Chris.Gaskill@aldersonreporting.com
      MODERATOR:  Good afternoon and welcome to the third panel 
for today. Today's panel is a roundtable on innovative programs 
to encourage sustainable adoption of broadband service and 
expanding public computer center capacity.  These are two of the 
programs that were identified separately by Congress, and 
Congress allotted a minimum amount of money of the NTIA money 
shah should be focused on those two issues.  Our moderator is 
Robert at Kinston after leaving the FCC in 2000 Bob joined the 
Columbia institute for teleinformation at the Columbia business 
school where he serves as Director in policy and research while 
at the FCC he was the served computer chief of the common carrier 
bureau.  Thank you, Bob.  
             MODERATOR:  Thank you mark, and pleased to be here.  
As Mark said, I am Bob Atkinson and Director of policy research 
at the Columbia institute for telecom information.  It is a 
research center on telecom, internet and media of the Columbia 
business school not a government employee or a part of any 
federal agency so my comments are strictly my own and don't 
reflect the views of CITI that rarely has a specific position, 
because it's an academic institution.  The topic of the last 
roundtable here today is broadband's innovative programs to 
encourage sustainable adoption of broadband service and expanding 
public computer center capacity.  Representatives from a number 
of stakeholders, our seven of them will participate in a 
roundtable discussion on this topic and I will introduce the 
panelists in a moment.  Procedurally the panelists will make 
comments on the topics raised in the joint NTIA request for 
information that was issued last week and I will moderate a 
roundtable discussion amongst the panelists, and finally the last 
30 minutes of the program will be devoted to questions or 
comments from the audience here at the commerce department 
auditorium, or from the webcast or teleconference.  I expect 
these presentations will spur a lively discussion and generate 
new and innovative ideas about deploying and utilizing broadband 
services.  And I would observe in my own capacity that these 
roundtable discussions and last week's joint RUS/NTIA request for 
information are part of an open and transparent process in which 
all interested parties will have an opportunity to provide their 
comments and ideas to NTIA/RUS over the next several weeks and I 
certainly urge everyone to provide those views and comments and 
suggestions as quickly as they K. 
             Let me quickly introduce the speakers, the panelists 
on this roundtable.  This will be the order in which they will 
present their opening remarks.  
             On my immediate left, Jonathan Linkous, the chief 
executive officer of the American Telemedicine Association.  As 
CEO he has lectured and written extensively on health and 
technology issues and has served on a variety of international 
and national paneling on topics a such as providing chronic care 
services and responses to Hurricane Katrina.  Next to Jonathan is 
Emily Sheketoff, the associate executive Director of the American 
library association, managing the Washington office, where she 
directs lobbying efforts for Congress and the executive branch 
and works on initiatives important to the library community, 
family literacy, public access to government information, first 
amendment protection and intellectual property and copy right 
issues.  Next to Emily is James Hermes, /AES senior legislative 
associated with the American association of community colleges 
where he has been since late 1999.  AACC is the premier 
organization representing the interests of community colleges 
counting over 90% of the nation's community colleges as its 
members.  Next to James is Erin Duncan.  Erin is a federal 
lobbyist of the national education association.  Among the issues 
of in her portfolio are education technology, E read 21st century 
and she serves as Ed link and is currently the chair of that 
coalition.  Next to Erin is Hank /KEPBLGTSDZ.  He is the deputy 
secretary for research and development in the Department of 
Energy's office of electricity delivery and energy reliability 
which is responsible for leading national efforts to modernize an 
electric grid, enhance reliability of the infrastructure and 
facilitate recovery from disruptions to energy supply.  He has 
over 20 years experience of strategic management of technology 
and November /SRAEUGS in public and private sectors.  Next to 
Hank is Jason Goldman, Jason serves as counsel and committee 
/SKEFBG for the telecommunications and E /PHERS he handles a 
variety of technology policy issues for the chamber, including 
telecommunications, the internet, E-Commerce, broadcasting and 
mass media, security and previous and E waste.  And last, Rey 
Ramsay.  Rey is CEO and cofounder of one economy organization, an 
organization that leverages technology and information to 
low-income people by bringing broad band into their homes 
producing public purpose media and training youth to enhance 
community's technological capacity.  Previously he was chairman 
of habitat for humanity, chairman and CEO of enterprise 
foundation and Oregon Director of housing and community services 
under two governors.  Broadly NTIA and RUS have a monumental job 
to accomplish in a very short period of time.  Implementing the 
American recovery and reinvestment act in a way that produces the 
greatest broadband bang for every taxpayer buck.  Among other 
things, this means adopting rules, developing contracts, 
soliciting proposals, reviewing proposals, selecting the best 
proposals to satisfy the goals of the act and the award criteria 
the list of activities and responsibilities that NTIA and RUS 
seems almost endless.  So the purpose of this series of 
roundtables is to provide NTIA and RUS with the considered 
thoughts and suggestions of experienced experts from a broad 
range of stakeholders so they can accomplish their missions as 
quickly and as effectively as possible.  As mark and I mentioned 
previously, the subject of this last roundtable for today, 
innovative programs to encourage sustainable adoption of 
broadband service and expanding public computer center capacity.  
This is an important topic simply because Congress has 
established two specific programs dealing with those topics.  It 
has appropriated at least $250 million to fund innovative 
programs that will increase sustainable broadband adoption and 
Congress has also appropriated at least 2 hundred million to fund 
public computer centers at community colleges, libraries and 
similar locations so the purpose of this roundtable is to 
facilitate the options for these programs, so let's begin with 
Jonathan Linkous, the CEO of the American Telemedicine 
Association.  
             MR. LINKOUS:  Thanks.  I appreciate it.  I want to 
start off by saying I appreciate the invitation and I appreciate 
the tremendous work the staff here at NTIA have been doing 
working at the American Telemedicine Association we are working 
with a dozen federal programs and agencies, and you guys are 
taking the lead in setting the standard in terms of getting 
information out and getting this program right away.  I want to 
take a few minutes to talk about telemedicine and I have very 
specific suggestions for the program.  Telemedicine is broadly 
defined.  I think it's important for the staff to understand that 
over the last few years it has expanded to include not just the 
traditional video-based conferencing, large rural health center 
to a rural clinic but includes a broader array of services and I 
think it's very important because you will get a lot of 
applications in from a lot of things that look like they are 
really off the wall but perhaps they are main stream.  Anything 
from intensive care units being staffed and overseen by 
specialists located in a different place to remote monitoring 
that goes not only to the home but to the person on wearable 
monitors.  So there is a large variety of applications, generally 
of which expand access, reduce costs and improve the quality of 
care and is taking the healthcare out of the institution.  So 
with that said, traditional healthcare in both the technology 
opportunities program and the rural utilities program -- the 
grant program is about 10% to 40% of the grant awards depending 
upon the year and averaging about 35% to 40% over time.  So I 
suspect you will have a lost applications in for all of them 
coming in.  
             For this program or the two programs that we are 
talking about here, we would really encourage the goal of the 
program to be ubiquitous deployment of broadband not just to a 
particular institution or set of institutions but all over to the 
person and to the home and to all locations.  And it would also 
be technology neutral, so that we are not talking about wired or 
wireless, but a broad array.  Because one of the thing that we 
see in healthcare is that there is a lot of different types of 
providers that are coming up using either for-profit or 
non--profit institutions that are providing healthcare around the 
world, but also have a lot of different types of applications.  
Anything from again, wireless applications to wired applications.  
There is a large variety of what we are talking about, and I 
suspect under this program you are going to see applications from 
an even broader variety than we have ever seen before.  So we 
really think you ought to be taking that kind of a broad view in 
looking at some of the applications that are going to be here.  
