Monthly Archives: December 2007

MN Municipal Fiber Network Updates

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Christopher Mitchell (from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance) just had a nice article in the Pioneer Press. (Thanks Christopher for sending it to me.)

Christopher is an advocate of municipally fiber networks. He does a good job of pointing out the need for fiber for broadband and the market reasons that municipal networks make sense. “Cities must treat fiber networks – the roads of the digital age – as essential infrastructure. Publicly owned common-carrier networks create a competitive environment the cable and phone companies fear.”

As her points out the current providers are not jumping to the occasion to provide fiber – partially I assume because it’s a huge infrastructure investment and the return on investment is too slow for more stockholders patience.

Christopher does a nice job of bringing the point home by mentioning some local publicly-focused broadband project:

Minneapolis Wireless – increases competition, but the speeds are no faster than existing options
Monticello – is working on a fiber network (I blogged about the overwhelming support for fiber in the last election)
Cedar Falls, Iowa – invested in fast network and businesses has been locking to them
St Paul – is working ona plan where the city would serve government and schools but provide access to homes through an open access network model (allow other providers to use the fiber the city owns)

ConnectKentucky and Connected Nation

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Thanks to Bill Coleman for sending me the following information on ConnectKentucky and Connected Nation. I believe that these are notes from a discussion between someone from the GIG Group and Brett Lagg from Connected Nation.

For background sake, here’s how Connected Nation describes itself on its web site:

Connected Nation is non-profit organization known for its ability to bridge the digital divide. With results-oriented public private partnerships Connected Nation improves access to and use of broadband Internet and the related services that are enabled when communities and families have the opportunity and desire to connect. For America, this means better education, more jobs, improved healthcare, more efficient government, and a better quality of life.

And here are the handy notes from Bill. It really talks about Connected Nation and their first project – ConnectKentucky and their current plans for mapping access to broadband based on info from current providers:

  1. The #1 objective in Kentucky was to close the digital divide and make the internet a useful tool
  2. The first area of focus was on getting broadband that made the internet a usable tool
  3. The second tier focus is speed
  4. As the internet becomes adopted then the speed will follow
  5. Comprehensive GSI mapping was done down to the street level and identified various broadband technologies – wireless, fiber, DSL, etc.
  6. Providers were comfortable giving Connected Nation the information based on non-disclosure
  7. Maps should be continually updated
  8. Don’t want to box the providers in
  9. Conducted research (telephone survey’s) across the state – county by county to find out detailed information about broadband availability versus broadband adoption. Within each community they found out what kept them from adopting – cost, no computer, don’t find the internet interesting, do not have the education or know how to use. After determining the reason for not adopting – they would come up with a solution – maybe community education, refurbished computer program, etc.
  10. They set up e-community leadership teams. That team takes the resources map and survey info. and comes up with a strategic technology plan for the community. They make sure the plan is adoptable.
  11. Market based approach – believe that providers will deploy if there is a business case to do so
  12. Not all deployments were done be providers, some were/are done by cities and are run/owned by cities
    Connected Nation has technology consultants on their staff that work with local entrepreneurs to get the best wireless deployment set up.
  13. Kentucky has a no child left offline program
  14. Where the need was identified – providers have deployed the latest technology versus what would get the area to a minimum broadband definition
  15. Connected Nation is hesitant to state a specific speed, but their definition is much higher than the FCC – closer to 1 – 2 MB starting out
  16. Kentucky had a 22% adoption rate in 2004 today it’s at 44%.
  17. Targeting 100% coverage by spring of next year
  18. Another phase is building robust applications – e-health network
  19. In the process of creating speed based maps
  20. Brent is meeting with people in Hawaii next week to discuss their Broadband initiative
  21. Launching Connect Ohio next Thursday – Dec. 13th
  22. Cost – mentioned 2 million per year, it’s a 3 year initiative, but they’ve also been able to reduce costs over time
  23. Most expensive part is the community involvement
  24. Connected Nation gives the state ownership as the on the ground staff understand the state better than
  25. Connected Nation could. People are hired who are qualified to manage the initiative – a subsidiary of Connected Nation is created.

Wi-Fi as you Fly

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Thanks to Jamie for sending me to the DailyWireless.org blog; its main focus is on municipal wireless, grass roots community networks and WiMAX developments.

I have to admit that it wasn’t an article on municipal wireless that caught my eye today; it was an article on a great wireless application – access to WiFi on the airplane (FlyFi Takes Off).

I have done more flying in the last 3 months than I have done in years. I hate flying. I’m a white-knuckled, two-beer-required flyer. But I think it I could get online the time might whisk by a little faster.

