Bytemarks

We recently had Larry Reifurth on Bytemarks Cafe and the topic of Hawaii’s Communications Commission came up. I had been following the Broadband Task Force and was quite interested in the introduction of HB1077 into this Legislative session. Seeing Larry triggered the question, “What happen to HB1077?” I thought all the stars were aligned to create the Commission under the DCCA that combine the oversight of cable and telecom services into one. This would have brought a focus to Hawaii’s broadband services and to coordinate efforts to best use the Federal infrastructure stimulus dollars. So now with the legislative session done, I must bemoan the death of HB1077. Based on the status of the bill, it seemed to be deferred. To when, I do not know. Larry mentioned that there were never any conferees assigned to the committee so the bill never got heard. Others say that legislators during this session had other things to consider (which I don’t deny) and that the bill did not have the priority needed to get the attention. Maybe it will surface in next year’s session. Hopefully next session, we won’t be short sighted and look to the long term need. I suppose we will just have to wait and see.