GeekWire reports on Seattle’s instantiation of the national Gig.U initiative, spearheaded by Blair Levin of the Aspen Institute, who formerly led the FCC’s National Broadband Plan.
“University of Washington computer science professor Ed Lazowska, who will be on hand at Monday’s press conference and is familiar with Gig.U, said that the idea is to try to build unique private-public partnerships that bring true broadband to communities. At the same time, it will attempt to break the stranglehold that telecommunications companies have held on the growth of high-speed Internet access in the country.
“Lazowska notes that the U.S. is ‘dramatically lagging’ many nations in the widespread adoption of broadband, and he thinks Gig.U is in a position to do something about it.
“‘The telcos have failed America. We have third-world broadband,’ said Lazowska. ‘The Federal government has not acted. The universities and their communities are going to give it a try.'”
Read more here. Updated post here. KUOW story here. Lazowska’s press conference remarks here. Learn about Gig.U here.