Here’s something that may appeal to transparency enthusiasts, as well as to environmental skeptics…

WASHINGTON, November 9, 2009 – BroadbandCensus.com has been investigating broadband stimulus projects and focusing on the preferred projects from the states. We still lack letters to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration – or notices that states are demanding confidentiality for their letters – from 13 states and territories.

The first person to send any letters from the following states will get a complimentary seat at the November 10 Broadband Breakfast Club at Clyde’s of Gallery Place at 707 7th Street NW, Washington, DC. The breakfast runs from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m., and the topic is “Setting the Table for the National Broadband Plan: The Environment.” Information about the event, and registration, is available at http://broadbandbreakfast.eventbrite.com.

BroadbandCensus.com has not recieved either a notice of confidentiality or a copy of the letter from the state to the NTIA from:

• American Samoa
• Arkansas
• Delaware
• District of Columbia
• Guam
• Iowa
• Louisiana
• Mississippi
• New Jersey
• New Mexico
• North Dakota
• Puerto Rico
• Rhode Island

Please send letters to MacRae@BroadbandCensus.com.

Here is an up-to-date list of where the other states stand:

Confidential or not Public at this time: Indiana, Kentucky, Minnesota Northern Mariana Islands, and South Dakota.

We have letters from: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington State, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

For information on the project, please visit: http://broadbandcensus.com/2009/11/request-for-assistance-state-preferred-broadband-stimulus-projects-to-the-ntia/

Readers of Tech Liberation Front may be interested in a new breakfast series that BroadbandCensus.com has recently begun.

The next event in this series, “Should Government Funding Be Part of a National Broadband Plan?” will be held on Tuesday, November 18, from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m., and will include Stan Fendley, the director of legislative and regulatory policy for Corning, Inc., Kyle McSlarrow, CEO of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA), and John Windhausen, Jr., president of Telepoly Consulting. I will moderate the discussion.

Two weeks after Election Day, this Broadband Breakfast Club meeting will consider one of the hottest topics in telecom: can and should funding for broadband work its way into a pending fiscal stimulus package?

Future meetings of the breakfast club (December 2008 through March 2009) will consider the role of broadband applications in harnessing demand, how the universal service fund will be changed by high-speed internet, the role of wireless in universal broadband, and the extent of competition in the marketplace.

The Broadband Breakfast Club meets monthly at the Old Ebbitt Grill, at 675 15th Street, NW, in Washington. (It’s right across the street from the Department of the Treasury.)

Beginning at 8 a.m., an American plus Continental breakfast is available downstairs in the Cabinet Room. This is followed by a discussion about the question at hand, which ends at 10 a.m. Except for holidays (like Veteran’s Day), we’ll meet on the second Tuesday of each month, until March 2009. The registration page for the event is http://broadbandbreakfast.eventbrite.com.

Because of the limited size of the venue, seated attendance will be reserved the first 45 individuals to register. There are no restrictions on who may register to attend. With the exception of speakers, there is a $45.00 charge (plus a modest Eventbrite fee) to attend. The events are on the record.

We kicked off this series earlier this month with a well-attended breakfast on “10 Years Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act: Success or Failure?”

I started the Broadband Breakfast Club for the same reason that I started BroadbandCensus.com earlier this year: I believe that American consumers, policy-makers and broadband providers need better information about the issues surrounding high-speed internet access.

Today, broadband is (or could) the driver of citizen engagement, commerce, democratic participation, education, entertainment, health care and potential environmental gains through wider telecommuting. And yet basic information about where particular broadband company offers service – and at what price and at what speed – is not conveniently available in a single, public source. The free web service BroadbandCensus.com aims to change that by going directly to individual internet users for their feedback.

Our Broadband Breakfast Club series is directed more at Washington policy-makers and influencers. But again, we are seeking to broaden the discussion by allowing all to participate. The goal of this breakfast series is to bring an informed consensus – or, failing that, an informed disagreement – around key broadband policy questions.

With the dawn of a new administration – and the prospect of a systematic approach to high-speed internet issues for the first time in nearly a decade – now is the time to undertake these discussions.

Further, the breakfast events that we’re hosting now will lead up to our Spring 2009 conference, “Broadband Census for America: The New Administration.” The Spring 2009 conference – bringing together federal, state and local officials, academic researchers and other interested parties around the issue of broadband data – is tentatively scheduled for Friday, March 27, 2009, here in Washington.

If you have questions or thoughts about upcoming events in the Broadband Breakfast Club series, or about the Spring 2009 conference, “Broadband Census for America: The New Administration,” or about BroadbandCensus.com in general, feel free to contact me: drew at broadbandcensus.com, or at 202-580-8196.

As with everything on BroadbandCensus.com, this blog post is under our Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License. That means you can copy, send, repost and redistribute it. Please do so! The URL for this post is http://broadbandcensus.com/blog/?p=923, and the URL for the registration page is http://broadbandbreakfast.eventbrite.com.

It’s nearing Halloween, so it must mean the anniversary of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is just around the corner. In fact, it was 10 years ago, on Sunday, that Congress passed the DMCA, on October 12, 1998. The law was signed by President Clinton on October 28, 1998.

The information and news service that I have launched, BroadbandCensus.com, is “celebrating” the passage of the law with the inaugural event of the Broadband Breakfast Club. The breakfast event will take place on Tuesday, October 14, from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m., at the Old Ebbitt Grill at 675 15th Street NW, Washington, DC.

This event will bring together several key stakeholders together to share perspectives on this topic:

• Drew Clark, Executive Director, BroadbandCensus.com (Moderator)
• Mitch Glazier, Senior Vice President, Government Relations, Recording Industry Association of America
• Michael Petricone, Senior Vice President, Government Affairs, Consumer Electronics Association
• Wendy Seltzer, Practitioner in Residence, Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Law Clinic, American University Washington College of Law
• Emery Simon, Counselor, Business Software Alliance

Breakfast for registrants will be available beginning at 8:00 a.m., and the forum itself will begin at around 8:30 a.m., and conclude promptly at 10 a.m. The event is open to the public. The charge for the breakfast is $45.00, plus an Eventbrite registration fee. Seated attendance is limited to the first 45 individuals to register for the event.

Future events in the Broadband Breakfast Club monthly series will feature other key topics involved in broadband technology and internet policy. In fact, you can mark your calendar for the next event on Tuesday, November 18, from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m., also at the Old Ebbitt Grill.

For more information about BroadbandCensus.com, or about the Broadband Breakfast Club at Old Ebbitt Grill – on the second Tuesday of each month – please visit http://broadbandcensus.com, or call me at 202-580-8196.