Consumer and Business members of CALinnovates were treated to a panel discussion featuring Chairman Julius Genachowski, CALinnovates Board Member Ron Conway, Andreessen-Horowitz VC Jeff Jordan, Twilio’s Jeff Lawson, Lookout’s John Hering and foursquare’s Holger Luedorf in San Francisco at the Founders Den.  The panel, moderated by CALinnovates Executive Director Mike Montgomery, addressed the need to unleash spectrum in order to stimulate the economy, create jobs, speed up our networks, and support innovation at every level.

Read more about the event:

• Business Insider
• TechCrunch
• Techwire article
• Techwire video

Take Action:

• Letter to Congress urging the authorization of voluntary incentive auctions (Votizen)

As a Managing Partner of Compass Lexecon and a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, Jon Orszag is an expert on the economic and inherent benefits of increased access to broadband and spectrum for consumers and economic growth.

The FCC created an infographic that details the challenges and the opportunities facing the mobile and wireless industry.

Interested in what this means for consumers, job creation and data usage?  Click HERE.

By Matt Hamblen | Computerworld

Expanding mobile broadband services in the U.S. in the coming years would produce thousands of new jobs and help reverse today’s downward employment trend, a group of economic development and business officials said Wednesday.

“As mobile broadband is built out, you are likely to see jobs created,” said Michael Mandel, chief economic strategist for the Progressive Policy Institute during a conference call sponsored by the Internet Innovation Alliance (IIA).

To read the rest of this article, please click here

“105 families in California add a broadband connection every hour”

The term “broadband” refers to the high-speed internet service which allows users to access a large volume of data very quickly. Think of it like a highway: the more lanes there are, the more traffic that can pass through efficiently. For instance, a very narrow road (or single-band signal) only has the capacity for light traffic, or Morse Code, for instance. Larger bandwidth can handle more types of data – such as telephone communication or music on the radio. A broadband “highway” has the capacity to move more complex and larger data vehicles very rapidly.

Continue reading “Access to Technology & Broadband” →

Written By Lawrence J. Spiwak
Forbes
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2011/05/04/attention-congress-we-need-more-phone-spectrum-and-soon/2/

Americans love their mobile devices. With the rapid adoption of smartphones and tablets, the amount of data transmitted across mobile devices has exploded by 8,000% in four years on some networks, and experts expect demand to continue to increase exponentially over the coming years. However, as we demand more wireless broadband, the amount of spectrum available for these uses is rapidly becoming crowded, to the point where engineers are beginning to speak of “spectrum exhaustion.” So as consumers switch from traditional mobile voice service to 4G broadband services, not only do providers need more spectrum, but this spectrum needs to be made available in large, contiguous blocks in order to maximize spectral efficiencies and to minimize network deployment costs.