Apparently the FCC auctioned reallocated the 800Mhz Air-to-Ground band in 2004. It was purchased by Aircell and LiveTV. (Service though that band is limited to North America.) Here’s a short list of what four major carriers have planned:

  1. American Airlines began testing the service (through Aircell) on its fleet of Boeing 767-200 aircraft this August with the goal is to provide broadband service to all passengers in 2008.
  2. JetBlue plans a nation-wide PlaneFi service using competitor LiveTV, a wholly owned subsidiary of JetBlue. They are testing free e-mail and instant-messaging on one Airbus A320.
  3. Alaska Airline’s passengers get a Wi-Fi connection for Internet, e-mail, VPNs, and stored in-flight entertainment through Row 44. Alaska hopes to have Wi-Fi connections on all 144 of its planes up and running by spring 2008 and more than 100 channels of live television.
  4. Virgin America is also going with Aircell for Wi-Fi enabled devices. Their Red Inflight Entertainment network will allow customers to use a wide variety of instant messaging services on their seatbacks. The company hopes to have its all of its planes connected “sometime in 2008.”

Fiber in Red Wing

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Red Wing, Minnesota is looking at installing fiber optics (FTTH). The currently are served by Qwest but they are looking at improving connectivity. At its Nov. 26 meeting, the Red Wing City Council approved a feasibility study and the Red Wing Port Authority has set aside $25,000 in funds. The hope is that this will match a potential grant from the Blandin Foundation.

Proponents are optimistic at the outcome but everyone agrees that the feasibility report, which is be performed by an outside firm, will help them move forward. The report will answer two primary questions. 1) Is fiber a good investment for Red Wing? 2) How should Red Wing provide service? Today they are considering three options:

  1. The first option is an “open platform” where the city would invite service providers to use the network.
  2. The second option is to have the city would establish a contract with an established provider after the network was installed.
  3. The third option is to have the city not only install the network but also run it.

Bill Coleman, a consultant with the Blandin Foundation, has this remark about Red Wing’s plan:

The theme of the recent Blandin Broadband Conference was about communities making the right choices. Red Wing is pursuing its goal of ensuring the highest quality telecommunications services for its businesses, institutions and residents and it seems like they are working in a diligent and careful manner. A carefully designed and well-implemented feasibility study will inform community leaders about their options.

For more information, visit Red Wing’s Republican Eagle’s recent article: High-tech network plan picks up steam.

Cash Music

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Yesterday I wrote about how much I admire Android’s business model of using the Internet to share information to promote collaboration and build a better product and/or better serve customers.

Well this morning I read a great article in The Irish Times about Cash Music. Cash Music is the Coalition of Artists and Stake Holders. It was set up by Kristin Hersh (who I loved in The Throwing Muses) and Donna Sparks (formerly in L7). It’s a web site where independent artists can sell their music on a pay-what-you-want basis. (You can also sponsor an artist on a quarterly basis.)

The cool thing is that artists invite collaboration by allowing each song to be available using the Creative Commons license. Which means that fans that are more musically inclined that me can remix, re-record, add tracks, or otherwise use or modify the song. They can pretty much do anything short or selling the song.

Why Cash Music? The quote (I saw, it rotates) on their homepage says it all:

Either all the record companies will get together or the industry will fall apart and someone like Microsoft will come in and buy one of the companies at wholesale and do what needs to be done.”
— Rick Rubin

I think this is such a great example of what we can do now with broadband that we couldn’t do before. And again a great example of how broadband has forced/facilitated new business models.

Home and Community Options, Inc. – FTTH Underway

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We are very excited about implementing our FTTH project.  We have been working with HBC, plotting all of our homes on the installation map and determining the potential complications with each of them.  Some will be much easier to connect than others.  Dan Pecarina, HBC VP Technology Services, has been extremely helpful in this process.  We then prioritized our facilities to insure that the most important programs were installed first. 

HBC then began to work our project into their installation schedule.  If all goes according to the schedule we should start having our first FTTH connection within the next week and our “high priority” first 3 connections completed before Christmas!

At Home and Community Options we have been busy getting things ready for the install.  We have been experimenting with some different methods of using Outlook to manage many of our day-to-day program management and communication functions. We call this our Efile system.   As soon as our FTTH connection is made we will test some of the different file sharing techniques to determine which approach provides us with the most secure and efficient performance.  Then as new homes are brought into the FTTH network we will implement the Efile program in them.

We also have been working with the residents of one of our priority homes to prepare them to become a test site for our Remote Monitoring Program.  We met with the men and all the responsible people on their Interdisciplinary Team. This team would include people like guardians, Case Managers, HCO representative, work site representative and any other parties that would have input into the individuals care plan.  We reviewed the precautions that would need to taken in order for the men to be allowed to be home alone without a night staff on duty. 

I ordered the basic equipment we will need to set up a remote monitoring program in this home and we hope to have all the components installed by the second week of January.  Then we will begin testing the various protocols that we would need to be able to implement if the men were going to be cared for remotely.

We are very grateful for the Blandin Light Speed Initiative for this opportunity to enhance our program quality and efficiency by connecting all of our programs to a fiber network.

light speed communityThe Blandin Foundation is supporting four standout broadband programs through the Light Speed program. The program’s purpose is to stimulate the deployment of bandwidth intensive applications that connect local institutions to area resident’s home. This post comes from a Light Speed community leader.

Google Android

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Android is an open source operating system for mobile devices. It’s being developed collectively by more than 30 technology and mobile companies, including Google. The organzation is called the Open Handset Alliance. (I think Google actually bought Android back in the summer of 2005.) Android was unveiled last month (Nov 5).

