FCC Commissioner to take part in Broadband Summit July 18

MARIETTA, Ohio — As part of her nationwide “listening tour” looking into the lack of access to reliable internet service in rural communities, FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn will attend a summit and town hall aimed at helping counties in southeast Ohio and northern West Virginia connect to broadband.

The Appalachian Ohio-West Virginia Connectivity Summit and Town Hall on July 18, 2017 will feature a daylong workshop at Washington State Community College involving national experts on community broadband issues. Later, at an evening town hall at Marietta High School Auditorium, Clyburn will hear from community members about problems they face with broadband in the region. While registration is required to attend the summit, the town hall will be open to the public.

Organizers of the summit and town hall, a group of southeast Ohio community leaders called the Citizens Connectivity Committee, are inviting civic leaders in the counties of Appalachian Ohio and northern West Virginia to attend the summit as a way of educating and empowering their communities on the issue. Registration and details on the event are at www.ruralassembly.org/broadband-marietta.

In rural communities nationwide, nearly one-fourth of the population – more than 14 million people – lacks access to high-speed internet service, according to the Federal Communications Commission. Clyburn, in her four years with the federal agency, has championed policies to expand access to robust and affordable broadband internet service.

“Not having access to the internet is very disabling,” she said in a recent interview with Motherboard magazine. “If you are unable to have access to the most empowering, liberating, and open platform of our time, meaning the internet, then you will increasingly be behind the information eightball.”

Traveling the country over the past year on her #ConnectingCommunities tour, Clyburn has been exploring the “opportunities and challenges of bringing affordable, diverse and competitive communications services to all Americans.”

In addition to Clyburn, speakers and panelists at the summit will include Christopher Mitchell, an international expert on community broadband networks whose research has been sought after by the White House; Kate Forscey, an internet and technology policy expert with the organization Public Knowledge; and Marty Newell, head of the Center for Rural Strategies, a nonprofit that advocates for rural communities.

For more information on the summit and town hall, go to www.ruralassembly.org/broadband-marietta.