May 21, 2018 - 6:00pm PDT
Portland, OR

A local organization in the Electronic Frontier Alliance (not EFF) will host this event:

Breaking Telco Monopoly Power through Public Ownership of Infrastructure

We have a problem with federal telecommunications policy in the U.S. The problem is that federal regulators have decided that, instead of regulating, they would rely on competition, but competition doesn't occur naturally because of the de facto requirement to build your own infrastructure in order to compete. This leaves users vulnerable to economic predation by the owners of the infrastructure.

Municipal Broadband PDX is a newly formed group that wants to solve this problem by creating a publicly-owned network infrastructure.

Russell Senior, a member of Municipal Broadband PDX and president of the Personal Telco Project, has been advocating for this type of infrastructure for years. He'll talk about federal policy, the monopolistic conditions that result, and the abuses those monopolistic conditions allow. He'll also explain how a public telecommunications utility solves these problems and what such a network might look like. There will be a short video included in the presentation.

When:

Monday, May 21, 2018

6:00 pm - 8:00 pm

Where:

Northwest Academy

1208 SW 13th Ave, 2nd Floor

Portland, OR 97205