Health providers we would strongly encourage that when you get an 
application in for telemedicine they have a strong link in with 
the health provider.  I know that sounds rather funny to say but 
we have seen a lot of applications for telemedicine under various 
programs that actually only the healthcare provider is the add-on 
in the end, so that is really important.  In terms of use of the 
/TPUPDZ, a short-term leasing of equipment and services needs to 
be an important part what you are talking about.  There is a lot 
of folks who have been under various federal programs using 
telemedicine that have been locked under contracts either with 
equipment or with telecommunications providers that have been a 
problem over time, because we are in such a period of rapidly 
changing requirements and opportunities, so we would strongly 
urge that you not require some kind of a long-term contract for 
avenue this.  We have had those problems with other programs.  
Also allow flexibility in the selection of the telecommunications 
provider as well as any form of broadband service.  I understand 
there is a push to have a unified definition of what is a 
broadband service.  But you got to understand, at least in the 
healthcare field and I suspect in others as well, the definition 
of broadband and the need is going to vary a lot upon 
applications.  If you are doing vital sign monitoring there may 
be active video in the home.  That's one thing.  If you are doing 
monitoring of intensive care units into a facility, you are 
talking about a different level of broadband.  So you need to be 
flexible enough to understand that they can shape their 
application, and what they were going to be spending money on 
depends upon the need and the appropriateness and the quality 
that's important.  Coordination is another theme that we would 
push, and I heard that said by a number of other people here.  
But we would say when you look at the coordination of your 
services and the programs and there is certainly a lot of that 
between NTIA and RUS and I hopefully with FCC, but at least in 
healthcare with the stimulus package, a couple of other programs 
one is the national coordinator for health information 
technology, ONC over at the Department of Health and human 
service and HRSA, has a lot of money and they will be spending a 
lot of money on deploying health technology and deployment of 
health telecommunications, an important player and it's important 
that we not start duplicating the services, approving 
/TKPWRAPBTSDZ and project that is work against each other.  So we 
have been very strong in hitting the boards saying you need to 
have a coordinated function so we really think we need to bring 
them all together as part of what you are doing.  Encourage 
integration with normal healthcare delivery and avoid separate 
grants and programs, that's going to be true with a lot of the 
applications, you are going to have some of them that are going 
to be off the wall, not integrated with the healthcare system.  
If it's going to be affecting healthcare it needs to involve some 
healthcare providers from the get-go, not as a thing that is 
going to staff on or somehow be taped on to the end of the 
application.  
             A couple of other final thing.  You looked at 
benchmarks in terms of questions about benchmarks, what you 
should be asserting.  Certainly in terms of the services offered, 
the outcomes and sustainability.  It's critical you look at 
sustainability of this program.  In that regard, if there could 
be coordination also with Medicare in terms of reimbursement for 
the service delivered, that's true and a couple of other programs 
in the federal government, so I think it ought to be true for 
this as well.  And finally I know you will be hit up with a lot 
of applications and a lot of requirements, so we certainly would 
suggest review teams of some sort and certainly in the world of 
telemedicine we are used to having review teams that come in and 
help agencies.  I'm sure there will be folks that assist in that.  
But of course in the end another theme that you have heard 
throughout today and I would echo as well is that you have 
similarity in application forms among all the programs as well as 
your reporting requirements because some of these programs will 
be getting money off of multiple federal grants and nothing 
drives them more crazy than to have different reporting 
requirements and different dates when you talk about a program 
that is similar or operates from the same institution.  
             MODERATOR:  Thank you.  Our next speaker is Emily 
Sheketoff from American library association.  
             MS. SHEKETOFF:  Libraries are the premier public 
commuting centers in nation's communities.  1171 community 
college libraries nationwide play a vital role for providing 
resources and opportunities on line.  Education, job searching 
and skills training, government services which are now on 
available on line, and much more.  Nearly 100 percent of public 
libraries and community college libraries provide public access 
to the internet at no charge to their patrons.  In 73 percent of 
our communities, they are the only source of no-fee public 
internet access.  In rural America, this is 82 percent.  About 
half of public libraries are located in rural areas.  Use of 
public libraries is heavily increased across the country in these 
difficult economic times.  Currently they are averaging 175 
million visits a month.  Libraries stimulate broadband demand.  
Both community college and public libraries are physically 
located in all of the nation's communities.  Rural, urban, 
suburban, large or small, ethnically diverse or not, reaching out 
to everyone in the community, including the young and the old, 
low-income residents, unemployed and other vulnerable people.  
Libraries can offer programs on broadband, internet education and 
training, what can be done with such access, why it is important 
today and why it will be even more important in the future.  
Librarians are highly trusted members of the community, using 
librarians is likely to be very effective.  But libraries' 
connections are too slow.  Their connection speeds are often 
inefficient.  Consider the fact that a majority of the nation's 
libraries have a connection speed of 1.5 Megabits per second or 
less.  At the same time, libraries as multiuser environments 
serving patrons with many different needs have significantly 
greater different broadband capacity needs than residences.  Not 
surprisingly research shows that most public libraries do not 
have sufficient broadband capacity.  With almost 60 percent 
reporting that their broadband connection is often too slow.  
             More than. 
4 out of five public libraries say that patrons often must wait in 
line for access.  This is only a snapshot of our current 
capacity.  This does not reflect the looming broadband crisis as 
applications become more band width intensive and our citizens' 
demand higher quality of internet access.  We must encourage 
project that is are strategic and visionary with long-term 
benefit.  Libraries serve as the information hub of their 
communities.  Similarly, they can serve as anchor tenants as next 
generation networks are deployed across the country.  Service 
providers should be encouraged to work with libraries.  
Applications should be streamlined.  They should be required in a 
manner that would allow a regular librarian would -- with no 
particular grant expertise could apply.  We learned a great deal 
from the E rate applications of the FCC and we know especially if 
we want to move this program quickly we must make the politics 
easy for regular Americans to use.  At the March 10 public 
meeting it was mentioned that the two federal agencies are 
interested in project that is have long-term benefits.  The 
American library association strongly believes that even our 
smallest public libraries will eventually require band width that 
likely will only be provided over fiber.  Therefore we encourage 
both the NTIA and RUS to allocate some funding to support a fiber 
to the library initiative.  Finally, improving libraries broad 
band capabilities involves more than a bigger pipe to library 
buildings.  The technical and physical infrastructure within 
libraries often needs to be upgraded to accommodate faster 
internet connections, these improvements include hardware, 
software and building renovations.  Additional expertise may also 
be needed, such as technical advice, support and capacity for 
sustainability planning.  
             MODERATOR:  Our next speaker is Jim Hermes of the 
American association of community colleges.  
             MR. HERMES:  Thanks very much.  We are up there. I am 
going to follow up in many respects to what Emily has just laid 
out in terms of public computer centers at libraries and 
community colleges.  Just a couple of initial facts that Emily 
touched on.  There are about 1200 community colleges nationwide 
and that sort of begins to tell the story the 1200 colleges 
extend out to 1600 different campuses and then on top of that, 
there are many other sub campus level service centers 
administered by community colleges.  So certainly we concur that 
at the outset the NTIA has identified the two crucial 
institutions on a local basis in terms of expanding public 
computer center capabilities.  Let me just sort of -- and I echo 
Emily's comments in terms of the various needs that need to be 
served at these institutions in terms of what they need and what 
grants should encompass in terms of their expanding their centers 
or establishing new ones.  
