Just trying to do what we're mandated to do...

On Monday there was another meeting of the House Select Committee on High-Speed Internet in Rural Areas (chaired by Rep. Bill Faison, N.C. District 50) and it was quite the adventure. Invited to present was Jim Baller of Baller Herbst Law Group in Washington, D.C., an attorney and national telecommunications policy expert. He addressed the committee and those members of the public about - in general - how far the United States and North Carolina are falling behind in terms of broadband deployment and access to connectivity. It was pretty depressing, though he did have some excellent concrete recommendations toward the end about what can be done to remedy the situation, namely to support research efforts of the e-NC Authority and provide funding for public-private partnerships for deployment in the most critically underserved counties. These recommendations tie directly into the e-NC Authority's legislative and advocacy priorities for the 2008 session.

Unfortunately, the reality of how far behind we are as a nation in terms of broadband deployment and broadband access is nothing new. But tell that to some of our rural citizens that are TRULY stuck at the bottom of the heap because their only access is dial-up or (expensive and slow) satellite! The meeting started with only three legislators present, but three others joined the meeting before leaving again prior to adjournment. The full legislature just reconvened for this summer's short session on Tuesday, so everyone there is pretty busy right now.

What also made the committee meeting so interesting was the discussion around a proposed bill that would mandate the service providers to annually report their coverage areas (availability, not disclosure of actual take-up rates or subscriber information) to the e-NC Authority. A good number of the service providers currently DO send this information to us on an annual basis, but a few of them don't - and unfortunately, this holds up the entire process.

The committee started to discuss the bill that would mandate reporting, and no issues were raised by the legislators. When the floor was opened up for commentary from those of us in the peanut gallery (staff members from the e-NC Authority, and various and sundry representatives from the service providers) - things got really interesting. Many of the service providers stated that providing this information could be financially burdensome. Some also argued that they do not have information about where exactly they offer service, at least not to the detail/degree suggested in the bill.

When you really get down to it, the e-NC Authority is only trying to accomplish its mission as assigned by the N.C. General Assembly - to accurately track the availability of high-speed Internet access in all 100 counties on an annual basis and then advocate for deployment in underserved counties.

But how can that happen effectively if the data we receive is incomplete?