Broadband policy: The Connected Nation model

In recent debates over whether the U.S. should have a more comprehensive broadband policy, one group claims significant success: Connected Nation.

Connected Nation, which started as a state program called ConnectKentucky, uses mostly state and some federal and private funding to stimulate broadband rollout. The nonprofit group says it has expanded broadband availability in Kentucky from 60 percent of households to 95 percent of households since January 2004.

The not-so-secret sauce: Connected Nation works with local communities to identify demand for broadband then takes that information to broadband providers.

Other states are now working to replicate the Kentucky program, and a handful of bills in the U.S. Congress focus on giving states more authority to implement similar programs.

Each state will need to create its own broadband plan, and even different communities within a state will have different needs, said Brian Mefford, Connected Nation's CEO. "We're not trying to come up with a one-size-fits-all solution," he said. "It's just common sense to acknowledge that eastern Kentucky is very different in a number of respects from western Montana."

Some other groups have called for federal tax breaks for broadband providers and other incentives, but Connected Nation hasn't focused on those types of government programs. "We've seen a bigger impact when we can work locally to identify pent-up demand," Mefford said. "The greater motivating factor is when a [broadband] company realizes that there's an untapped market."

Broadband providers such as Verizon and AT&T have worked with Connected Nation, and the model has found support from other groups, including the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a tech-focused think tank.

But Connected Nation has drawn its share of criticism as well. ConnectKentucky had close ties with BellSouth, now part of AT&T, and has lobbied for telecom deregulation and tax breaks for large telecom carriers, said Art Brodsky, communications director for Public Knowledge, a digital rights advocacy group and frequent critic of large carriers.

ConnectKentucky also received funding from AT&T, Brodsky said.

"They're good at telling a story," Brodsky added. "But they're pushing an agenda that benefits carriers."

Mefford acknowledges that ConnectKentucky has worked closely with broadband providers, but the focus was on rolling out service, he said. "We did that for pragmatic reasons, if nothing else," he added.

While ConnectKentucky has relationships with large providers, it has worked with a range of providers, down to the "smallest wireless ISPs," Mefford said. In an effort to map broadband service across the state, ConnectKentucky worked with more than 80 ISPs, he said. Less than 1 percent of the group's funding came from AT&T, he added.

Brodsky raised several other questions about Connected Nation in a January blog posting.