October 2009

Consortium for School Networking
Omni Shoreham Hotel
Washington, DC
February 28 through March 2, 2010
http://www.cosn.org/Events/CoSNConference/Registration/tabid/5525/Defaul...

The Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) announced a compelling lineup of keynote speakers for its 15th Annual Conference, themed Innovation, Ingenuity, and Insight, which will be held at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC, February 28 through March 2, 2010.

How are countries around the world integrating technology into and increasing global awareness through their educational programs? Why is it vital for the United States to expand the competence of our students through international linkages and partnerships? The Consortium for School Networking's (CoSN) 9th Annual International Symposium themed, Harnessing Web 2.0 for Global Understanding in Education, will focus on and help answer those and other related questions. The Symposium will take place on Sunday, February 28, 2010, in Washington, DC, a day before to the official kickoff of CoSN's 2010 Conference.

The Symposium will focus on the importance of incorporating Web 2.0 tools into formal education to increase global and cultural understanding. The discussion will also address the economic and social barriers that must be removed for the implementation of these tools to be successful. With the goal to stimulate a global conversation, the Symposium is designed to highlight how the use of information communication technology provides an opportunity to develop an international education agenda. The countries participating in the Symposium include Australia, Brazil, Brussels, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Scotland, Singapore, and the United Kingdom.

On Monday, March 1, the 2010 Conference will begin with an opening keynote address delivered by global innovation expert Larry Keeley, President of Doblin, Inc. His remarks will focus on Finding the Future First, a discussion on exploring innovation frontiers in education. The Conference will conclude on Tuesday, March 2, with a closing joint keynote conversation led by Jim Shelton, Assistant Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of Education; and Charlie Leadbeater, Author of Learning from the Extremes and the UK's leading authority on innovation strategy for companies, cities and governments. Curtis W. Johnson, Co-author of Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns, will moderate the discussion.

"This year we are looking ahead to the future of education and asking tough questions about the role technology and innovation will play in the 21st century and beyond. Innovation fuels America, and we'll be exploring how that spirit of ingenuity, creativity and imagination can be applied in the classroom to fuel our students' collective success," said CoSN Conference Co-Chair Karen Greenwood Henke.

On the pre-conference day, Sunday, February 28, CoSN's 9th Annual International Symposium, Harnessing Web 2.0 for Global Understanding in Education, will explore major efforts to foster global understanding particularly with the use of collaborative tools, as well as organizational and logistical issues that hamper these efforts. The Symposium will open with a keynote by Francesc Pedro, Senior Policy Analyst, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) based in Paris. The Symposium's closing keynote address will be delivered by Marshall "Mike" Smith, Senior Counselor to the U.S. Secretary of Education & Director of International Affairs, and will focus on Using Web 2.0 to Create a Global Village.

Read more about CoSN 2010 Annual Conference

Justice Department Requires Divestitures in AT&T's Acquisition of Centennial

The Department of Justice announced today that it will require AT&T Inc. (AT&T) to divest assets in eight areas in Louisiana and Mississippi in order to proceed with its $944 million acquisition of Centennial Communications Corp. (Centennial). The Department said that the transaction, as originally proposed, would substantially lessen competition to the detriment of consumers of mobile wireless telecommunications services in those areas, and likely would result in higher prices, lower quality and reduced network investments. The divestitures cover portions of southwestern and central Louisiana and southwestern Mississippi. The Department's Antitrust Division, along with the Attorney General of Louisiana, filed a civil lawsuit today in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to block the proposed acquisition of Centennial by AT&T. At the same time, the Department and the Louisiana Attorney General filed a proposed settlement that, if approved by the court, would resolve the competitive concerns in the lawsuit. According to the complaint, AT&T and Centennial are each other's closest competitor for a significant set of customers in eight Cellular Marketing Areas (CMAs), as defined by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The complaint alleges that the proposed transaction would substantially reduce competition for mobile wireless telecommunications services in each of these areas. The proposed settlement requires divestitures in these areas to eliminate the competitive concerns.

Consumers to Telecom Industry: Tell Us the Truth

Free Press, Consumers Union, Media Access Project, Public Knowledge, Consumer Federation of America, and New America Foundation filed comments with the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday encouraging the agency to protect consumers from misleading, confusing and harmful advertising and billing practices by phone, cable and wireless providers. The comments highlight some of the most egregious examples of these practices. Service providers often go to great lengths to create deceptive ads and to impose introductory rates, hidden monthly fees and surcharges that conceal true service quality and cost. Such practices harm consumer choice and limit the effectiveness of competition. The consumer groups argue that current protections are insufficient and urge the FCC to require meaningful, not misleading, disclosure. The misleading practices commonly used by the phone and cable industry include: 1) Internet access services are being labeled with theoretical "maximum speeds," rather than actual speeds. These actual speeds can lag behind advertised rates by 50 percent. 2) New "PowerBoost" services advertise even faster speeds, but do not guarantee that consumers will get faster service despite higher bills. 3) Service providers often deliberately obscure the real cost of services with misleading advertising that hides fees, surcharges, promotional periods, early termination fees and bundling requirements.
www.freepress.net/files/Truth_In_Billing.pdf

