Monthly Archives: August 2009

Governor endorses Connected Nation for Minnesota broadband maps

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Win, lose or draw, the first round NTIA/RUS broadband stimulus fund applications are in. Word is getting out about who applied and who didn’t including who applied for funds to do Minnesota mapping.

Mike O’Connor wrote a post on Wednesday about Minnesota Departments of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) and Commerce recommending to the Governor that the State work with Connected Nation to pursue a grant to conduct a broadband map for the State of Minnesota with data that will be used to create a national broadband map. Connected Nation are the folks doing the current mapping for the State. This money would extend/expand on that work. Twelve other states and one territory are working with Connected Nation on their applications.

The Story

Here’s the quick take on the deal, partially gleaned from Mike’s post, Brent Legg at Connected Nation and Diane Wells at the Minnesota Department of Commerce.

The NTIA will provide “approximately $240 million in grants to assist states or their designees to develop state-specific data on the deployment levels and adoption rates of broadband services.” The NTIA seemed to be looking for a “single eligible entity in a State that has been designated by the State to receive a grant.” So state approval was important.

The folks at the State heard from two possible mappers – Connected Nation and the University of Minnesota. At this point I suspect local readers are saying – hey why didn’t they go with the U? All things being equal I buy local, especially if I have federal dollars to spend.

When CN approached the State they had a track record, a complete plan in place and the required 20 percent match. According to the letter of recommendation from the State, they have been “very satisfied” with CN’s work to meet the terms of the 2008 contract and the price paid. The funding from NTIA will allow the State to ask more questions, which will help get better maps. (Although the State wasn’t necessarily thrilled with all of the details as set out by the NTIA.) There will be a Steering committee to work with CN. The State and CN have a memorandum of understanding in place concerning the question of verifying availability and speeds

The University had a good idea but the plan was not complete. They were unable to specify staff members dedicated to the project. Their 20 percent match was less assured than CN’s. Without existing relationships with the providers, it seems optimistic to think that the U could meet the short deadlines required by the NTIA.

The Controversy

The old controversy is CN. People have extreme feelings about Connected Nation and have for a while. Steve Borsch outlines his concerns in a recent article; CN’s Brian Mefford has addressed concerns in a recent rebuttal of a Wall Street journal article, which I think is the basis of Steve B’s article – only Steve’s article is still online for free.

The new controversy is about how a mapper was selected in Minnesota. Should the State have consulted with the TF board? Did they consult with members offline? Does consulting with some members count? (CN is slated to speak at the next Task Force meeting. They were scheduled to speak earlier but as I recall they were asked to postpone while the TF was on the road.)

I’ve tried to present the facts. I’ll offer my own two cents and open this up to comments if others have an opinion.

Difference between rural and urban social media use

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Do rural users of social media have fewer social media friends? And do those friends live closer than the friends of urban social media users? And who’s the biggest users, men or women?

I just read an interesting article in the Daily Yonder (The New Party Line is Crackling) about how people in rural areas use social media and these things came up. Apparently there was a study of 3000 rural and urban MySpace users (MySpace was bigger than Facebook at the time they started the study) and the researchers found that rural folks had fewer MySpace friends, they lived nearer to those friends and women were more likely users than men. The report came out in 2008.

I was wondering if the same would be true today and/or true in and around MN. I don’t have time to pore over 3000 MySPace or Facebook pages but I thought I’d create a survey and see if folks wouldn’t mind taking it: http://tinyurl.com/m9ydn7

It’s 16 questions – but they are quick, especially if you either don’t use social media or you happen to have your profiles open. (I’ll report on results after Labor Day – so please feel free to get others to take the survey.)

Thanks!

Lake County RFP Announcement

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Lake County has released a Design/Build RFP for its FTTP network. This is in conjunction with the stimulus application that Lake County and National Public Broadband filed with RUS last week.

Next best thing to being a BTOP Reviewer

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I’m not a BTOP reviewer – but I know someone who is. Mike O’Connor is going to be a review and he’s letting us be a fly on the wall by maintain a blog on a BTOP review process. I’m very excited.

Reading about the excitement not enough for you? I just got another call to be a BTOP or BIP reviewer from someone – so I think it’s not too late. I heard they were looking especially for folks to review the public computer centers.

