MTA President meets with DEED

Brent J. Christensen, President and CEO of the Minnesota Telecom Alliance met with Minnesota DEED Commissioner Phillips this morning, September 21st.  They talked about the telework summit and asked them to look at adding a “Statewide Telework” location field to their jobforce website, which DEED agreed to look into.  They also talked about the white paper the Center for Rural Policy and Development is doing on the economic impact of telcos in MN and how the FCC is working on changes to USF/ICC that will significantly impact what and how we do business.  The meeting will be followed up in November with a meeting between DEED and the Minnesota Telecom Alliance Economic Development Committee to discuss mutual areas where we could promote economic development in rural Minnesota.

Broadband in Faribault County

The following is a video that highlights the use and benefit of broadband in Faribault County, Minnesota. It’s a nice display of broadband use and adoption in the area – focusing on the BEVCOMM as the provider.

It was created by Save Rural Broadband. Here is a description of the organization from their web site…

Save Rural Broadband was created by the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association, Organization for the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies, and the Western Telecommunications Alliance to educate Americans about Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proposals that could profoundly affect rural America. Our goal is to show Congress and the Obama administration how the proposals the FCC released in February 2011 are detrimental to efforts to upgrade broadband Internet networks in many rural communities – and how it would result in loss of jobs and decreased economic development in regions of America that need them most. We are working to convince the FCC to instead move forward to adopt the landmark “consensus framework” that has been submitted by a unified group of small, mid-size, and large carriers. This framework is the product of many years of discussion, representing an important step forward by the telecommunications industry to reach tough compromises that will restore regulatory certainty.