Bandwidth Boost For Libraries Gaining Support

An effort to make the nation's public libraries a major source of robust Internet access is gaining momentum as a disparate group of foundations, companies, and trade and government agencies weigh in with plans to build support for bringing fiber optic technology to the country's 16,500 libraries. The drive has attracted supporters that range from Google and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to Rep Rick Boucher (D-VA) and the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors (NATOA). Boucher, who is House Communications Subcommittee chairman, has already told FCC chairman Julius Genachowski that a plan to equip public libraries should focus on delivering "extraordinarily high bandwidth" to libraries. Don Means, founder of the Fiber to the Library Project, has said improving Internet broadband access to public libraries "provides the biggest bang for the stimulus buck." The Gates Foundation, in a proceeding before the FCC, has estimated an investment of $700 million to $1.7 billion would pay for the installation fiber for 87% of public libraries currently without fiber. The Gates FCC effort seeks to generate public comments by Oct. 28. "We see libraries as early adopters of technologies," said Means in a statement. "A lot of people had their first experience with first-generation broadband at a library. We think libraries are demand drivers for emerging technologies."

FCC Seeks Comments on Broadband Study Conducted by The Berkman Center

On July 14, the Commission announced in a press release that Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society would conduct an expert review of existing literature and studies about broadband deployment and usage throughout the world to inform the Commission's development of a National Broadband Plan. A draft of that report is now ready for public review and comment.

After an Introduction, Part 2 of the report outlines current thoughts on "what is broadband?"—that is, how the target of the policy should be defined, and how the definition may reflect on policy emphases. It briefly notes current reasons given in other countries for emphasizing next generation connectivity as a policy goal. Part 3 describes our independent assessment of current benchmarking and measurement sources, and describes the results of our independent analysis and testing of benchmarks. Part 4 describes our findings on competition and open access policy. Part 5 offers an overview of practices and policies concerned with mobile and nomadic access. Part 6 discusses government investment practices, on both the supply and demand sides of broadband and next generation deployment.

The FCC is asking six questions:

1. Does the study accomplish its intended purposes?

2. Does the study provide a complete and objective survey of the subject matter?

3. How accurately and comprehensively does the study summarize the broadband experiences of other countries?

4. How much weight should the Commission give to this study as it develops a National Broadband Plan?

5. Are additional studies needed along the lines of the Berkman study?

6. Please provide any other comments on the Berkman study that you deem relevant.

Comments are due November 16, 2009.

FCC Wireless Chief Ruth Milkman on Network Neutrality

A Q&A with Ruth Milkman, head of the Federal Communications Commission's Wireless Bureau. She said that Chairman Julius Genachowski's open Internet proposal would allow consumers to bring any phone that isn't locked into a network to another carrier's network. That would mean if you want to bring a Blackberry phone acquired through Verizon Wireless to Sprint Nextel, you could do so at the end of your contract, Milkman says. A draft of Genachowski's proposal, which will be voted on Oct. 22 (the vote will be the beginning of a months-long rule-making process before a final policy is created), also takes into consideration the unique capacity constraints of the wireless network. On the road, a cell phone connection is turned over from one cell site to another, a unique feature of mobile technology that the FCC is looking at as part of this process.

Members of Congress Request Information on Access Charges and "Traffic Pumping Schemes"

House Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Subcommittee Chairmen Rick Boucher (D-VA) and Bart Stupak (D-MI) sent letters to AT&T, Qwest, Sprint, and Verizon regarding access charges and so-called "traffic pumping schemes." The Committee is seeking information on the nature and scope of these schemes as well as the steps companies take to resolve disputed charges. The lawmakers have requested replies from the companies by October 27.

3Mbps Down and 1Mbps Up Are Inadequate Bandwidth Goals

Is there growing consensus in DC to set a broadband goal of 3Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream for residential subscribers? Bad idea, Daily writes. First off, we risk investing taxpayer dollars in inadequate technologies, in deploying broadband that's already outdated before it's even deployed. Secondly, if we rush to get the unconnected served by these lesser technologies we may put rural areas in the position of permanently being second-class digital citizens, both in terms of equipping them with technology that has inadequate capacity as well as preventing them from being eligible for getting future government funding to build the networks they need.

Businesses Need Thoughtful Projects to Capture Broadband Stimulus Funds, Say Panelists

Before submitting a proposal to the government broadband stimulus funds, a business enterprise needs to present a thoughtful, well drafted project involving the contracting of professional project managers, said participants in a Tuesday webinar on grant applications. "It would be important to consider hiring a consultant who is well versed with what your company wants to achieve," advised Laurie Itkin, director of government affairs for Cricket Communications. Itkin's company provides low-cost broadband services mainly young and lower-income subscribers. The lower-income brackets make up to half of the subscribers with Cricket that have not previously been subscribed to any form of Internet services. Furthermore, it is important that applicants include all business disciplines in this planning team, and have all areas polished up before making a presentation, she said. Itkin was speaking at an event, "Making the Most of Broadband Stimulus Funds" sponsored by the Rural Mobile Broadband Alliance, and organized by Phil Goldstein, editor of the news publication FierceWireless.

Finland: Broadband Access Made Legal Right In Landmark Law

Finland has just passed a law making access to broadband a legal right for Finnish citizens. When the law goes into effect in July 2010, every person in Finland, which has a population of around 5.3 million, will have the guaranteed right to a one-megabit broadband connection, says the Ministry of Transport and Communications (via Finland's YLE). Finland is reportedly the first country in the world to enact a law that makes broadband access a right.

Benton

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