NextGenWeb is in Boston this week covering the National Conference of State Legislature’s Annual Meeting. Broadband is a big part of the NCSL conference agenda, so much so that there was a pre-conference on Saturday and Sunday focused solely on broadband issues.

On Saturday, NGW attended a session at the Massachusetts General Hospital where hospital officials discussed their telemedicine program. Stay tuned for all-inclusive podcasts and v-casts from the visit. Also on Saturday, Dr. Marvin Sirbu, Professor of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University talked about a study he co-authored titled, “Measuring Broadband’s Economic Impact.��? In the coming days, we will have an exclusive NGW v-cast with Dr. Sirbu.

On Sunday, NGW covered a panel focused on making broadband more available to rural communities, hoping to hear what is being done to improve broadband availability for rural communities. Afterwards, NGW tracked down Thomas Dorr, the Under Secretary for Rural Development at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, who outlined three ways the USDA is trying to simplify the RUS broadband loan program included in this year’s Farm Bill currently before the U.S. Senate. Later this week, we will post an exclusive interview with the Under Secretary.

NGW also caught up with State Rep. Charlie Hoffman (KY), who is the co-chair of the Kentucky Broadband Task Force. ConnectKentucky is often cited as a terrific roadmap for states and communities to deliver broadband services to residents. We also caught up with the man behind the ConnectKentucky model, Brian Mefford, President and CEO of Connected Nation, Inc. Brian talked about the importance of public/private partnerships as well as how other states can implement this program.

Stay tuned for these v-casts in addition to other coverage we’ll be posting throughout the week from Boston.

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