ITS 304

Broadband Assignment

Many policymakers regard broadband deployment as presenting great opportunities for creating new jobs, revitalizing the economy, and enriching people’s lives.

Broadband deployment presents some interesting challenges and questions, however. For one thing, it isn’t clear what policymakers mean by broadband. Do they mean specific technologies? Do they mean specific download and upload speeds? Do they just mean Internet access? Another issue has to do with who will pay for the broadband deployment. Are policymakers suggesting that government should fund broadband deployment? Are they offering government funds? Are policymakers trying to establish incentives to encourage private companies to deploy broadband? Also, are policymakers setting realist standards for deployment success?

This assignment (which is worth a possible 60 points) gives you the opportunity to examine what specific policymakers have in mind for this issue. A lot of broadband deployment planning is being done at the state level—either through the public utility commission, or through economic development offices, or through legislative action, or through the governor’s office. Your assignment is to do the following:

  1. Sign up for a specific state.
  2. Go to the websites of the various state offices and identify what broadband deployment efforts are under way in that state. This means you should look at the state utility commission website, and at the various state websites to identify broadband initiatives.
  3. Once you have identified the broadband initiative(s) in you assigned state, write a short paper that answers the following questions about those initiatives:
  4. What state are you looking at?
  5. What office or offices are sponsoring the initiative(s)?
  6. What is the name of the broadband initiative(s)?
  7. How is broadband defined?
  8. What arguments are presented for why broadband deployment is so important?
  9. Are there specific objectives identified for the broadband initiative? Health care, education, etc.?
  10. What are the incentives to encourage broadband deployment?
  11. If there are funds involved, how much money is there? Who will get the money? How will the money be distributed?
  12. What is the timeline for the deployment plans?
  13. Your short paper should be typed and double-spaced and about 3-5 pages long. Provide a bibliography of the websites you accessed.

The paper is due on January 14, 2009 and you will be asked to share your findings with the rest of the class.