SouthWest Minnesota Broadband Group Update

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I wanted to provide a quick update on the progress of SouthWest Minnesota Broadband Group (SWMBG) and our Blandin Robust Network project. SWMBG is a group of eight communities looking to expand the reach of fiber-to-the-premise technology in portions of Jackson, Cottonwood and Nobles County. We have spent the last month gathering information from our communities, doing engineering and operational planning and last week we submitted a Stimulus loan application to RUS and NTIA. There has been strong support from the communities involved and we will be spending the next month completing the marketing survey for the area and completing our final feasibility document. Special thanks to Dan Olsen at Windomnet and Mitch Jasper at Jackson for their continued support. Also Round Lake and Lakefield have been very instrumental in the project. We at U-reka Broadband Ventures are proud of the determination of this group as we put the project together. We believe that multiple communities working together can eliminate some of the scalability concerns of rural networks. In this case Windomnet will provide backbone services to the project eliminating the start-up costs to the project. This project has truly been a partnership of cities, counties, education and private sector to bring real broadband to the area.

2200 applications requesting $28 billion for broadband

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The word is out and the NTIA and RUS received 2,200 applications requesting $28 billion. There isn’t a ton of info yet on the applications. Here’s what I could glean from the press release:

The applications break down as follows:

Infrastructure

  • More than 260 applications were filed solely with NTIA’s BTOP requesting over $5.4 billion in grants to fund broadband infrastructure projects in unserved and underserved areas.
    • More than 400 applications were filed solely with RUS’s BIP requesting nearly $5 billion in grants and loans for broadband infrastructure projects in rural areas.
  • More than 830 applications were filed with both NTIA’s BTOP and RUS’s BIP, requesting nearly $12.8 billion in infrastructure funding.

Sustainable Broadband Adoption

  • More than 320 applications were filed with NTIA requesting nearly $2.5 billion in grants from BTOP for projects that promote sustainable demand for broadband services, including projects to provide broadband education, awareness, training, access, equipment or support, particularly among vulnerable population groups where broadband technology has traditionally been underutilized. (The Recovery Act directs NTIA to make at least $250 million available for programs that encourage sustainable adoption of broadband services, of which up to $150 million is allocated in this first round of grants.)

Public Computer Centers

  • More than 360 applications were filed with NTIA requesting more than $1.9 billion in grants from BTOP for public computer center projects, which will expand access to broadband service and enhance broadband capacity at public libraries, community colleges, and other institutions that provide the benefits of broadband to the general public or specific vulnerable populations. (The Recovery Act directs NTIA to make at least $200 million available for expanding public computer center capacity, of which up to $50 million is allocated in this first round of grants.)

More info – such as specific info on applicants – is due in the next few weeks.

Nonprofits and nonprofit clients need broadband

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Why should nonprofits care about broadband? Fellow Minnesotan (and friend) Sheldon Mains just wrote a nice article (Save the Internet, Save the World). He spells out the reasons nonprofits should care about broadband and Net Neutrality – especially if they care about their clients and community.

Sheldon has included a list of everyday tasks that require the Internet and increasingly require broadband. There was a time where broadband just made us all faster – but I recall talking to Jack Geller in March 2007 when a new report on rural Internet access had come out and he noted that this was the first year that people with broadband didn’t just do the same tasks faster – they did different things online that dialup users.

I hear from people who seem to think that broadband still just makes you faster. (Usually those people have broadband.) I think Sheldon’s best example is checking on status of anything with US Immigration and Naturalization Service; he says, “I challenge anyone to try to get through the INS process in one hour, the time limit many public libraries put on Internet use.” Right there is a reason to encourage broadband and encourage home access – I can tell you from experience that you don’t want to call the INS. (I’m a huge advocate for libraries and I love that they have access but they can’t keep up with the demand!)

When you use dialup (or even satellite or mobile broadband) you time out, you can’t view things, your response is too slow to be interactive, you would have a hard time publishing anything.

Developers used to create web sites based on an assumption that visitors have 56K connection. They don’t anymore. So while I could fill out a job application using dialup a few years ago – those applications have changed. It’s not that dialup users have gotten impatient – they really can’t access things!

