CTC President Joanne Hovis will speak today on a panel discussion about local broadband planning in Urbana, Illinois. The event, “Models for Building Local Broadband: Public, Private, Coop, Nonprofit,” will bring together other experts in local telecommunications and public broadband for an open discussion of the benefits and challenges of various local broadband strategies.

The cities of Urbana and Champaign are in the midst of constructing a public network using federal grant funds. Urbana-Champaign Big Broadband, known as UC2B, is expected to bring high-speed Internet to 10 percent of the community. Urbana-Champaign has recently applied to expand its network through a public-private partnership with Gigabit Squared, and is actively seeking other potential partners in its efforts to expand broadband in the public interest.

The forum will be broadcast live at 5:30 EST/4:30 CDT on Urbana Public Television as a presentation of the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center. Streaming is available through Urbana Public Television and through Ustream, where viewers can participate via live chat. The recorded broadcast will be made available in the Independent Media Center’s video archive.