             Let me jump off from that point as well, and talk a 
little bit about essentially I realized when I was looking at my 
points, I pretty much made the same point in three of these areas 
and I will talk about in general and talk about the specifics 
real briefly.  When looking at this topic in the computer center 
and on the innovation grants side, the government would do very 
well to take a very much a value-added approach to wait hopes to 
accomplish, you know, with this what is essentially seed money in 
this area.  So when I say that, what I'm talking about in terms 
of the computer centers specifically, when you are locating a 
center at a library or community college, you were getting a lot 
more than you know a local hub for people to just gain access to 
broadband.  You are gaining a local center where people coming 
will be able to access instruction on how to use computers at a 
very basic level and then go well beyond that into the community 
college's case, you know, post secondary education offerings that 
relate directly to the broadband or use the broadband in some 
way.  And then finally, in terms of locating the centers, there 
is a lot of evidence to suggest that just getting people on to 
college campuses and into libraries are going to get them, sort 
of bring them back into the educational fold, and as you well 
know, we are into -- we are in an economy now that increasingly 
requires post secondary education for every worker.  So anything 
that these grants can do to sort of drive, getting people actual 
back into or into post-secondary education for the first time has 
a value-added on top of the core mission of expanding broadband 
access.  I think that should be a real factor to consider when 
you are talking about these grants.  
             The second point that I made up here is one we hear 
from our colleges a lot and quite frankly I don't know where it 
fits exactly in terms of the moneys that are going to be put 
forth in the broadband area, but I will make it.  Community 
colleges have repeatedly expressed to us their desire to be more 
linked in if they were not already to high speed interstate 
networks or things like internet-2 and so forth, and more 
commonly associated with larger research institutions.  Community 
colleges do offer many cutting edge occupational programs, for 
instance, and programs in the -- you know, the first two years of 
research-based science degrees where they can greatly benefit 
through great /EUR connectivity to these networks and obviously 
this benefit will extend not only to community college students 
but the communities they serve as well.  The third point I 
mention specifically and this goes back to the value-added 
approach that I urge be taken in terms of encouraging sustainable 
use of broadband, obviously one of the areas that are going to be 
looking closely at is how is broadband access going to spur the 
growth of businesses in the local areas which in turn will create 
that sustainable demand for broadband and use of the broadband 
services.  So I encourage you in particular to look at 
entrepreneurism and which of course is very important in the 
rural areas, community colleges, 800 of the 1200 community 
colleges do serve rule areas and this is an important area that 
they have been offering in terms /SER /TEUF cats and degrees.  So 
I encourage support for the innovation grants for those sorts of 
programs.  And finally I will just mention, of course, the 
obvious importance, the increased broadband access in the home to 
community colleges and their students for the purposes of 
distance education.  I don't want to belabor that point, it's one 
that has been very well spelled out, but here again, have you a 
situation where it has a multi-/PHRAOEURP effect.  You increase 
the broadband access, more people are able to take part in 
distance education and get the skills they need for the 21st 
century economy, and turn around and start new businesses again, 
or belabor pool for the kinds of businesses that are going to 
maintain that need for the broadband services in the community.  
Thanks very much.  
             MODERATOR:  Our next speaker is Ann /KEPBLGTSDZ -- 
wait a minute I apologize.  Erin Duncan from the national 
education association.  Getting ahead of myself.  
             MS. DUNCAN:  The national education association, NEA 
is committed to advancing the cause of public education, and it's 
3.2 million members work at every level of education from 
preschool to university graduate programs.  On behalf of our 
president, Dennis van Roekle, and our leaders and members, thank 
you for allowing me to present the NEA's perspective.  Added 
infrastructure and enhanced high speed internet is necessary for 
technologies that support student achievement.  Including to the 
E rate program 98% of all schools are connected, but connected 
means many things in education, it could mean high speed wireless 
internet access throughout a building.  Connected could also mean 
one computer in the office which collects absenteeism data for 
the central office.  But schools must have enough band width so 
students can have access to on line materials that support a 21st 
century education.  According to America's digital schools, 
67 percent of school districts prohibit teachers from using tools 
such as streaming video to conserve band width.  The $7.2 billion 
from the ARRA can best be used by devising a plan that connects 
as many communities and schools as possible.  The plan should 
focus on connecting schools and communities that are in 
under-served areas.  We support the state educational technology 
Director association's recommendations of external internet 
connection to the internet service provider of at least 10 
Megabits per second per 1000 students and staff.  Internal wide 
area network connections to the district in each school and 
between schools of 100 megabits per second per 1000 students and 
staff.  The goal should be to provide as many schools and 
communities as possible access to high speed internet before 
increasing the speed and communities that already have high speed 
internet access.  Thank you for the NEA to participate in this 
important part of the process to implement the ARRA.  
             MODERATOR:  And now Hank Kenchington from the 
Department of Energy.  
             Mr. Kenchington:  Thank you for having me today. My 
talk is a little different.  I am talking about another as the 
Department of Energy we have $4.5 billion to invest in what we 
call smart grid technologies, so what is smart grid?  Smart grid 
uses information, communications technologies to improve the 
viability and availability and efficiency of electricity systems 
as well as developing new products and markets and services.  
These devices will be applied all the way from generation at your 
power plant through the transmission distribution all the way to 
the end user.  It's the information communications network that 
distinguishes the smart grid technologies as opposed to what we 
have today, which is more of a passive network.  
             If we look at the grid today, how it works you have a 
generation plant on one end, a steady state but a coal plant or 
nuclear plant that supplies power over fixed power lines to the 
homeowner or residents and that power has to be balanced 
constantly between the amount of generation and the amount of 
load.  So in the morning or even in the early morning when there 
is not much load, there are people demanding power, the power 
plant is just kind of sitting there maybe running in the 
Washington area, 20,000 megawatts.  In the morning when everybody 
gets up, you turn on washers and hair dryers, now the power plant 
has to /PRAFRP up and match that generation need.  Now we are up 
to 30, 000 megawatts and then it goes back down and in the 
evening we all come home, turn on the stove, cook our dinner and 
turn on plasma TVs to watch the football game.  To meet this 
varying demand the power system is met to meet that maximum peak.  
Usually about a 20% margin above that peak, and it's kind of an 
inefficient use of assets.  Let me give you an example of smart 
grid applications.  The thinking here is if we are going to 
change and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and reduce our 
dependence on foreign oil, how do we do that?  One example is 
through net zero homes.  If you have solar panels in your house 
during the day when the solar panels generate energy, what 
happens to the energy because you don't need it we want a way to 
store it locally so when you come home you can tap into the local 
storage and bring it back and use that energy versus using the 
energy from the power plant.  To do that you need two-way 
communications.  Those two-way communications is where the 
broadband services come in.  So this is enabled an area where we 
can leverage these two opportunities, bring them together and 
provide services for the homeowners, the utilities and the 
nation.  Another example is the time when you use smart 
appliances where you get price signals during the day, in five 
minute increments, as the price goes up in the morning you want 
to reduce your demand and give the incentive to the homeowner to 
reduce his electricity bill.  And the third example is to plug-in 
hybrid vehicles.  As we see plug-in hybrid vehicles becoming more 
and more widespread across the country what could happen is 
everyone comes home with these plug-in hybrid vehicles is you all 
plug in at the same time.  And what that would do is all these 
/HRAO*EUPBS would grind and come to a halt so. We need two-way 
communications, broadband services, where we can time that with 
charging smart intelligence into the plug-in hybrid vehicle so it 
only charges during the evening when the price is low, and the 
demand is low.  So I think through these two opportunities we 
have the opportunity to provide better services to consumers, to 
allow them to lower their electric bill, for utilities to 
increase their asset utilization.  And to plan it by reducing 
greenhouse gas emissions.  Thank you.  
             MODERATOR:  Our next speaker is Jason Goldman from the 
U.S. Chamber of Commerce.  
