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The effort is the first phase of the Patrick Administration’s policy to make statewide affordable broadband access a top priority. An August 1, 2007 Development Cabinet Briefing Paper states: “In a global, knowledge-based economy, investment in broadband will ensure that Massachusetts is truly “open for business.’” According to the briefing paper, the new Broadband Incentive Fund “will support the Commonwealth’s leadership in economic development, accessible government, enhanced education, reliable public safety, and high-quality and affordable health care.”

The setting of the news conference was Becket Town Hall. The community is currently one of 31 in Western Massachusetts that lack broadband services; residents and businesses have only dial-up, so that transmission of large computer files currently may take hours if not more than a day to complete.

“In today’s world, any individual or community without affordable access to broadband is educationally and economically disadvantaged,” said Stan McGee, the Assistant Secretary for Policy and Planning in the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development, who spoke first at the event.

McGee is also serving in the capacity of Wireless and Broadband Development Director. He compared the effort by the Patrick Administration to deploy fast, affordable and ubiquitous high-speed internet access to all citizens of the Commonwealth by 2010 to the electrification of rural America in the 1930s. “This is a great day for the Berkshires, for Western Massachusetts, and for all the citizens of the Commonwealth!” he said.

McGee’s boss, Daniel O’Connell, the Secretary of Housing and Economic Development, spoke next, praising the advocacy of the state legislators and local activists who surrounded him at the podium. “The grass roots are leading this effort,” he said. “We are grateful for their advocacy.”

O’Connell thanked Rep. Daniel Bosley of North Adams, State Sen. Ben Downing of Pittsfield, Rep. Steve Kulik of Worthington, and Rep. Dennis Guyer from Becket, and Sen. Smitty Pignatelli from Egremont, as well as State Sen. Stanley Rosenberg from Amherst (who was unable to attend the event). He also thanked Berkshire Connect and Pioneer Valley Connect, the community organizations in Western Massachusetts who have been leading the charge for the last ten years, as well as the leadership of Rep. Edward Markey and Rep. John Olver in the U.S. Congress. In addition, he paid tribute to MTC’s John Adams Innovation Institute for its leadership in supporting on-the-ground efforts to build the necessary local organizations, resources and framework for the new initiative.

Sharon Gillett, the Department of Telecommunications and Cable Commissioner, provided a nuts and bolts overview of the newly proposed incentive fund.

• Investments will be made from a $25 million general obligation broadband bond
• These investments will be technology-neutral
• The investments will be in broadband infrastructure, such as fiber and wireless towers
• The Commonwealth will not be a service provider
• The Incentive Fund will facilitate deployment by private-sector operators
• The investments will spur public-private partnerships

“The objective of the new fund is to bring high-speed internet access to all unserved communities in Massachusetts by 2010, connecting every community to the 21st century,” she said.

Rep. Daniel Bosley, the chair of the Joint Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies, began by joking: “I wish I was wearing shorts.” He praised the Broadband Incentive Fund as a tremendous step forward, with its promise of creating jobs and expanding the economy, but cautioned patience. “We’ve been working on this for a very long time. Ten years ago, with Berkshire Connect, we codified the need. We [in the Legislature] created the position of state director of broadband services full time. But it will take another two, three years before every unserved community in the Berkshires has access to broadband.”

Rep. Steve Kulik of Worthington, who represents 16 small towns, 14 of whom are under-served, said that wherever he goes—to the town dump, to a local store, this is the issue that his constituents are constantly asking about. “There is no bigger economic tool for growth than connectivity,” Kulik said.

Rep. Dennis Guyer of Becket, praised Governor Patrick’s initiative, saying he was “doing it with deeds, not words.”  According to Guyer, the towns he represents have been “at an economic and cultural disadvantage for too long,” because homeowners cannot telecommute, kids cannot do research for school, and businesses cannot expand.

Don Dubendorf, the chair of Berkshire Connect and the chair of the Governing Board of the John Adams Innovation Institute, thanked the legislators for ten years of support, and called the Broadband Incentive Fund an example of “genuine leadership” by Governor Patrick. “Today, we are celebrating the promise of what true leadership can mean to all the residents of Massachusetts,” he said. "In the past, the needs of Western Massachusetts have often been forgotten, ignored, or dealt with in words that were shaped by 'political calculation.'”

Many of the same legislators were due at the next event: the announcement a few miles down the road at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge of a $100,000 Adams matching grant for the newly established Berkshire Creative Economy Council. The council, an outgrowth of the Berkshire Creative Economy Project and the Berkshire Blueprint, underwritten by regional priority grants by the John Adams Innovation Institute, parallel the legislation introduced by Rep. Dan Bosley to create a statewide Commonwealth Creative Economy Council.

At the ceremony, Rep. Bosley apologized for being late, explaining that he had been at the announcement of a $25 million broadband fund to bring connectivity to unserved communities in Massachusetts.

“Our economy is about creativity and innovation. Here in Massachusetts, we don’t have cornfields; we don’t have oil. Our success is all about our ingenuity,” he said.

All around the room, the characters in sketches and paintings by Norman Rockwell seemed to be nodding their heads in agreement.