HB3650 94TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

LRB094 10275 MKM 42023 b

94TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY
State of Illinois
2005 and 2006
HB3650

Introduced 2/24/2005, by Rep. Constance A. Howard

SYNOPSIS AS INTRODUCED:

New Act

Creates the Integrated Telecommunications Outreach, Quality of Service, and Digital Literacy Act. Requires the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity to: (i) establish a telecommunications outreach program in consultation with the Illinois Commerce Commission and (ii) establish a Quality of Service Data Sharing program in cooperation with the Illinois Commerce Commission and the Attorney General. Requires the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, in cooperation with various State agencies and other entities, to establish an Eliminate the Digital Divide Trust Program.

FISCAL NOTE ACT MAY APPLY

A BILL FOR

AN ACT concerning telecommunications.

Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly:

Section 1. Short title. This Act may be cited as the Integrated Telecommunications Outreach, Quality of Service, and Digital Literacy Act.

Section 5. Needs and objectives.

(a) The daily convenience and necessity of residents, businesses, community institutions, and enterprises calls for cooperation by all to facilitate a range of telephone and telecommunication services that enable all persons, enterprises, and institutions to connect with each other for the basic purposes of life, safety, health, and productive activity and for getting Illinois online in convenient and affordable advanced communication and broadband as a linked, digitally literate set of regions that are competitive in our world today.

(b) The safety, health, and social cohesion of all individuals, families, and communities in Illinois, as well as the speed of expansion of voice, data, and visual communication services in many modes calls for multiyear cooperation for systematic outreach to all Illinois residents to understand their telephone and telecommunications options, availability, costs, guarantees, and qualities of service, including advertisement of choices and the availability of consumer protection, the development of means for systematic feedback about the quality of service and its impacts on many kinds of customers, and systematic means for user-friendly ways to continually advance digital literacy to use the increasingly complex electronic and telephone-linked tools that are new necessities of life not only for average residents who may be without the stability and resources of daily access to full phone service.

(c) The volume of telephone and telecommunications-based personal and mass communication calls for designing telephone and telecommunications choices to enable all residents, enterprises, and institutions to manage and have privacy in communication through consumer service tools provided by many public, private, and community providers, as they communicate with each other for basic purposes of life, liberty, and happiness; which include using telephone and telecommunications tools for more advanced purposes of connecting with the Internet online services for public services, schools and learning, health care, cultural and community arts, employment, economic opportunity, commercial and consumer purchasing, and transportation and local access places in their community dialogs and planning.

(d) The many kinds and levels of basic and advanced services and the convergence of provision by converging modes of wireline, cable, wireless satellite, wireless towers, wireless locations, utility lines, and voice over Internet call for statewide cooperation in better data collection and sharing information about current and newly emerging availability, choices, and costs of basic and advanced telephone and telecommunications and evaluation of service quality and use.

(e) There are social needs for better information by many kinds of consumers who have limited telephone and telecommunications choices, including needs to understand special programs for basic life connections and assistive services, as well as opportunities to benefit from stable telecommunications addresses and special service designated for universal service connectivity.

(f) There are needs for all consumers to better understand how to use public access information services, including call-in and call-out services of 911, use of 411 personal services and electronic directory assistance, 311 local government information, and new 211 public and community human services.

(g) There are needs for local, county, and statewide public officials and planning bodies to have better information on telephone and telecommunications capacity and usage and digital and technological skills in order to undertake multi-year plans and public infrastructure investments, to communicate the telecommunications readiness of particular facilities or areas, and reduce the costs to local taxpayers for basic infrastructure, as well as for emergency safety and core health connections services, which often require advanced telecommunications for life supporting uses and greatest savings in public and resident costs and efficiencies in network usage.

(h) There are needs for all Illinois residents, and especially residents with less than average resources or in lesser connected communities or with special needs, to gain and maintain technological and digital literacy skills to use basic and advanced telecommunications in homes, at work, in schools, libraries, community centers, and health care facilities, and in public agencies and in settings, including at public and commercial information kiosks or information ATM machines; including the need to systematically increase the telecommunications use capacity of the Illinois workforce to reduce unemployment and underemployment in Illinois, which continues at substantially higher levels than national averages and which lags in terms of hiring for professional, technical, and entry-level employment in the face of regional and worldwide employment.

(i) There are needs for cooperation among many State agencies, including cooperation among the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, the Illinois Commerce Commission, and the many programs that have responsibility for outreach concerning skill building, public benefit access, and community quality of life planning and implementation.