             #01:  For years the chamber has been talking about 
broadband in terms of jobs and economic development.  Today is 
not going to be any different.  Broadband have the power to 
transform every sector of the U.S. economy, whether it be 
healthcare, education, E government, E-Commerce, agriculture, you 
name it, broadband is essential and can transform it.  For 
example, a broadband connection allows a business regardless of 
its size or location to sell to customers across the country and 
around the world.  The chamber strongly supported the broadband 
stimulus bill and the broadband stimulus provisions in it.  And 
we will be very active to ensure that it only takes one bill and 
it is done correctly and the bill money is used as wisely as 
possible.  We are very focused on the importance of broadband 
adoption.  This is why the chamber has part nerd with connect a 
nation and has co-hosted regional dialogues on the importance of 
broadband across the country.  The stimulus allocates over 
$800 million across three different grant programs in part to 
encourage broadband adoption.  The statute funds the public 
computing program with at least $200 million, and at least is the 
key condition.  The chamber strongly supports this program and 
urges NTIA to consider the $200 million as a floor.  Community 
colleges, libraries and other public computing centers serve a 
vital role especially those who cannot afford computers or 
broadband access, because jobs, education, and information and 
the 21st century are all tied to assets.  According to the bill 
and Linda gates foundation, more than 70 percent of those who use 
library connections and library computers as their primary source 
for connecting the internet, the stimulus bill provides again at 
least $250 million for broadband adoption and at least again is 
the key.  The chamber strongly supports this program and urges 
NTIA to consider the $250 million as the floor for this program.  
Both of these pots of money are relatively small, therefore NTIA 
will be faced with the challenge of ensuring the money goes to 
projects that bring about the greatest economic impact.  
Fortunately the broadband improvement act of 2008 was funded with 
$350 million in the stimulus bill.  And as a result states now 
have a clear vehicle for use for developing state-wide public 
private partnerships that leverages resources within and across 
every community for effective technology expansion.  While this 
$350 million of federal funds is often referred to as 
$350 million for mapping, it's important to remember that this 
$350 million is not just for mapping.  These funds are for 
statewide programs designed to stimulate sustainable broadband 
adoption at the county and local level.  The U.S. chamber urges 
policymakers to recognize the importance of adoption and the 
public computing centers because of accelerating broadband use 
and adoption, the United States will bowls /STERP its economic 
competitive -- bowls /STERP its economic competitiveness and 
improve the quality of life with all Americans with greater 
choice of goods and services.  Thank you.  
             MODERATOR:  Our last speaker is Rey Ramsay.  
             MR. RAMSAY:  Good afternoon.  Well, I'm last, so 
hopefully that's a good thing for you.  We are very pleased to be 
here from one economy and we have this opportunity to address 
staff and other interested individuals.  You know, as I was 
listening to the remarks what sticks in my mind is the term that 
was often used that some people still use which is the digital 
divide.  And when we started one economy nine years ago I said we 
have something else that we want to talk about and I called it 
the digital opportunity.  And I think we've got to just focus on 
what opportunity we have in front of us.  And the way I view this 
opportunity and the most important advice that I would give to 
those administering agencies, is to have intentionality.  
Whatever it is we are going to do, let's be very intentional 
about what we are trying to achieve, because otherwise there will 
be so many thing that could fit under the rubric of sort of using 
technology.  Every part of our life is impacted by technology.  
The intentionality that is most important to me from my 
perspective is what we are going to do to assist the poor, and 
those who have been left out.  We haven't heard that yet in a 
very explicit way but I think we need to be very intentional 
about how we are going to help the poor, because there are a lot 
of other folks who are adopting to technology and use it in 
different parts of their lives, whether at work or other means, 
and I believe that these funds give us an opportunity to create a 
culture of use, where people will use technology to improve their 
lives, their social, economic and health sides of their life, and 
if we focus on what I call the three A's, making sure that it is 
available, making sure that it's affordable -- and making sure 
that it's adopted.  And then to add some more depth to that, I 
think the other thing that we haven't said, when you look at the 
studies about the adoption of technology and why people don't 
adopt.  You look at the latest Pew study.  It's not only the 
issue of portability, it's the issue of relevant content and do 
people look at the internet as being relevant.  If you look at 
studies that Pew and others have done, the most important venue 
for the use of technology in terms of moving the meter is the 
home.  So if you look at the resources to date that have gone 
into assisting people, whether we call it the digital divide or 
the digital opportunity, the least amount has gone into the home, 
yet we know by every study that's where it has made the greatest 
difference.  I believe we have an opportunity if we look at 
housing policy in this country, we should never build affordable 
housing without it being networked.  We have an opportunity to 
make sure in public housing authorities of which there are 
thousands in every community, some have centers, some don't, that 
we should make sure that the connectivity gets to the people who 
need it most, which is in affordable housing.  We have thousands 
of affordable housing developers across this country.  It's a 
large industry.  We can marry this and create a real opportunity 
to reach people where they are.  There is no place like home in 
terms of making those connections.  And so I would urge that we 
make sure that we have the intentionality along with the other 
issues that are on the slide that I presented, making sure that 
we are clear about the uses and that they drive toward 
intentionality and some of the key principles that we actually do 
focus on making sure it's sustainable programs, not just run-offs 
that we do leverage resources because that is supporting capacity 
and we achieve some of these outcomes, we maximize the impact and 
again, we demonstrate the intentionality.  On behalf of one 
economy and the many communities we work with, we appreciate this 
opportunity.  
             MODERATOR:  Thank you very much, everyone on the 
panel.  Some very interesting comments for sure.  I was a little 
perplexed when I read the bill and saw that the adoption program 
has some words like "innovative" and "sustainable."  How should 
NTIA determine that a proposed broadband adoption program is 
innovative?  What do you think they are getting at in terms of 
what's innovative?  Just something new?  Ray?  
             MR. RAMSAY:  Can you hear me?  Okay.  Great.  You led 
with the toughest question and I think it's a good question.  I 
think innovation doesn't have to just be new, I think under the 
rubric from my perspective, innovation means that we really are 
thinking in an intentional way about creating a sustainable 
effort to do something that's important.  I think technology, the 
whole opportunity around technology and around the digital age is 
that we can transcend some of the barriers of the 20th century.  
If you say to yourself, how do we reverse some of the problems 
and barriers around the 20th century, and I view it from the 
standpoint of poverty and those who haven't really been able to 
participate in the economy, I look at it and say there are issues 
around space, because very often you will have services in one 
part of town, people living in another part of town, can you 
transcend that?  You are going to try to come up with innovation.  
You look at issues with time.  Places close, but people have 
work, and if they are working their jobs may not let them out of 
work when some of these community facilities are open.  So can we 
use technology to transcend some of the issues and barriers and 
just in fact to make sure some of the sectors are working 
together, so it's not just a private sector issue or an 
NGO-driven thing it's about cutting across.  If you combine all 
that, I think it's kind of the class of if you know it, when you 
see it, but I think that's some of the things.  
             MS. SHEKETOFF:  Technology has allowed us to be 
innovative.  It has allowed to us have distance education, has 
allowed people to be in one place and view what's going on some 
place else, study what's going on some place else.  Access 
information from other places.  But that's where we have seen 
that applications are tremendous band width suffers up, and we 
need expanded broad band and especially in schools and libraries 
we find that as applications become more productive and creative 
they require wider band width and so we are going to require more 
and more broadband.  And that's why it's so important for schools 
and libraries to get access to this broadband because even 
libraries that now are able to give people the resources that 
they need, the applications are becoming much more complicated, 
and are going to require more band width, screening, video, 
distance education, these are all going to demand more, and it's 
great if you can get it at home, but more and more people are 
demanding it -- in public institutions. 
