Public Tech Notes

On May 29, 2008 the Alliance for Public Technology launched the second online round of its wildly successful Broadband Changed My Life!^TM contest. The contest is part of the national Broadband Changed My Life!^TM Campaign, whose goal is to raise awareness of the benefits of advanced high-speed communication in today's world and encourage its universal deployment and adoption in the United States. By identifying the very real ways that broadband is changing the lives of real people, APT is demonstrating that broadband is no longer a luxury in today’s world, it is a necessity.

The new contest, President for a Day - How I’d Change the World With Broadband, will run from May 29 to July 29, 2008. With all the excitement about the Presidential campaigns this year, particularly among young voters, we think that the contest is a great way to give people the opportunity to be creative, to address serious societal problems, and to provide policy recommendations to the new President, whomever that may be.

We hope that the new President will understand that in order to foster affordable, universal access to high-speed networks and services, a national broadband policy must be put in place.

In addition to the nationwide contest, the campaign's initiatives include briefings for Members of Congress and their staffs, a series of brown bag lunches devoted to the life-changing impact of broadband access for various constituencies and other educational outreach efforts.

Broadband Changed My Life!^TM Campaign Continues to Attract New Audiences

Joy Howell, director of APT’s Broadband Changed My Life!^TM campaign, has been burning up the air waves with radio interviews all over the country. On May 17th, she spoke to a Tampa, Florida audience about all the ways that we use broadband in our daily lives. On Friday, May 23rd she was featured on Traders Nation radio network out of Phoenix, AZ and on May 29th, she was interviewed by a Medford, Oregon station. Watch for her next interview on Thursday, June 5th, with Issues Today Radio out of San Pedro, California, a syndicated network that reaches 185 stations, and stay tuned for more news about how Broadband Changed My Life!^TM

Information Technology Making a Difference in Children’s Lives

Ensuring that children are equipped with the skills they need to compete in the global economy of the 21st century was the emphasis at the brown bag lunch jointly sponsored by APT and The Children’s Partnership (TCP) on May 15th. The program featured Ken Kelly, Director of TCP’s Washington Office, who reported on the positive impact of technology for children in areas such as healthcare, workforce development, social services, civic participation and educational achievement, including increased graduation rates and improved test scores. (See Ken Kelly's Presentation) He also noted the gaps in technology access, particularly among low-income, at-risk youth and their families. Like APT, The Children’s Partnership is calling for the establishment of universal broadband as a national goal and the development of new metrics for measuring broadband that are easily updated to reflect evolving speeds.

TCP’s new issue brief Information Technology Making a Difference in Children’s Lives, which was circulated at the lunch and served as the theme for discussion, can be found here. For APT’s report, Achieving Universal Broadband: Policies for Stimulating Deployment and Demand, click here.

Accessible Technology Demos to be Featured at APT-COAT Brown Bag Lunch

On June 18th the Alliance for Public Technology and the Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology (COAT) will co-sponsor a brown bag lunch around the theme Digital Communication in the 21st Century: Ensuring Access by People with Disabilities. Thanks to APT Board member Larry Goldberg, who directs the National Center for Accessible Media at WGBH, there will be demonstrations of Internet captioning and video descriptive services. Captions are a textual equivalent of the dialogue and (significant) sound effects or non-dialogue audio. Video Description is a system which provides audio descriptions and narrations of key elements in video programming, television programming, television set-ups, or movie access.

There will also be a panel discussion with industry and consumer perspectives moderated by Karen Peltz Strauss, Co-Chair of COAT and a member of the APT Board of Directors. The panel will include: Jenifer Simpson of the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) and the APT Board; Lisa Hamlin of the Hearing Loss Association of America; Eric Bridges of the American Council of the Blind; Mark Reichert of the American Foundation for the Blind; and Jeff Kramer of Verizon.

The luncheon will take place in the 10th floor conference room at 919 Eighteenth Street, NW. For more information and to register for the luncheon, click here.

TELECOM NEWS

Speed Testers Wanted

How fast is your Internet access? How does your speed compare nationwide and around the globe? Are you getting what your Internet provider says you’re paying for? CWA would like you to take the Speed Matters test to find out.

Testing Internet connection speed is an important part of Speed Matters, CWA’s public policy and awareness campaign to invest in our nation’s high speed networks and close the digital divide.

