Chris was recently invited to present in Brussels on the experience of U.S. cities and fiber optic investment. The event was organized by the Swedish Association of Local Authorities (SALAR) and Stokab (The City of Stockholm IT infrastructure company).
Mitchell gave an overview of the situation in the US and described the difficulties of getting high-capacity broadband, even in cities like New York. He talked about how initiatives like Google Fiber came about more as response to the lack of high capacity infrastructure than a venture driven by the business itself.
The main discussion focused on how telecom markets can be structured in order to encourage service-based competition and innovation, and how municipalities and regions engage in fiber deployment.
You can watch Chris’ talk here and other videos from the seminar are available here.
Chris spoke more about his trip on this week’s Community Broadband Bits podcast. You can listen to on via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed.