             MODERATOR:  Do you see what you are speaking of as 
more part of the expansion of the computer -- public computer 
centers or an innovative program for sustainable broadband 
adoption?  How do you even -- can you distinguish to -- 
             MS. SHEKETOFF:  Certainly I think the applications are 
where the innovation is.  As a society we need to make these 
resources available to everyone.  Not everyone is going to be 
able to afford these resources at home.  So we need to make sure 
that there are places where everyone gets access.  We need to 
make sure that it doesn't matter where you live or how wealthy 
you are that you can access the same rich information that is 
available on line, the same applications that are available 
whether they are government services, or distance education or 
your own education.  You need to be able to know that you are, no 
matter when you want it and no matter where you want it, you are 
going to be able to access it.  And that's where the innovation 
comes in.  
             MODERATOR:  Rey has suggested that you would know it 
when you see it as to weather it's innovative or not.  
             MR. RAMSAY:  I want to add one thing before turning it 
over, again back as a response to the centers and libraries, and 
I don't want to come across as against those places but the terms 
of moving the meter is in the home and every study shows that.  
If we are going to have sustainable adoption toward this it is 
irrefutable that that's a goal that we should be striving for.  
It doesn't mean it's to the mutual exclusion of public places but 
we need to have as a national public policy that we are striving 
to do it inside the home and you can do disease management and 
other sorts of issues that can be done from the home and we don't 
want to create second tier citizens and that's why I was talking 
about the issue of poverty.  This population lags behind and part 
of that is because their jobs or lack of a job or their inability 
to physically get to different locations, so it's not a mutually 
exclusive but it's a very important issue and we have an 
opportunity to make sure everybody has the opportunity to -- 
probably every one of us has which is to have it in the home.  
             MODERATOR:  So in some respects, you are saying a 
little bit -- it's not mutually exclusive, some tension between 
community and public computering versus -- 
             MR. RAMSAY:  I don't know if tension is the right word 
but I started to do this work because I saw where that most of 
the foundation money that was going into this space and 
governmental money, it wasn't going into the home, but that's 
where we know, if you look at a child in the school, they need it 
in the classroom but they also need it at home.  And there are 
too many kids disadvantaged by not having that. What will be our 
intentionalities where do we set goals to make sure as a national 
standard.  I think it's very, very important.  We have a 
connected learning environment, it includes the school, 
community, and the home.  Our communities -- it includes our 
medical facilities and clinics, all those sorts of things are 
part of a digital ecosystem and we have to think that way and not 
just in separate boxes, I think the issue for adoption is what's 
going to be best for the person.  We need to invest in places but 
ultimately this is about investing in people.  
             MODERATOR:  Jim, you are obviously from the community 
college perspective.  
             HERMES:  Well I'm sitting between both of them so I 
agree both.  Ideally both of those things are extremely 
important, having the public center for access and in the home, 
and community colleges, like I said, do both things, they service 
those centers but in terms of our distance education offerings, 
we need our students to have access to that broadband at home.  
             MODERATOR:  That is a home adoption position.  
             MR. HERMES:  I will say in terms of getting back to 
the original question, in terms of in know separation, from my 
perspective what I was trying to get at in the power slides and 
comments is obviously expanding access in and of itself is going 
to be an incredibly important thing to do, centers and homes, but 
I think innovation could also come in terms of what are some of 
the wrap around services and applications that people propose to 
do to serve people in their own communities.  How can they 
demonstrate what the real need is there and how are they going to 
tailor both the expanded broadband access to do those kinds of 
things.  That's why I brought up entrepreneurial programs as an 
important /TPHAOD for people in the broadband communities that 
they don't have and a way they could be using it to move economic 
growth forward once they could get it.  So I think if you are 
talking about innovative focus one could be to have an incubator 
center where they support needs and services and one role of a 
center like that would be to provide broadband access where they 
would not otherwise be able to get that.  And it would go beyond 
that to include instruction and how to use those services for 
that particular purpose.  But it could be a different thing from 
community to community, like what are they going to do with this 
service once they get it.  
             MODERATOR:  We heard about the public computer centers 
there needs to be more band width and more computers.  Is there 
an economy of scale to a public computer center?  So that, do you 
build up existing centers and put more capacity and more band 
width and more computers into an existing center or do you meet 
the same demand by putting it -- by establishing more centers, 
but somewhat fewer computers, less band width at all of the total 
number of centers.  How is the best way to fix -- address the 
problem of band width and numbers of computers, distributed or 
centralized?  
             MS. SHEKETOFF:  We believe that you are better off 
pressing it, especially in places where there is something more 
than just a computer center, like in a community college or 
public libraries because you have the materials there. 
             MODERATOR:  When you say compressing, you mean putting 
more into the site.  
             MS. SHEKETOFF:  Putting more into the locations we 
have rather than new locations. 
             MODERATOR:  So you look at expanding existing sites.  
             MS. SHEKETOFF:  Expanding existing sites because we 
feel it's not just a room with machinery.  We have information 
literacy experts in there, we have the materials in there, and 
you have got the public space.  So it really meets a great number 
of community needs and as far as children goes, let's not forget 
the homework help we give after school so when school lets out we 
hope that children are coming to the community library or college 
library so they can work on their homework if they don't have a 
computer at home.  And even if they have their computer at home 
they have all receipt sources and information technology and a 
librarian to help them.  
             MODERATOR:  What about rural areas where the distance 
of going to a public computer center might be prohibitive.  Would 
you spread them out more?  
             MS. SHEKETOFF:  Libraries are in all rural 
communities.  We are located all over this country, so that 
rather than building new centers, we already have the library 
there, let's give them the resources that they need.  
             MR. LINKOUS:  If I can add a comment on that as well.  
I think you would be making terrible mistake if you did not look 
for applications of distributed intelligence that we now have 
available through computing systems and we can marry with a 
broadband system so we can take the computing power, the software 
available that is in the computing center and move it out into 
the communities and homes.  I very much agree with what ray was 
saying, I very much sport the computer centers that are there but 
we need to take that base and move it out to where the people 
are.  Even using mobile technology where people can get access to 
healthcare information, to intelligence in terms of distance 
learning, a lot of applications that you can move out beyond the 
institution to where the people are in their own communities and 
workplaces, in their homes no matter where the kids are playing, 
wherever it happens to be we need to take advantage of that.  
             MODERATOR:  From a telemedicine point of view you are 
suggesting it's better to have telemedicine resources at home 
rather than a clinic?  
             MR. LINKOUS:  Telemedicine needs to be wherever people 
are, in the clinic, at home, in the schools, wherever it happens 
to be.  You shouldn't limit it to one place.  
             MODERATOR:  Jason?  
             Mr. Goldman:  In terms of innovation, we have seen so 
many programs, one economy, the public private partnerships that 
leverage all the resources of if in a community, public colleges, 
E community groups, private sector, foundations, non-professor if 
fits, that's innovative.  Any place you can get economy of scale 
by consolidating and using the different resources in the 
community that's what RUS and NTIA should start.  I don't know if 
anybody saw a "Washington Post" article a few weeks ago about the 
mother who lost her job, so she took her kid to the library and 
the kid was doing research and she was looking for jobs on line 
but she was kicked off after a half an hour because of lack of 
computers in the library.  And that's something that, I would 
make in my association, adding more computers in the library with 
mentors and educators right there, it's important.  
             MODERATOR:  To go to one of the key words in the 
statute, sustainable.  Talking about broadband adoption programs.  
