A Broadband Vision for California
This report has been commissioned by the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC). CENIC is a not-for-profit corporation that serves the networking needs of all of California’s educational entities, from K-12 to the research universities. CENIC’s Next Generation Internet (NGI) Roundtable is catalyzing a statewide intellectual hotbed and first-of-a-kind technology test bed for solutions to speed the deployment of ubiquitous one gigabit (one billion bits per second) in the “first mile.” The goal of one gigabit represents more than a thousand-fold increase from today’s commercial Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) and cable data networks.
The State of California has awarded a grant to CENIC to focus on speeding one-gigabit broadband to all Californians by 2010, or, in California shorthand, One Gigabit or BustTM. CENIC engaged Gartner to evaluate the economic potential of an acceleration of next generation broadband deployment in California. In addition, Gartner was asked to interview many of the top broadband thinkers, policy makers and consumer advocates within California and throughout the United States with a view toward understanding the opportunities and challenges a next generation broadband initiative in California might face. The specific objectives of this report are to:
- Estimate the economic benefit to the state
- Scope the project in terms of what needs to be done
- Outline the important items to be considered in strategy formalization
- Identify the next steps to be undertaken
