AN ACT CONCERNING TELECOMMUTING.

This bill requires the Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD), in consultation with the Department of Public Utility Control (DPUC) and the Broadband Internet Coordinating Council, to establish within available appropriations, a public-private partnership to develop a comprehensive, statewide high-speed deployment strategy and adoption initiative. DECD, in consultation with DPUC and the council, must contract with a nonprofit organization with competency in working with public and private sectors to accomplish wide-scale deployment and adoption of telecommunications and information technology. Under the bill, high-speed internet is as it is defined in the Code of Federal Regulations as of January 1, 2008. This appears to refer to service that provides a data connection to the Internet providing an information rate exceeding 200 kilobits per second in either direction (7 CFR § 2201. ).

Under the bill, private entities submitting data to help develop the strategy must only provide such data to the extent and in the format they maintain the data in their normal course of business. Any information they designate as confidential or proprietary must be treated as such and governed by an appropriate nondisclosure agreement. The data submitted by providing entities are not subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.

The bill requires DECD, by March 1, 2010, to report the recommendations developed by the public-private partnership to the Energy and Technology and Commerce committees.

The bill specifies that it does not give DECD any additional regulatory or other authority over telecommunications and information technology providers.

Under the bill, the public-private partnership must obtain input and cooperation among state agencies and must establish an initiative for deploying high-speed and promoting its adoption. The partnership bodies representing economic and local community development, technology planning, education, healthcare, and other relevant entities. The private entities in the partnership must include providers of broadband service, telecommunications providers, technology companies, community-based organizations, and relevant private sector entities to achieve the bill's purposes.

1. create a geographic statewide inventory of high-speed service and other relevant telecommunications and information technology services, consistent with any federal data reporting requirements;

2. track statewide residential and business adoption of high speed Internet, computers, and related information technology through data collected directly from end-users by telephone surveys or similar methods, identifying barriers to adoption and measuring progress on these data annually;

3. build and facilitate in each county or designated region a local technology planning team with members representing a cross-section of the community, at least including representatives of business, kindergarten through grade 12 education, health care, libraries, higher education, community-based organizations, local government, tourism, parks and recreation, and agriculture;

4. work with high-speed service providers and technology companies across the state to encourage deployment and use in underserved areas through the use of local demand aggregation, mapping analysis, and the creation of market intelligence to improve the business case for providers to deploy such service; and

5. establish programs to improve computer ownership and Internet access for disenfranchised populations across the state.

Under the bill, the inventory must (1) identify geographic gaps in high-speed service through GIS mapping of service availability and analysis at the census block level, (2) provide a baseline assessment of statewide high-speed deployment in terms of percentage of households with high-speed availability, and (3) update these data every six months. The teams must benchmark technology use across relevant community sectors, set goals for improved technology use within each sector and develop a business plan to achieve its goals, with specific recommendations for online application development and demand creation.

sHB 6426, reported favorably by the Energy and Technology Committee, is similar to this bill but makes DPUC, rather than DECD, the lead agency.