I heard from Hank about the electricity power grid tie-in, and 
perhaps some telemedicine applications.  Is it reasonable to 
think that this -- and I have been thing of sustainability as 
economically sustainable.  That broadband and new broadband to 
the home could actually be paid for by savings -- individual 
savings on medical costs on electricity costs and other things.  
Would those kind of things make broadband more -- clearly more 
sustainable?  
             MR. LINKOUS:  There is no issue about it.  Many 
studies have been showing, we just completed the, 2000 study, 
keeping people out of emergency rooms, out of hospitals, there is 
tremendous savings.  The problem with government is you have got 
to take a broader view of it.  There is a silo approach that if 
it costs my program more money I don't care if it saves Medicare, 
but if you look at it broadly there is huge and tremendous 
savings.  And the other point you are touching about when you go 
back to innovation and how do you judge innovation, one of the 
ways you judge it is there is a number of goals that president 
Obama has put into place one is the stimulus plan going and one 
is to extend broadband and one is healthcare reform.  You look at 
healthcare programs and there is other ins libraries as well, if 
you get them to meet a number of different types of national 
priorities, that's really where you have innovation and where you 
have cost savings and sustainability is another one that is part 
of it that you can marry it with programs like Medicare 
reimbursement where you have an ongoing sustainable model that 
will improve healthcare and medicine that will reduce costs.  
             MR. RAMSAY:  I wand want to second Jonathan on that. 
We are not going be able to achieve the goal of savings because 
we can't get everybody in nursing homes many will have to age in 
place, technology will be one of those things that will help us 
save money.  Have you companies like Intel and Cisco and other 
that is are working about device, we have to get smart about how 
we put it in the home and the last thing about sustainability is 
there are proven models in terms of how can we weave in how do we 
finance affordable housing, for example, so we have taken the tax 
credit program and have shown that you can invent this by 
networking the buildings, dropping costs and making it ubiquitous 
to the family who moves into the home.  There are smart things 
that we can do innovatively and then you get the take rate, 
because this is about adoption, getting people to adopt to the 
culture of using technology so they will make it their own.  We 
missed an opportunity in this country about how we used 
television.  It could be an instrument for education and learning 
and it has never achieved that goal and my opinion is that we 
didn't have the intentionality to make sure that it did. It's not 
a question of running lines and bringing fiber it's a matter of 
what intentionalities we are going to have.  We have proven 
technologies and proved in the ways of the workforce we need to 
apply it in an innovative way.  
             MODERATOR:  Telemedicine, telework, telemart grids, 
better learning, you think we could get broadband for everyone?  
We will have questions from the audience so if you can line up 
with microphones, then we will switch over to the q and a's in a 
second.  First of all before we do that, did anybody hear 
something from a fellow panelist that they really disagree with 
or really agree with and would just like to comment on each 
other's comments and proposals?  
             MR. KENCHINGTON: It's not a disagreement it's an 
overwhelming agreement with the whole telemedicine concept, 
bringing aging in place concept.  I think I feel strongly that's 
where we need to go as a society, as we see these changes.  As 
far as innovation, I think innovation is doing things differently 
and bringing value at the same time.  If you bring the value, it 
will be sustainable.  And you see it through smart grid 
applications, Google has developed an application for your cell 
phone where you control your energy at home from your cell phone.  
So you see new businesses being created with entrepreneurial 
people.  
             MODERATOR:  Let's go to questions.  I have a couple 
from the web.  Let's start with microphone number one.  Identify 
yourself and indicate if you are asking a question or making a 
commented.  If you are asking a question, to whom is it directed?  
             #01:  My name is Gerald, and I am president for a not 
for profit organization called the Quilt.  The Quilt has 
partnered with another organization called state nets and today 
we represent 30 of our country's regional and advanced networks 
which are critical middle mile of the national research and 
education networks connected thousands of research, education and 
public service institutions to other anchor tenants within our 
communities, states and nation.  State and regional research and 
education networks provided an advanced networking services to 
urban and rural community institutions that otherwise would not 
have these services these networks enable anchor institutions to 
join together within their communities and geographic areas to 
cost effectively use our networks for essential research and 
education purposes that require high broadband speeds.  My 
comments today echo some of which were echoed by the panelists.  
For the down payment of deployment of a /TPHAURBGS the NTIA 
should give priority waiting to multipurpose /-P requests that 
deliver advanced network services and best service the public 
interest.  That will reach the anchor institutions of our states, 
their communities such as universities, colleges, schools, 
medical centers and libraries.  These advanced networking 
services should foster /KHRABGSZ among researchers, educators, 
doctors and students, all who play vital roles in wide broadband 
adoption.  The scope of the proposal should include plans to 
deploy advanced network services that require specific end point 
equipment for applications such as telepresence and telehealth.  
On the topic for funding for computer center capacity we 
recommend NTIA give priority requests to those with corresponding 
and viable funding directed to the broadband infrastructure that 
must connect these computer centers to other anyone corp. 
Community institutions.  Thank you.  
             MODERATOR:  I should have interrupted but I forgot to 
warn everyone that there is a minute, and I will -- part of my 
job is to be rude and interrupt.  I didn't do that, so I didn't 
interrupt, but I will in the future.  Up at the top.  Microphone 
number 2.  
             #01:  My name is Louisa Hamden.  Our proposition is 
the cheapest and fastest and best option is mobile broadband.  
And we also want everybody who is willing to approach NTIA and 
RUS for grants to come to us and blog and talk about the 
concerted efforts to achieve this.  We have members that can 
provide location services weather alerts bundled with mobile 
broadband.  These are the options that we believe rural areas 
need.  People die if you are in isolated areas.  They don't know 
whether the weather will change or not.  We have had Boy Scouts 
dying not long ago because they were hit by lightning.  They did 
not know the weather conditions were going to change that 
quickly.  I believe $7.2 billion in the stimulus package we V 
let's offer the best technology we V. As a member we provided 
these options to the China and provided it to the defense 
department here in Alaska.  It works and can deploy in as little 
as five days and no need to wire copper or any kind of difficulty 
that the wire adoptions offer.  I think mobile is the option to 
go, and -- 
             MODERATOR:  I will have to interrupt just to keep 
everything on track.  Thank you very much.  Top of the 
micro-number 3.  
             #01:  I am Harry Rush with the Appalachian regional 
commission.  In regards to telemedicine one of the things that 
the Appalachian regional commission has watched over the past 
30 years is hospitals, nursing homes, extended care facilities 
closing.  They are in many instances the number one or number 2 
employer in the county.  Where we have funded telemedicine 
programs, we have been able to sustain hospitals, create job 
opportunities for new physicians to move into the area.  We have 
also done programs that have done continuing educational 
opportunities to sustain the medical corps within the Appalachian 
region through distance learning programs and through the 
facilitated types of access that are through the libraries.  
These are all innovative programs that have been extremely 
successful in keeping the Appalachian communities vibrant places 
for economic development, job sustainment, and the creation of 
jobs.  So any projects that come into either one of these 
agencies that are dealing with these innovative type of 
activities a critical thing that supports economic development in 
Appalachia and in rural America everywhere.  Thank you.  
             MODERATOR:  Thank you.  Microphone number 4.  
             #01:  Hi, my name is Andrew Feinberg, I am with 
broadband census news.  I have two questions one is from the 
woman from ALA.  It's how is it that you keep bringing up 
distance learning and rich video streaming video applications as 
so important to libraries as an access point when libraries are 
often some of the most restrictive places where people can use 
the internet?  There is the woman that got kicked off after using 
it too long searching for a job.  Also sites are often blocked, 
filtered despite ALA's objections and the next thing is, what's 
the problem with people using it in their homes?  They have to go 
home after the library closes, they can't sleep there.  
