network (NBN) aims to provide high-speed Internet broadband access to all Australians and transform Australia into one of the world's top five digital economies by 2020. The NBN's model of universal and equal access to information flows supported by a nationwide infrastructure network stands out from the dominant scenario of profit-driven, tiered models of communication infrastructure networks. This paper analyses the economic and social value of information as a basic utility in contemporary society and argues that the NBN is an essential component in a nationwide project of digital citizenship, while highlighting the need for strong and effective policies to support it. The policies underlying the NBN and the technical aspects of its infrastructure network are compared with the Coalition's alternative plan and public and private initiatives from other countries. It is argued that, in order to realise the full potential of the NBN, its future strategies must take into account the current networked practices of Australian citizens and be supported by an equally universal project of digital literacy. Finally, examples of current practices and future benefits of the implementation of high-speed broadband access are presented."

"We get down to business by discussing the goals presented in the National Broadband Strategy last week of half the country having 70Mbps broadband by 2015, followed by two tiers of at least 40Mbps to a further 20pc and a minimum of 30Mbps in every single premises."

There is no doubt that any national infrastructure plan of the magnitude of national broadband networks as they are currently rolled out in 9 countries and which policies have been put in place in another 110 countries will have questions attached to it. Furthermore, this infrastructure is being developed for the digital economy, which, in itself, is a fast-moving world. Five years ago there were no smartphones, tablets, mobile apps or smart TVs. And nowhere in the world were there any large-scale e-education, M2M or e-health projects underway. These changes all occurred during the last five years. Making any predictions 2 or 3 years ahead, let alone 5 or 10 years, will be very risky, inaccurate and will lead to endless debates about the multitudes of possible scenarios.

Minister for Communications Pat Rabbitte says his national broadband plan is "the rural electrification of the 21st century". The Minister outlined a series of "ambitious" targets to be met within the lifetime of the Government. He said 70-100Mbps should be available to at least 50 per cent of the population. At least 40Mbps should be available to at least a further 20 per cent of the population and a minimum of 30Mbps available to all. Mr Rabbitte said Taoiseach Enda Kenny had given him a commitment the State would provide funding of €200 million along with matching investment from private companies.

"Du très haut débit, "pour tous", en 2022 : ce sera la ligne directrice du plan national très haut débit (THD), attendu pour la fin de l'année, a affirmé, mercredi 12 septembre, la ministre de l'économie numérique, Fleur Pellerin, à La Montagne. Mais pour mettre en œuvre ce plan de lutte contre la fracture numérique, de nombreuses difficultés devront être résolues."