They are providing info on the code now and they have a contest (prizes worth $10 million) for developers to encourage them to create applications for Android.

The goal behind Android is the get better products to the customers faster. By opening up the code, they figure people will come up with cool things and they can work collectively to perfect and deploy these cool thing. (I loved their video explanation so much I had to add it here.)

From a Broadband perspective, this ties in so closely with Google’s interest in the Spectrum Auction. From an economic development perspective, I think it’s a great example of the modern business plan. I think information used to provide a huge competitive intelligence (and really it still does) but making that information available to everyone leads to the next generation or product and business development where it’s the knowledge that becomes valuable – not just the information.

One of the reasons I think that the US is falling behind in the technology arena is that so many people refuse to embrace this new way of thinking about information and business development. I think we see it with all of the debate about trying to get base numbers of current broadband speeds and accessibility.

I think too many people feel that info is proprietary – when if they would open that info up we could all work together to create a better situation.

Wired or Wireless?

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Thanks to Jamie for sending me this great article on wired versus wireless technology (Broadband: Wired or wireless for the enterprise?).

The author interviews a wired guy and a wireless guy to determine which is a better fit.

The wired guy claims that “Ethernet” allows carriers to easily support a number of critical distributed applications in both the public and private sectors. The most difficult problem for carriers is the last mile and Ethernet over copper is a cost effective way to handle that challenge.

The wireless guys claims that wireless networks offer many benefits over wired lines, hitting on valid points such as geographical coverage being more widespread and less restricted by extreme terrain, and that applications can be fixed or mobile, enabling connectivity while on the move. He also points out deployment benefits with wireless. Cost was also a major factor.

Speed is often listed as a restriction to wireless but the emergence of HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access), a 3G-based protocol which supports download speeds of up to 14.4mbps and beyond in future.

Broadband Scenes Around the World

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Thanks to Jamie for sending me an article from the BBC on Broadband Speeds Around the World. It’s a quick reference list that outlines on a very high level broadband in the following countries:

UK
France
Germany Sweden
South Africa
Israel
US
Mexico
Japan
South Korea
New Zealand
Poland
China

Here’s what they said about the US:

The US has an average speed of 8Mbps according to the OECD, although it is nearly half this (4.6Mbps) according to speedtest.net.

The US is unusual because it is one of the few countries in which cable is the largest connection network.
Typically cable is marketed at offering between 5Mbps and 20Mbps. Number of fibre providers, most notably Verizon which offers fibre to home, with speeds up to 20Mb, This is just available on the east coast. ATT is offering a hybrid DSL service while Qwest has just announced a fibre to street strategy.

Renville County Get Broadband Update

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Thanks to Annie Tepfer for sending an update on the Renville County Get Broadband project…

In a cooperative effort to promote new economic development, Get Broadband coordinator, Annie Tepfer, worked with Agriculture writer, Richard Hagen, to interview all the grape produces in Renville County. Annie documented the interviews with videocasts while Richard wrote articles for the Renville HRA/EDA and local newspapers. The videocasts will air on the local access channel for people to learn more about this new venture in county.

A $500 Wireless Internet Café Grant was approved to “Yesteryears”, a privately owned Coffee Shop located in downtown Fairfax. The owner is going to purchase a computer, wireless router and establish connectivity to high speed internet for her customers. This should create new interest in her coffee shop and offer customers another reason to stop by her business.

Working with the GFW Community Education, an eCommerce class was held at the Fairfax campus computer room. David Nelson, an Extension Educator from the University of Minnesota, instructed a class on using the internet as a new tool for business development whether they were a storefront or home business.

Renville interviews

Yassini Broadband Knowledge Center

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Thanks to Ann Higgins for sending me information on a new foundation for broadband innovation…

Rouzbeh Yassini is credited with inventing the cable modem. He’s been disappointed with the current state of broadband so he’s established a new Yassini Broadband Knowledge Center and will begin funding research grants. He is putting up his own money to fund four $50,000 research grants every year, one per quarter.

His goal is to get people to come up with innovations to help everyone enjoy the Internet. By everyone, he gives as examples people with visual disabilities or creating applications such one that would allow people with diabetes to monitor sugar levels.

The Yassini Broadband Knowledge Center, based in Boston, will be the support center for the grant recipients. Other activities planned for the center are:

  • New technology research and innovation with anticipated industry impact within five years;
  • An executive scholar and broadband policy center;
  • A broadband “Think Tank” for entrepreneurs, scientists, consumer electronics researchers, and service provider executives; and
  • Weekly educational tours to share the tools and power of a next-generation, broadband work force.

You can learn more in the Cable Digital News.

Great Loss at NATOA

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The National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors (NATOA) is a national association that represents the communications needs and interests of local governments, and those who advise local governments. They track telecommunications-related bills, they hold a national conference, they produce a number of publications, and they have a local chapter in Minnesota.

Sadly, Jane Lawton, past president of NATOA passed away. Ms Lawton ran for office in Maryland. One of her primary goals was to Stream the processes to bring broadband technology to the market and ensure access for all County residents.

Our sympathy goes out to her friends and family.