706 Joint Conference Says "Pick Me, Pick Me" for National Broadband Clearinghouse

The state members of the Federal-State Joint Conference on Advance Telecommunications Services filed comments on the creation of a broadband clearinghouse for easy access to broadband best practices. They strongly support a broadband clearinghouse and suggest the Federal Communications Commission. They note that the Joint Conference was convened in part to perform this clearinghouse function: "The activities of the Joint Conference will include monitoring the ongoing deployment of advanced services throughout the nation to determine where and what advanced services are being deployed and to identify a set of "Best Practices" that promote rapid deployment," reads the order creating the body. Recognizing both that: (1) the full Joint Conference would not be operational until some time after Chairman Genachowski and newly appointed Commission colleagues were nominated and confirmed, and (2) that the effort could provide useful information for the FCC in its efforts to create a National Broadband Plan (NBP), the State Members of the 706 Joint Conference, acting on the recommendation of the State Chair, initiated an project to create an interactive "best practices" webpage.