Last year, Speed Matters used tens of thousands of speed tests to develop a state-by-state report on Internet connection speed. As a result, state broadband initiatives were developed in Ohio, West Virginia, Tennessee, Washington and elsewhere. The report was also used to help convince the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to change its definition of high speed Internet, and to urge Congress to adopt a national broadband policy, complete with a broadband map of America.

CWA is getting ready to release their second annual speed test report this summer, and they need as many people as possible to take the speed test.

With your help, the second report should make as big of a splash as the first one. They’re timing the release of the report with the Democratic and Republican National Conventions to make sure high speed Internet access is on both parties’ agendas.

Like CWA, the Alliance for Public Technology strives for universal access to quality, high-speed Internet. By taking the Speed Matters speed test, you can help make it happen.

APT Board Member Testifies on Access to Video Technologies

On May 1st, testimony was provided at a hearing on draft legislation, "Enhancing Access to Broadband Technology and Services for Persons with Disabilities," by Larry Goldberg, a member of the APT Board of Directors and Director of the National Center for Accessible Media at WGBH-TV in Boston. He presented information on technological feasibility, emphasizing the need to ensure that, as our nation migrates from legacy telephone and television products to more versatile and innovative digital and Internet-based communications and video programming, people with disabilities must benefit like everyone else.

The hearing was held by the U.S. House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet and chaired by Representative Edward Markey (D-MA). Other witnesses were: Jamaal Anderson, defensive end and 2007 first round draft pick of the NFL Atlanta Falcons, whose father is a leading deaf educator and former board member of Gallaudet University; Russell Harvard, a deaf Hollywood actor appearing in the double-academy award winning movie There Will Be Blood; Sergeant Major Jesse Acosta, a Purple Heart army veteran whose vision was severely injured by mortar attack in Iraq; Dane Snowden, representing the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA); and Ken Nakata of Disability Initiatives and Government Compliance BayFirst Solutions.

The archived video of the hearing, including the witnesses’ statements, can be found on the House Subcommittee's website.

Click here to review the staff draft of the legislation.

For more information click here.

APT Policy Chair Testifies Before Senate Finance Committee

In testimony before the Senate Finance Committee, Rob Atkinson, Chair of APT’s Public Policy Committee and President of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), described the growing array of mercantilist trade policies that nations have enacted to unfairly disadvantage foreign, including U.S., technology products. To read the full transcript of Dr. Atkinson’s testimony, please click here.

DTV Transition Update

On Thursday, June 19, 2008, the FCC will hold a Digital Television (DTV) Consumer Education Workshop. The Workshop will begin at 10:00 a.m. and end at approximately 2:00 p.m., and will address issues related to DTV converter boxes for analog television sets that receive signals over-the-air. Specifically, the Workshop will explain how to connect DTV converter boxes to analog television sets and will discuss the converter boxes’ features, including closed captioning and parental controls. Several manufacturers and vendors will display their DTV converter boxes and be available to answer questions about them.

The Workshop will be held at FCC Headquarters, 445 12th Street, SW, Washington, DC, in the Commission Meeting Room, and will be webcast live from the FCC’s website at www.fcc.gov/realaudio. A complete agenda for the Workshop will be released soon.

As of May 1, 2008, NTIA had received applications for 12.7 million coupons from nearly 6.7 million households. This represents nearly 38% of the total 33.5 million coupons available under the law.

There are 2,966 retailers participating in the program, and 82 converter boxes have been certified, including 14 models with the “analog pass-through” option. A list of certified converter boxes can be found at www.ntiadtv.gov.

UPCOMING EVENTS

June 12
FCC Meeting
Washington, DC
More Info

June 12-15
Hearing Loss Association of America
2008 Convention
Reno, NV
More Info

June 18
APT and COAT
Brown Bag Lunch
Washington, DC
More Info

June 19
FCC
DTV Consumer Education Workshop
Washington, DC
More Info

June 20-23
National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners
Summer Meetings
Portland, OR
More Info

June 23-25
Delta Regional Authority
Annual Conference
New Orleans, LA
More Info

June 26-July 2
American Library Association
Annual conference
Anaheim, CA
More Info

July 4-12
American Council of the Blind
National Convention
Louisville, KY
More Info

July 7-11
National Association of the Deaf
Biennial Conference
Portland, OR
More Info

February 17, 2009
DTV Transition
All full-power broadcast television stations in the United States will stop broadcasting on analog airwaves and begin broadcasting only in digital.
More Info:
www.dtv.gov
www.dtv2009.gov
www.dtvtransition.org