So back to Sheldon – he’s done a great job speaking to nonprofit staff about broadband and Net Neutrality. If you have a friend who doesn’t get it – send him to Sheldon. (Good news for Net Neutrality supporters – Julius Genachowski, the FCC chairman, has been clear on the FCC’s support of Net Neutrality.)

Clearly this has been on my mind this week. The reason is a Facebook conversation I had with someone who just didn’t see why the government should get involved with broadband in rural areas. Comments on the blog have got me thinking too – thanks!

I think Sheldon had a good answer, “Simply put, in the last 15 years, the Internet has become a necessity for participating in our society — and in most cases, high speed Internet has become a necessity.” And the market is not serving the rural corners – the business case is tough to make – but we need to do it. Just as folks have pointed out we needed to get electricity to the rural corners.

T1 not enough for teleradiology

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I was tempted to say, “fiber saves live” but I thought someone might accuse me of hyperbole – however folks at Medical Arts Radiology in New York credit the move from T1 to fiber for allowing them to make a diagnosis more quickly.

Here’s the quote from CED:

“In our experience, you cannot perform modern radiology with a T1 line. You have to have fiber, and that’s why we chose Optimum Lightpath,” said Pradeep Albert, CIO of Medical Arts Radiology. “We can view images taken from any of our six offices and read it anywhere we can access a PC or laptop. Our business depends on Optimum Lightpath. We love the product – it’s changed the way we do things.”

Say no to dialup in Fergus Fall

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The Broadband Task Force set out to rural parts of Minnesota to hear from folks across the state. But it seems in Fergus Falls it was an opportunity for folks to be heard by local media too.

The Fergus Falls Daily Journal posted an editorial yesterday explaining why dialup Internet access is not sufficient – citing “that residents as close as 12 miles from a community as large as Fergus Falls are only able to receive Internet access through a dial-up connection.”

I have to assume they are referring to the couple who spoke at the Task Force meeting last week about their frustration with dialup. The editorial confirms what most readers believe to be true – that dialup stinks. What I think is really interesting is the comments.

People wrote in suggesting satellite and mobile broadband. Others wanted to make sure that government does not get involved with providing broadband. Other just wanted to complain about cost and/or quality of local broadband service.

It kind of gets back to Ben Winchster’s comment yesterday price matters.

2009 Speed Matters Report on Internet Speeds in 50 States

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speedmattersMN09Here’s the bad news straight from the horse’s mouth (the 2009 SpeedMatters Report on Internet Speeds in All 50 States:

The 2009 speedmatters.org survey finds that the average download speed for the nation was 5.1 megabits per second (mbps) and the average upload speed was 1.1 mbps. These speeds are just slightly faster than the 2008 speedmatters. org results of 4.2 megabits per second (mbps) download and 873 kilobits per second (kbps) upload. In other words, between 2008 and 2009, the average download speed increased by only nine-tenths of a megabit per second (from 4.2 mbps to 5.1 mbps), and the average upload speed barely changed (from 873 kbps to 1.1 mbps). At this rate, it will take the United States 15 years to catch up with current Internet speeds in South Korea. Moreover, the average upload speed from the speedmatters.org survey is far too slow for patient monitoring or to transmit large files such as medical records.

So one answer is to get South Korea to rest on its laurels – except that as the report points out – we’d have to be talking to more than 2 dozen countries about treading water until we catch up because the US ranks 28th for average Internet connection. Another bad statistic – we rank 15th in terms of take rate, or percentage of population that subscribes to broadband. So who’s not signing up for broadband? Well, rural areas for one. Only 46 percent of rural households sign up, compared to 67 percent of urban homes.

Minnesota ranks slightly better than the average state with an average download speed of 5.4 mbps and the average upload speed is 1.5 mbps.

Telecommuting: a transportation issue

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At the beginning of the summer, there was a push in House to recognize telecommuting as a full-fledged transportation mode. Here’s the scoop from a recent article in New Geography:

One strategy these lawmakers proposed for encouraging telework was to condition federal grants to states and localities for transportation infrastructure on their creation of bold incentives for telework. Why impose this condition? Telework limits the wear and tear on new roads and rails, as well as the demand for further construction. Thus, it protects the federal investment in such infrastructure and mitigates future costs.

