UC2B Community Civic Event Meeting

Purpose of meeting: Models for Building Local Broadband: Public, Private, Coop, Nonprofit.

Sponsored by: Independent Media Center.

Location: Urbana City Hall, 400 S. Vine St., Urbana

Presenters: Brandon Bowersox-Johnson, Facilitator - Chair, UC2B Policy Committee, Urbana City Council Member, Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center Member
Chris Mitchell - Institute for Local Self Reliance (expert in municipal broadband)
Joanne Hovis - CTC Technology & Energy (public interest telecommunications expert)
Wally Bowen - Mountain Area Information Network (a non-profit Internet provider)

Urbana-Champaign, Illinois is completing construction of a public system - called UC2B - that will connect 10% of the community with fast broadband they can use to access the Internet, share videos, make phone calls and more. The project was made possible by federal funds.

How do we connect the other 90% of our community to fast broadband? With what funds? Who will control it? How can these models support digital inclusion for minority and low-income users?

The Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center has gathered some of the top experts in the field of community broadband to join in a discussion of these questions. During this forum, which will be webcast nationally, we will explore public, public-private, non-profit, and cooperative models for building out broadband.

We will discuss the benefits and challenges of each model to inform our community's upcoming decision about building out the rest of the UC2B network. Urbana-Champaign recently applied to build out the network with Gigabit Squared in a public-private partnership where the network is owned by a private company and the public sets the terms of use. The community is also exploring municipal and co-op models and has a request for proposals to seek other partners and solutions.

For more information contact Danielle Chynoweth, Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center Board Member, at chyn@ucimc.org. To view the national webcast of this forum, copy and paste this link into your browser: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/ucimc.