Section 10. Telecommunications outreach cooperation. The Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, as part of the Director's responsibility for regional planning, technology, industrial competitiveness, and workforce skills, and for communication with telecommunications carriers and others in relation to the Eliminate the Digital Divide Law, shall establish a telecommunications outreach program within the Division of Technology and Industrial Competitiveness, in consultation with the Illinois Commerce Commission. The telecommunications outreach program shall do all of the following:

(1) Convene a working group of all public agencies, telecommunications providers, and community and consumer enterprises or institutions that have substantial outreach programs concerning educating residents, especially low-income, less connected, and special needs residents, to catalog telecommunications outreach and marketing programs, audiences, communication processes and potential means cooperation.

(2) Undertake an expanded outreach and marketing process among telecommunications providers and others to secure contributions to the Eliminate the Digital Divide Trust Program, in order to highlight the locations of public access community technology centers and services, linked with all State departments and offices, and to encourage the acquisition and maintenance of basic and more advanced technological and digital literacy skills linked with Internet and other telecommunications in underserved communities.

Section 15. Telephone and telecommunications quality of service feedback and data sharing. The Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, in cooperation with the Illinois Commerce Commission and the Illinois Attorney General, shall establish a Quality of Service and Data Sharing program. The Quality of Service and Data Sharing program shall:

(1) Convene a local-State-federal telecommunications cooperative data collection and sharing working group to make recommendations on State-federal cooperation, including on basic and broadband telecommunications data from FCC for 477, to assist decision makers, planners, and consumer protection parties at the State and local levels to gain better data to make decisions concerning all modes of telecommunications and information infrastructure.

(2) Undertake a regional-local telecommunications planning process in cooperation with 7 to 10 regional telecommunications service areas in Illinois, regional planning councils and their member public officials, other parties within multi-county areas, nonprofit community development, technology and media networks, and telecommunications consumer groups in these regions, along the lines of using an RFP process to provide grants to community telecommunications planning processes.

(3) Undertake demonstration telephone and telecommunications quality of service feedback assemblies in a number of local access places in areas of 5,000 up to 60,000 residents in each telecommunications service region, with an initial focus on low-income or otherwise lesser connected communities, with a purpose of bringing together a cross-section of consumers of all modes of telecommunications to provide systematic feedback on top priorities for telecommunications infrastructure or services to improve the quality of families and communities, and specific improvements in the quality, availability, costs, and information about each telecommunications provider or service. The assemblies shall be hosted by non-profit, educational, community, or public agencies or enterprises that are not substantial providers of telecommunications services and that shall work closely with regional planning councils and related community development and consumer services networks in the area.

Section 20. Technological and digital literacy trust grants and outcome tracking. The Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity shall establish an Eliminate the Digital Divide Trust Program in cooperation with other State agencies, community technology networks, consumer representatives, education and higher education agencies and extension services, regional planning councils, local public agency officials, and public, nonprofit, and business institutions or enterprises that provide grants and other resources for telephone, telecommunications and related quality of life services, training, or infrastructure and in consultation with the advisory committee on elimination of the digital divide. The Trust Program may receive voluntary contributions directly from members of the public, including any entity, and from the voluntary contribution programs of telecommunications providers.

The Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity shall do all of the following:

(1) Provide "Train the Trainer" grants, other professional development grants, and evaluation-linked grants to determine the outcomes and the impacts of digital literacy and technology access programs of the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity and other State agencies and significant regional or statewide programs to entities or consortia that are region-based or statewide-based community technology centers or networks that participate in the broadly-based annual Telecommunications Conference on Economic Development and telehealth sponsored by the University of Illinois extension program and others.

(2) Co-sponsor an annual statewide community technology center professional development conference and any regional professional development online resources and calendar activities recommended by the advisory committee on elimination of the digital divide.

(3) Convene a stakeholder conference on resources to eliminate the digital divide.

(4) Administer the resources in the current Eliminate the Digital Divide grant program, with interest on funds in the program to be used by the program and with funds received by the program from contributions from residents and stakeholders in digital literacy not subject to reduction or use by the general treasury.

(5) Propose a formal Eliminate the Digital Divide Trust Program that has the capacity to bring resources from State and local agencies, telecommunications providers, business and charitable entities, and cooperation among those parties, including opportunities to apply for federal and other public, business, or charitable grants, funds, or revenue sources.