The article goes on to suggest…

Congress should insist that they provide telework tax incentives for both employees and employers; eliminate tax, zoning and other laws that are hostile to telework; and offer both public and private sector employers technical help in developing and implementing robust telework programs. The government grantees should be required to create such programs for their own employees. They should also be required to designate certain high traffic and high pollution days as telework days — days when employees are specifically urged to take the web to work — and to conduct public awareness campaigns about the benefits of telework.

I think all of this is great. The article goes on to spell out the financial and other benefits of telework – but it doesn’t really spell out how to pay for the broadband to facilitate telework – except to mention the stimulus funding.

Now maybe telework will be the killer app that drives demand to every dark corner of the state – or maybe telework will only be a tool that’s available to businesses and residents in areas served by broadband. Or maybe the government will look at reallocating money saved from the transportation budget to broadband. I hope it will be the killer app or I hope cost saving can be spent on broadband infrastructure – but I’m a little afraid it will be another way in which we’re “disqualifying an entire population because if net access”.

Task Force meeting audio available

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Thanks to Mike O’Connor for taping and posting the August Minnesota Ultra High Speed Broadband Task Force minutes on his blog. (Listen here!) I listened to the whole meeting last month (thanks to Mike!) and the quality was excellent. I’m hoping to listen to parts of the meeting from last week again.

Broadband Task Force meeting in Fergus Falls Aug 21, 2009

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It was nice to see the local paper encourage Fergus Falls area residents to come out to speak at the public portion of the Minnesota Ultra High Broadband Speed Task Force today. As the article pointed out, broadband access in this area is spotty,

It’s surprising how many Otter Tail County residents are unable to receive broadband because they live in pockets, such as on a lake, on the end of a rural road or the phone or cable companies haven’t gotten there yet, task force member Peg Werner said. Yet there are some areas that have broadband available for all residents.

Also there’s an interesting comment from a heated reader on his impression of how well the market has served the area.

The article must have helped – they had a great crowd.

9:00 – 9:15 – Opening comments

[As always the TF has been good enough to share latest draft recommendations and an added file for the role of government discussion.]

Sent a letter to Native American community about their interests with broadband. They are looking at the issue further.

Blandin is scheduling a broadband conference in Duluth Nov 18-19 and would like to hear from Task Force report and members.

We’ve scheduled three meetings in October. We’ve had great efforts by subgroups. The first meeting in October we should have something close to a final draft. Please start reading the report as a full report with a critical eye. In September we’ll look at the document as a whole.

We left room for minority reports. So far we have been able to come to agreement but we have room if we need it. If you have a minority report please give it to us by October 1, 2009. We’ll need to go through the same process with minority reports.

The local Public Access TV folks are taping us. So it will be available to everyone. The reception last night went well; thanks to Park Region Telephone for sponsoring food.

November 3 and 5 has been reserved with Legislators to offering briefings on the report at the Science Museum. First we’d like to talk to legislators; then press. Details to follow.

Question: Does that sound more like a political statement tan the submission of a report? Having this at the museum makes it seem more like propaganda.

Answer: It’s not meant to sound like that except that we want to be politic enough to get this the attention it deserves. There is anticipation for the report so this seems appropriate. It makes good sense from a project management standpoint too – we’ve worked hard and it would be nice to celebrate the completion. Also it’s easier for reporters to get the store if everyone involved is in one room, at least for a while. It continues he openness to the info.

9:15 – 9:45 – Public comment (see videos)

Darryl Ecker – Park Region Mutual Telephone http://www.prtel.com  

Continue reading →

MnDOT is going green

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The Minneapolis Star Tribune has a nice article today on the green aspects of telecommuting. Apparently MNDOT held a symposium to encourage businesses and government agencies to promote telecommuting.

Carver County was quick to sign up. Scott County has promoted telecommuting for 10 years. Earlier this year I posted an article on Olmsted County’s telecommuting success.

MnDOT is working on an eWork program with a goal to sign up 2,700 participants in the next year. They say if they succeed workers were allowed to work one day a week from home that would mean 1000 fewer rush hour trips in the Twin Cities each day!

Never mind carbon footprint or money save or time – I think the saving on frustration of rush hour driving alone would make that change worth the effort.

