Portland City Hall

Come show your support for Municipal Broadband in Portland! Help us build visible support for the next step, which is to convince the city council to fund a feasibility study in its upcoming budget! Come learn about what you can do to make a public net neutral broadband service a reality in Portland!

At the rally, you can also enjoy musical performances by musicians who care about net neutrality and municipal broadband! Performing will be: Snailbones Grandfather Plastic Cactus Dim Wit Erika Donocho

Invite your friends! We look forward to seeing you there!

Roses are red, violets are blue, we need net neutrality and public ownership too! Hope you like typewriters, this month's event will feature a lot of them.

Comcast and other large internet service providers have successfully lobbied to repeal net neutrality, sell information about what you do online, and prevent localities from properly regulating them. Municipal broadband is the last line of defense against internet service provider abuses which threaten freedom of information, digital equality, and democracy itself.

Municipal broadband is something many cities such as Tacoma, WA and Sandy, OR already have. In Portland we have been planning to build a municipal broadband network decades, now that our internet freedoms are under attack, it’s an idea whose time has come.

2:00 pm: Event starts 2:15 pm: Speakers 2:50 pm: Letter typing 3:20 pm: The big secret is revealed! ✨

The five commissioners of the City of Portland vote this morning on the proposal for Google Fiber.

Google has requested that Portland and surrounding suburbs ready the area for potential future gigabit residential service. Google will evaluate cities across the country and select a few for Internet and TV services. https://fiber.google.com/newcities/

Current thinking is that a decision would be made by Google late this year, early next; and construction would span 2015-17 if Portland is selected.

You can watch at https://www.portlandoregon.gov/article/230361

The discussion is Item #605. The testimony has already been completed, but a full chamber of Portlanders in person who want Google Fiber is important to the project.

The time is approximate because the Council has a myriad of items to vote upon. Although the meeting room is formal, you can come and go easily.

Commissioners love to hear your thoughts and ideas to make Portland better - you can contact them by the website portlandoregon.gov, year round.

Google measures city interest and prioritizes neighborhoods by you entering your address as interested in Google Fiber at https://fiber.google.com/about/ under Check Address.

You're invited to the front lines of Connecting to our Future. Portland is laying seminal ground work for Wireless and Wirelined municipal and regional strategy.

You are welcome to attend the upcoming City Council Work Session on Portland's draft Broadband Strategic Plan, Connecting to our Future on July 26, 2011 at 9:30 am, either:

On site in Council Chambers, City Hall, 1221 SW 4th Avenue, Portland. Live stream on cable CityNet 30 http://www.portlandonline.com/index.cfm?c=28262&a=230361

The session will feature, among other presenters: * Anthony Townsend, Institute of the Future and co-author of The Future of Cities, Information and Inclusion http://www.iftf.org/user/20 * Amber Case, Portland native and Cyborg Anthropologist, TedxWomen presenter, and recent Seed Fund recipient for Geoloqi, who will speak on the Internet of Things http://caseorganic.com/about

Looking forward to seeing you there for this sauce of the awesome line up!

The session materials packet (including agenda and times of presenters) can be found at http://www.portlandonline.com/cable/index.cfm?c=55322&a=357937

A great Prezi format of the Portland Broadband Strategy Planning and its confluence with global and National Broadband Strategy Planning is posted here: http://prezi.com/pt42wyrjoccu/connecting-to-our-future/?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=shareprezi&utm_medium=email

See also the recent Portland FCC Notice of Inquiry (NOI) on Broadband Acceleration http://www.portlandonline.com/cable/index.cfm?c=54013&a=357224