Nov 10 2009: The United States Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS) and the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) today announced they are streamlining the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s broadband grant and loan programs by awarding the remaining funding in just one more round, instead of two rounds, The first round of RUS’s Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP) and NTIA’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) garnered $28bn worth of applications, and about $4bn is expected to be awarded in loans/grants. The agencies have issued a Request for Information (RFI) seeking public comment on how the application process may be improved.
Author: joly
Internet Futures Scenarios
Recently, senior staff at the Internet Society engaged in a scenario planning exercise to reveal plausible courses of events that could impact the health of the Internet in the future. The results of the exercise were subsequently reviewed with the Internet Society Board of Trustees who have, in turn, thrown it to the chapters for comment.
Scenarios always start from a question about the future. In this case, the focal question for the exercise was: “Will the world embrace or resist the open Internet model?” with a second-level question to narrow the field: “What model will be more successful? Command and control? Or, distributed and decentralized?”
NYC Council holds Net Neutrality Hearing – 11/20/2009
In Feb. 2007 members of the NYC Council Committee on Technology in Government Committee introduced Resolution 712, calling on the federal government to pass net neutrality legislation, an unlikely prospect at the time. Now, with fresh faces in Washington, the FCC has taken up the cause, establishing the six principles of net neutrality. A new bill H.R. 3458 aka the ‘Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009’ was introduced in Congress, and is currently before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. For their part, Republicans have come up with two opposing bills.
The NYC Resolution has, in recognition of this, been appropriately amended as Res. No. 712-A, and a hearing was scheduled for November 20 at City Hall. The FCC has made a request for public comment on this matter and the Committee on Technology in Government will draw from the hearing’s testimonies to draft a letter that includes citywide input.
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NY State endorses BTOP applications, offers matching funds
The office of Governor David A. Paterson has written to the National Telecommunications Information Administration (NTIA) to endorse certain local Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) applications. NY State will provide 10% matching funds to any of the listed projects that receive grants. In addition the State has earmarked $7.5m in matching funds for a small number of major infrastructure projects.
Eben Moglen on Patents @ Cardozo Mon 11/2
The Internet Society – New York Chapter (ISOC-NY) was happy and interested to co-sponsor, with the Intellectual Property Law Society, a lunchtime lecture at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law on Monday Nov 2 2009. Eben Moglen, Chairman of the Software Freedom Law Center, spoke on the topic – “Patent Law at a Crossroads: Bilski and Beyond“.
Networks and the DMCA process
A Huffington Post story details the effects of DMCA notice served on Hurricane Electric by the US Chamber of Commerce to take down a spoof site by the Yes-men – the site suggests that the Chamber has done a u-turn on its controversial position vis-vis climate change. What is notable is that, rather than being the actual host ( May 1/People Link), Hurricane Electric is the upstream provider. In acceding to the request it disconnected every single site on the host. The situation was soon resolved – and the site moved to a mirror – but the incident has given rise to some discussion, not just over the legitimacy of the DMCA claim, but of the responsibilities of network operators in such circumstances. On the latter find below some excerpts from a related NANOG thread.
William Patry – Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars (video)
The Intellectual Property Law Society at Cardozo School of Law kicked off its annual program by inviting former faculty member William F. Patry, now Senior Copyright Counsel at Google, to give a lunchtime talk based on his new book – ‘Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars’ (Oxford University Press). Patry is one of the most prolific writers around on the copyright topic having authored the 7-volume “Patry on Copyright” – a definitive work. In the new book he argues that copyright is a utilitarian government program – not a property or moral right. As a government program, copyright must be regulated and held accountable to ensure it is effectively serving its public purpose. The talk was descriptive rather than prescriptive but served to delineate anomalous areas deserving of fixes. Patry also professed a fondness for the simpler schemas of the 1909 act. Video/audio is available below.
ICANN 36 in Seoul next week
The 36th meeting of ICANN takes places next week in Seoul, Korea. There will be plenty of opportunity for remote participation kicking off with the At-Large Working Session on Sunday 10/25. Seoul is 11 hours ahead of New York, so be ready to do without much shuteye!
If there’s just one event that one should consider putting into one’s calendar it would be the Public Forum on Thursday (9pm-1am Weds EST).
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NANOG47 wraps up in Dearborn
The 47th meeting of the North American Network Operators’ Group (NANOG) was held over Oct 18-20 2009 in Dearborn, Michigan. Many of the presentations are now available in the Presentation Archive.
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WordCampNYC 2009 – Nov 14-15 @ Baruch
WordCamp NYC 2009 – took place at Baruch College on Nov 14-15 – a 2-day extravaganza of presentations, workshops, and demos relating to the popular WordPress web publishing platform (as used by ISOC-NY!).
Twitter: #wcnyc
David Bisset’s I Wish I Was At WordCamp
Audio/video will be added below as it becomes available.
Two-Year study of Global Internet Traffic
Arbor Networks, the University of Michigan and Merit Network today announced that they will be presenting the ‘Internet Observatory Report‘ at NANOG47 in Dearborn, MI on October 19. The report is believed to be the largest study of global Internet traffic ever and was carried out over 2 years.
ISOC-NY Event: JEFFERSON’S MOOSE IN CYBERSPACE – Copyright & The Internet
ISOC-NY was pleased to co-sponsor, with the Copyright Society of the U.S.A. NY Chapter, a luncheon program on Oct 22 2009. The speaker was David Post, author of In Search of Jeffersons Moose: Notes on the State of Cyberspace, with whom ISOC-NY members should already be familiar.
Audio is here. Video is below.
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FCC publishes Global Broadband Study draft
In July the FCC announced that, in the context of a its own broadband planning, it had commissioned the Berkman Center to do a study of the state of broadband development worldwide.
A draft – Next Generation Connectivity:A review of broadband Internet transitions
and policy from around the world – has just been published. The FCC is asking for comments before Nov 16.
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ISOC publishes 2008 Annual & Chapter Reports
The Internet Society (ISOC) has published its Annual and Chapter reports for 2008. Both are available online.
Gates Foundation proposes $10bn plan to fiber 123k public institutions
An Ars Technica article details a proposal by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to bring fiber to 123,000 public institutions nationwide at a cost of $4.9bn-$10bn. The FCC is taking comments.
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