Broadband Policy Seminar Fergus Falls

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Here are the notes from the Broadband Policy Seminar Fergus Falls on August 20, 2009.

Folks listened to the presentation and then talked about what their need was in the area…

Ojibwe community has a lot of elderly patients without ready transportation. Many don’t have a telephone. Broadband can be a link into that community. They have a PALS unit that would be more useful with broadband. Also they have an accredited college and it would be nice to offer classes remotely.

Economic Developers are noticing very spotty access. We need basic education on what’s available and what they have. There are communities where there is broadband but where it’s not available to local businesses. So for example the courthouse or library may have access but it isn’t shared. Businesses need broadband to complete tasks online but broadband is not affordable – especially for businesses. For some people home access is half the price of business access.

Bemidji is working n infrastructure of 10Mbit in 10 years to at least 75 percent of the area. Do we need fiber?

No you can certainly get asynchronous access without fiber. But fiber is where the future is. We’re going to talk tomorrow about what it takes to build broadband in rural areas. At this point people aren’t investing a lot of money in infrastructure over copper.

A local school spent $300,000 in improving wiring to build a network. Would wireless help that?

More and more schools are using 100Mbit connections. Some are still using T1s – but it’s not working with online testing and online curriculum. The question is can we get the necessary throughputs with wireless in the schools? Wireless is getting better – but schools still seem to be using wires. Security is another concern. Wireless makes sense in places such as the media center – but probably in a computer lab you’ll still see wired.

What do you hear as far as recommendations for capacity?

The Task Force recommendation is 10-20Mbit down/5Mbit up in 5-6 years to have a viable network. Tomorrow [at the Task Force meeting] we’ll talk more about speed and ubiquity.

It’s tough to balance speed requirements with ubiquity. Do you set a goal with an eye towards serving everyone – even the most remote user or do you go with world class speeds?

Is it more important that everyone have bread before some people get cake? We want for everyone to have a shot at something. And the need for speed keeps growing?

In urban/suburban areas the networks are economically viable. In rural areas we’ll need a mechanism to subsidize coverage. And where do you stop the need for ubiquity? Must you serve second homes? Do we need to serve the weekend fishing warriors? And what do you do if the current owner of a home doesn’t want broadband? Do you build for the future or leave well enough alone?

The phones arrived with government subsidies. Should the government step in with broadband too?

Is there an effort/interest in having public connections available to private users?

That was discussed in WesMNet. The group wanted to buy a portion of that connection but it couldn’t be done. The issue was that the schools get a discount for schools on the condition that schools don’t resell the service.

Could you work a model where education gets the discount and work to resell to users? Because it’s an issue when you cipher off the big users. You do that and no provider wants to come into the area. But we’re at a different stage now. Perhaps there is a solution that would better meet the needs of today – something like metered service for the schools. That would be an excellent public-private partnership.

It also depends on how to define the community. It can be a slippery slope. And then the payoff for a provider again diminishes. How can we get the best broadband to the most people for the best price? The answer will be different for different communities. We’ll see new models with the stimulus packages too.

The technology has changed so much since those original networks were put into the schools. We see the benefits of aggregating demand.

Another difficulty with stimulus is that you need to make your network available to competitors. That’s tough for a business to take when making the investment. The other side of it is that the stimulus won’t pay for everything. To better your chances of getting money, you have to invest more money yourself. It’s almost counterintuitive. You could leave the stimulus funding on the table and build the same network – on a slower schedule.

The reporting requirements paired with the policy requirements (like opening up the network) make the federal money less attractive. There are a lot of layers of cost when you use someone else’s money. This is a reason some providers have backed off the stimulus funding – at least for the first round. Another fear is that the government may act too slowly for many business tastes.

There are large areas with few people. They have seen out-migration since the 20’s. If we are going to stop that out-migration, we need to have access. Farmers need access. To attract workers, businesses need to allow telecommuting. TO keep people in their homes longer, we need to have remote access to healthcare.

Some providers have come out with business models for serving rural areas. We need to look at how that’s done. You need providers that are interested in serving rural areas.

A few people in the room are planning to speak to the Task Force. Some would love to participate if they could via Skype.