NYCBAC Queens public hearing audio

NYC sealThe New York Broadband Advisory Committee held its fourth Public Hearing on Monday Mar 3rd 2008 at LaGuardia Community College in Queens. ISOC-NY videotaped the meeting and the audio has been posted on the ISOC-NY wiki.

The hearing was attended by Senator Larry Pressler – author of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that, amongst other things, established the E-Rate system.

There was plenty of talk about gigabit rates in Finland and the far east.  A bunch of charming schoolkids talked about how broadband (provided for free by Computers For Youth http://www.cfy.org  ) helped them with their homework.

An impressive speaker was Bruce Lincoln. He presented an outline of an access system called  Metroscale Regional Cyberspace Initiatives (MERCI) – a hybrid of fiber and wireless run by community based organizations. Pilot projects are underway in several places including Harlem.

Also speaking was Tom Lowenhaupt , who outlined progress on his campaign to establish a .nyc top level domain. A number of other cities are now interested in obtaining TLDs and Tom will attend the June ICANN meeting in Paris to meet with them and jointly present their case. http://www.connectingnyc.org/

A forceful speaker was Barbara Colwell, exec. director of ThinkQuest  http://www.tqnyc.org– a well-funded organization that provides tech training for educators and runs digital media competitions for kids.  Barbara argued that every schoolkid should have broadband access at home.

About joly

isoc member since 1995

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