By Gregg Foster
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Last year, Redwood Coast Rural Action (RCRA), the Redwood Technology Consortium (RTC) and Redwood Region Economic Development Commission (RREDC), sponsored the first Redwood Coast Broadband Forum. Held in conjunction with the 2005 Technology Expo, this forum brought local community and business leaders together with experts in broadband technology deployment from throughout the country. The goal was to identify key broadband technology needs and local solutions. Two main issues were identified. The first was the need for a redundant fiber optic route to the region to increase our telecommunications security. The second issue was increasing broadband telecommunications access to areas in the region that are either currently un- or under-served.
Broadband Forum II (BBII) is being held this year on April 5th and 6th. Sponsored by the same partnership that created last year’s event, BBII will feature an update on our efforts toward creating a redundant fiber link and will present valuable information on wireless broadband deployment.
Our speakers will include:
Susan Estrada, an internet pioneer and current president of FirstMile.US. Ms. Estrada is a lead consultant on our efforts to establish a redundant fiber optic connection and will be providing a status report on this project at BBII.
Marlon
Schafer, a pioneering wireless internet service provider (WISP) who has created
systems in rural communities in the state of
Rick Kunze,
of ColusaNet will, with Marlon Schafer, share his
experiences and knowledge of starting and operating a WISP in
Joaquin Alvarado, Director of the Institute For Next Generation Internet will share with us key issues and opportunities for the future of the internet and broadband technologies.
BBII will occur over two days. April 5th will be an all day session to be held at Fortuna’s River Lodge. April 6th will be a half-day morning session to be held at the Humboldt County Office of Education. This second day will be an interactive, practical workshop for those interested in pursuing WISP deployment in the region.
In addition, the Redwood Technology Consortium will be awarding its annual scholarship to a local high school senior.
I want to acknowledge the hard work of RCRA and RTC and, specifically, Connie Stewart and Tina Nerat, both of whom have given countless hours to organizing this forum and pushing telecommunications development in general. I encourage all readers to see Tina’s “Tech Beat” column on Tuesday for more information on BBII and her observations on the difficulty of finding a location for BBII with even rudimentary internet access. Her experiences are both interesting and, frankly, a sad commentary on the current state of affairs locally.