             MS. SHEKETOFF:  Well, many libraries don't have the 
resources they would like, and don't have access to broad band 
and therefore they don't have another work stations and that's 
why they have to have a limited amount of time.  Some have 
30 minutes, 45 minutes, one hour, and that's just a function of 
not having enough money and not having enough resources and not 
having access to the band width that they need.  As far as 
filtering or censorship, libraries have fought very hard against 
the government requirements on filtering, but the Supreme Court 
has ruled that any adult can go to a librarian and have that 
filter turned off, but libraries like every place else do not 
promote access to things that are illegal and child pornography 
is illegal, so you will not find access to child pornography in 
the library.  
             #01:  Excuse me, that wasn't the question I asked.  
             #01:  You asked me about access to information that 
was filtered and I am saying that libraries that do filtering -- 
             #01:  Schools and libraries are not places where 
people have access to all of the applications that you can get on 
the internet today.  And I don't mean illegal content, I mean web 
2.0 sites.  U tube is filtered at many schools which are calling 
for more funding to band width to schools.  
             MS. SHEKETOFF:  I will let the NEA comment about 
schools.  I am just commenting about the library, and I am 
telling you that if you are an adult, you can ask the librarian 
to dismantle the filter and he or she will do that, but the law 
requires us to have -- we accept federal /TPUPBGD, the law 
requires us to filter.  
             MODERATOR:  Okay.  I want to stay on the topic of 
innovative programs and expanding computer centers.  And in that 
regard, I do have an interesting question from Jeff Tamiatti of 
eclipse.net medical lake, Washington, but it's not a medical 
question.  It's for Hank, and it says in regards to the 
$4.5 billion allotted to your department for smart grid 
technology does this open up an additional source of broadband 
service companies to apply for in addition to the NTIA and RUS 
funds and you may not be able to address this one, and if so, is 
it possible to apply for all three at the same time?  
             MR. KENCHINGTON: There are requirements, I should say 
the RFP's are not completely done but there will be requirements 
to report on any other interactions with other government funding 
or applications, or any individual applications, so that being 
said there are opportunities to use, both sources of funding.  
             MODERATOR:  We had an earlier panel on coordination 
with RUS and NTIA, are you suggesting there needs to be a link to 
coordination with the Department of Energy?  
             MR. KENCHINGTON: Yes.  
             MODERATOR:  We will take one more here from the -- in 
the auditorium, and then I will have a question from the web?  
             #01:  My name is Angela Flynn and I am with the 
wireless affiliation network.  I have a quick comment and then a 
question.  When I think of sustainability, the biggest issue of 
the day is lowering CO2 levels.  According to the council CO2 
emissions from the industry exceeds that of the entire aviation 
industry.  Fiber operatorics use ten times more data and is 
clearly more efficient it is our best effort to lower CO2 
emissions.  I am electro sensitive.  I became sensitive to RF 
radiation in an exposure that was below the federal regulations 
on RF exposure and have joined the ranks of people who are RF 
sensitive.  The following agencies have issued warnings for RF 
exposure to children, the European environmental agency, the 
French parliament, the U.K. Department of Education, the 
Australian medical association, the Belgium ministry of climate 
and energy and the Toronto department of public health.  The 
bioinitiative report which was published in 2007 recommends 
exposure standards that are 1000 lower than our standards.  I 
would like to know why this isn't on the agenda in general and 
for children in particular?  Thank you.  
             MODERATOR:  Does anybody have an ability to answer 
that question?  I don't know that that's something that the 
expertise of this panel can address.  However, on the healthcare 
side, I do have two questions or related questions from the web.  
One is from healthWyoming.gov, James bush, and the other is from 
Christopher Sullivan, Ph.D., the Florida center for health 
information and policy analysis.  Wyoming has enough country that 
is not classified enough as rural but specified as frontier.  Is 
there that is not financially feasible to lay infrastructure in 
these areas where telehealth is indispensable and can you expand 
on our current FCC grant and the other question is should the 
NTIA RUS broadband program be integrated with the FCC healthcare 
rural pilot projects or will these new projects be separate and 
do you have any views on that?  
             MR. LINKOUS:  I will answer yes to both.  There is 
differences in the definition of rural, there is a lot of 
difference ins a lot of federal programs on the definition of 
rural.  Rural utility service, NTIA does not have the same 
definition, doesn't have that much of a barrier in terms of urban 
and rural but folks in Frontier areas, I would certainly point 
that out in the application as one more way of taking a look at 
the applications.  So for the people in the far Frontier areas of 
the country, particularly out west or in Alaska or somewhere, 
there is probably additional costs on a per person basis for 
connection and certainly that should be taken into consideration.  
             MODERATOR:  And that might follow under the heading of 
unserved.  
             MR. KENCHINGTON: No doubt about it.  And very clearly 
we feel the FCC pilot program, one of the problems is some areas 
that are not covered in terms of funding, for example, 
administrative costs and some of the other medical costs 
associated with it.  This is a tremendous opportunity to have the 
federal government have the agencies actually work together and 
cover costs and programs so you build on one another and make 
something successful.  Very strongly in terms of coordination 
with the FCC program.  
             MODERATOR:  Jonathan, in your /PRARBGS, you mentioned 
organizations that I never heard of ONC and some others, how 
many -- just off the top of your head, how many agencies in 
government are involved in telemedicine projects that should 
coordinate with you?  
             MR. KENCHINGTON: There is 15 or 20 federal programs 
that are somehow funding directly or in/TKEURL.  The Veterans 
Administration has millions of dollars a day directly funded into 
person's homes providing healthcare service, the national 
coordinator in department of homeland services has received 
$2 billion in stimulus money to provide remote technology 
including healthcare.  We need to move forward in providing 
coordination we can be helpful in terms of who these folks are.  
             MODERATOR:  Do you think NTIA and RUS are going to 
need a coordination officers.  A lot of people to work with to 
get more bang for the buck.  
             MODERATOR:  Number 4?  
             #01:  Hello, my name is Robert Finch.  I am with 
surpass.  My question is really an education question, so I 
suppose for Mr. Hermes or Ms. Duncan.  I have had the pleasure of 
sitting on the board and working with educators who were granted 
FCC licenses years ago to provide educational television.  It's 
been a success and now in terms of inknow separation those 
licenses have been converted over to provide broadband wireless.  
So one of the educational leaders -- one of the leader ins 
education some of the leaders have been out of Catholic 
television, /KAPBLG parochial schools would they be eligible to 
looking at programs that would provide education for kids from 
the K through 12 level.  
             MODERATOR:  I would change the will to should. None of 
these questions could answer will, but should. So "should."  
             MR. HERMES:  I do recall over the past few years 
recall the work they have done through that. As a K-12 area as 
far as how schools introduce that spectrum.  In terms of our 
general stance is, and I don't know what is totally applicable 
here but when talking about limited public resources, you 
generally, we generally support focusing those resources on 
public and nonprofit and private institutions which I guess those 
schools would fall under, which is a long way of saying, I don't 
have a strong opinion on that.  
             MODERATOR:  Erin, do you have one?  
             MS. DUNCAN:  Putting on my hat, I'd can say we work a 
lot under the group, so there is a precedent for that. And of 
course, NEA supports public schools.  
             MR. HERMES:  I will add in terms of the value of some 
of those institutions.  We have been talking a lot about rural 
today, which is certainly an important element of this but of 
course one of the other elements is, of course, the lack of 
access especially in the home in many of our urban areas and I 
think that those institutions had a very good impact in a lot of 
those areas as well.  
             MODERATOR:  And microphone number 1?  
