President's Iowa Stop Spotlights Broadband as a Major Key to Economic Development

President Obama’s three-day bus tour through a handful of Midwest states is now complete. On Tuesday, the President hosted the Rural Economic Forum at Northeast Iowa Community College in Peosta. That’s where he addressed local farmers, small business owners, private sector leaders, rural organizations, and government officials about ideas and initiatives to promote economic growth, accelerate hiring, and spur innovation in rural communities nationwide.

During the town hall style session, the President spoke directly about goals to strengthen the economy. One major goal of his administration is the modernizing of infrastructure by providing broadband access to 10 million Americans. Broadband access is a major key to expanding educational opportunities for students in rural areas as well as providing affordable and accessible health care.

In a press release from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the agency points to the positive long term impact saying, “These unparalleled rural investments will help ensure that America's rural communities are repopulating, self-sustaining and thriving economically.”

CN’s Data-Rich Broadband Maps Helping Shape National Policy

Reliable broadband data is critical to building a faster, more connected nation. Yesterday, CN filed comments with the FCC detailing how the broadband data it has collected is helping answer many of the important broadband policy challenges that face America.

Comments were submitted to the FCC’s Seventh Broadband Deployment Notice of Inquiry that serves as a progress report for the status of broadband deployment in the nation. Key to this regulatory oversight is an assessment of whether “advanced telecommunications services” are being deployed to all Americans in a timely manner. This year the FCC assessment will count for the first time comprehensive, granular data collected across the nation through the State Broadband Data and Development (SBDD) mapping initiative. Connected Nation is the largest mapping partner under this program working in the states of Alaska, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and the Territory of Puerto Rico. These states and territories account for 34% of the U.S. population and 42% of the land mass of the U.S.

The data collected through the SBDD program is available to the FCC and other federal agencies. These data will be instrumental for policy making at the FCC and state level. For example, using these data, Connected Nation released last month an Iowa Broadband report analyzing the broadband inventory data in order to address policy concerns such as the penetration of broadband deployment at multiple speed tiers ranging from 786 Kbps to 1 Giga, Universal Service Fund reform, measuring the adoption gap across the state, and more. Connected Nation is in the process of providing similar analyses for other jurisdictions.