These are notes on the proposed 2014 CTTAB priorities, as well as potential committees that related to the work proposed. Please see the below, reference the Feb. 11 meeting notes for more detail and presentations on the Mayor and Councilmember Harrell priorities.
We welcome feedback. Use the comment form at the bottom or message to the hashtag #CTTAB on Twitter. These priorities & any public comment on them will be discussed at the March 11, 2014 CTTAB meeting. To limit spam, comments are moderated, so they won’t show up right away, but they are welcome!
—
Mayor’s priorities:
Broadband (no plan to reveal on broadband yet – piloting different projects in different neighborhoods. Seeking data on service needs)
Community engagement – How citizens interact with the city & how technology helps people get a seat at the table to engage with the city.
Big data – sharing data for analysis across city departments
Asks from Mayor for CTTAB:
Ideas for strategies, partnerships, info to help us resolve issues,
work with us on lay of the land and setting priorities.
Still learning, but a good role may also be help us set criteria.
Possible CTTAB action items:
Help advise on ways to show the feedback loop; what the city’s actually doing with everything they see/hear online
Help ID ways for community to provide data to city for decision making
Big data – forum topic?
Get Online possible topic – engaging with the city/community
City Council’s priorities:
Priority 1: Improving broadband environment, starting with SDOT rule revision, hopefully in first quarter. Want to work with new Mayor and change this year.
Priority 2: Comcast franchise renewal
Priority 3?: 311 system – single sign on
Asks from City Council for CTTAB:
Researching & presenting public feedback to committee on best practices related to city collected data
How to maintain TMF funding
E-waste education
Determine speed & price point for what community wants for next generation internet to be able to compete?
Possible CTTAB action items:
Help hearing public’s concerns & needs on cable. Forum topic?
Researching & presenting public feedback to committee on best practices related to city collected data – forum topic?
TMF funding ideas
Get Online topic – e-waste?
Survey community on speed/price point desires for community (if Council initiates a survey – we can promote rather than initiating).
- Broadband (with a discussion at our next meeting as to whether we want a separate “Cable Franchise Negotiation” committee or want it to remain under the general “Broadband” committee)
- Public Engagement
- Digital Inclusion
- eGov/Policy (based on the input from Mayor and Council about data, security, privacy etc, we should discuss it’s resurrection)
- TMF
- Get Online (might turn into a standing committee, given the year-round nature of Get Online)
- A standing committee for each public forum that we do this year
I support these priorities to.
“…speed & price point for what community wants for next generation internet”
Aaah, yes. There’s the Digital Divide, and then there’s the Socio-economic (Class) Divide. While the Haves are planning for the “next generation” internet and worrying about speed, the Have Nots are still hoping for ANY generation internet at ANY speed, at a “price point” THEY can afford (say 30-50% of the current prices, to go with their 30-50% of Area Median Income?).
Let the market take care of the needs of those near the middle and above; the poor need the city to use its clout to either provide internet service or require internet providers to provide service or the city could provide a subsidy (like with other utilities and housing).
Plus–please don’t forget that with smartphone plans being numerous, complicated, and restrictive, many low income people are locked into expensive plans or don’t know about lower-cost options. How about a Low Income, all-inclusive (talk, text, data) plan? (see Republic Wireless’ model and plans)
We discussed this quite a bit at the meeting today. There are a lot of opinions here from both the board and the public. I can’t speak for everybody but there seemed to be general consensus that when we talk about speed and price point we do mean viable options for everybody in the city, not just those who already have ok speeds and just want it faster and cheaper. Though many people (myself included) are in favor of much faster speed options like gigabit as well
But we did want to make sure you were aware of some of the work that has already been done on more accessible access:
http://www.seattle.gov/tech/lowcostinternet
The city has documented many of the options that are out there already with some very good comparisons. It covers the high level details in the bullets but there is also a longer presentation you can view with more details. But in general they seem well suited to serving those well below the Area Median Income.