             #01:  Rico single-to-deputy chief information officer 
for New York state.  Just a comment.  We believe that laying a 
high speed infrastructure alone doesn't accomplish the needs of 
the bill or the state in that demand stimulation and digital 
literacy programs also goes as a key component to a comprehensive 
strategy on broadband, therefore we would recommend that the NTIA 
would give consideration if not priority to those projects being 
submitted that also seek to accomplish some goals around demand 
stimulation, literacy, accessibility either through public 
computing centers or education centers and libraries.  And we 
also encourage that consideration be given for innovative 
applications of both fixed as well as mobile operations but most 
especially in the public safety spectrum.  Thanks.  
             MODERATOR:  Thank you.  And microphone number 4?  
             #01:  Yes, my name is Brent Wilkes I am from the 
league of Latin American citizens, we are the largest and oldest 
Hispanic organization in the country and we operate the large 
evidence network of technology centers throughout the United 
States.  We had quite a few technology centers to have 
conversations about Latino families adopting broadband centers at 
the home.  Certainly cost is a barrier but also lack of awareness 
about the opportunity that broadband provides and how they have 
been using it.  I would like to hear from the panel a bit about 
what they think we would be able to do to help encourage these 
families to adopt broadband but also secondly with the new fund 
/-LG initiative coming through we talked with the centers and not 
one of the 57 locations was aware of the new opportunities that 
was available in the stimulus bill and we are wondering if you 
could comment a bit about how we can work to make sure that the 
Latino and African American community based organizations are 
aware of these funding opportunities particularly with the 
broadband adoption moneys if there is a possibility of increasing 
the floor of $250 million or if that is a hard number there.  
             MODERATOR:  I think the basic question, Rey, you can 
take a crack at that question.  If you can get the mic over to 
Rey.  In the funding, the law literally said "at least. " So it's 
at least 250 million.  That's what I concluded.  In terms of 
outreach, I am glad you are here today, I presume you will be 
reaching out to your members and that's one of the reasons that 
these programs are being webcast and to the extent that anyone 
here or on the web on teleconference is aware of organizations or 
individuals that might have an interest in these kinds of 
programs, please tune in. I know NTIA and RUS are trying to work 
as best they can to make as many people aware of the 
possibilities as possible.  That's all I can say from my own 
observation.  Rey?  
             MR. RAMSAY:  I would say there are a number of 
adoption demand side strategies.  One of the things that has 
worked that we have been able to do in different communities, 
particularly communities of color, Latino communities is really 
getting the young people involved because they are the first 
movers in technology and they will be able to bring that home.  
So we have a program called digital connectors and we hire young 
kids between 14 and 21 and they are good given a stipend and they 
are provided a laptop so they bring it home and provide a 
community service at the same time.  We have /P hundred of those 
young people doing it.  We do it in San Jose and Miami, and I 
would be happy to share with you information about that. If you 
look at the Pew analysis about wide particularly communities of 
color do not go on line, it gives you a great blue print that if 
you do the flip side of what you are saying is the problem we 
need to have the intentionality to solve it, awareness of 
technology is one of them.  We need to focus on that.  
             MS. DUNCAN:  The partnership for 21st century skills 
focuses on creating a higher level of skills in the schools for 
technology integration and other activities that reality help our 
students prepare for the jobs in the future and just back to what 
earlier Rey was talking about students are like sieves.  If they 
were doing something cool at school and have the ability for the 
school to fully use broadband technology to allow teachers to be 
creative and innovative to use the tools available to them.  They 
will go home and tell their parents and hopefully go to their 
libraries and bring their parents to the library and show them 
the cool stuff on the internet and then there is economic issues 
of course bringing into the home.  My parents just got high speed 
last year, they are from a very rural Nebraska, it wasn't 
available to them.  But I want to point out that schools are 
really key.  
             Mr. Goldman:  And we can't forget about our seniors 
and having grandchildren teach their grandparents how to use the 
internet.  It is a great tool to help keep the grandparents young 
and active so, I would add that to the list.  
             MODERATOR:  And grandparents need help from their 
teenagers.  I will keep to my own rules.  I will ask the time 
keeper to keep me.  I have a question from Wyoming.  This relates 
to grants for expanding public computer center capacity.  What 
selection criteria should be applied to ensure the success of 
this aspect of the program?  As the only institution of higher 
learning within a 30-mile radius we offer public use computers at 
two campus locations.  The limitation of service is not the 
availability of computers but the limited capacity and high cost 
of band width to the internet.  Applications to link campuses 
that serve the community to advocate their computer needs and 
provide for band width at lower cost should be a pre-/ROG give.  
That's item 1.  Item 2, applicants should also describe how they 
would integrate their project with other regional projects to 
expand public computer center capacity.  Community centers in 
particular are you will K through 12 school districts and 
nonprofit.  Selection criteria should look beyond the immediate 
project and include the broader impact with other institutions 
and initiatives that would expand to public computer capacity.  I 
went over time.  Are there comments on the two issues, the 
capacity is the problem, not the number of computers and the idea 
of using the community college as an aggregator for demand from a 
number of institutions.  
             MR. HERMES:  I don't have anything to add to that, but 
coming from one of my members, I will say I appreciate that 
comment.  
             MR. KENCHINGTON: The only. 
             MR. LINKOUS:  The only thing I would add to that is 
it's not specifically related to community colleges but we talked 
about the need for coordination on the federal level.  But we 
have seen this in other grants that have been approved way too 
often, it's a sole source grant that goes in our case a 
healthcare application that may have nothing to do with the fact 
that there are four or five healthcare applications being funded 
for healthcare in our case in the same community so it's 
important for applicants to talk about and reviewers within the 
departments look at how what they are doing their integrates or 
relate to other programs that are already happening in the 
community.  
             MODERATOR:  And telemedicine technology or band width 
also be used for libraries and for education?  
             MR. LINKOUS:  Once you get out in the community you 
focus on the individual and the individual's need their needs are 
education, research, and health information and health treatment.  
             MODERATOR:  If we talk about sustainability, 
healthcare and telework and other politics smart group could in a 
sense pay for broad band in a home if some of these things could 
get together, the cost of the band width shared would be -- might 
and substantially less than individual uses.  
             MR. LINKOUS:  Hopefully we are not talking about 
multiple networks although there is competing networks but in 
terms of applications in the home we are talking about getting 
broadband to where people are.  I said early on and I strongly 
believe the goal of this program should be ubiquitous broadband 
connectivity and we work on application that is work on that back 
bone or multiple back bones could be wired or wireless but that's 
where the emphasis should be as well.  
             MODERATOR:  Who would like a last word if anyone.  
             MS. SHEKETOFF:  I am never shy.  I agree with much of 
what my colleagues have said and I think that especially when you 
are talking about rural America, bringing broadband into a focus 
like schools and libraries and from there making it available to 
individual residents and telemedicine clinics, other things, that 
seems to be the way to go.  It answers all the questions, going 
into the library is a guaranteed market, we can sustain it, we 
can have access to the whole community and in serving the 
community the broadband could go out from the library to local 
government, individual homes and to other areas that need it.  
             MODERATOR:  That I think was a good place to end this 
panel.  I would remind people on the web and on the 
teleconference, I think we covered most of the things that came 
in, all items that come in over the web or through the 
teleconference will be entered into the record, please send -- 
respond to the RFI, provide as much input, ideas, advice, 
guidance to NTIA and RUS as you possibly can.  They will 
appreciate it.  And I very much appreciate the panel here today.  
They've done enormous work.  It's 4:15, that's the end of our 
time.  We will be back here on Thursday for another set of 
panelists.  I think have you the agendas.  Hopefully we will see 
you on Thursday.  Thank you. 


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