Posted by: Ann Treacy | January 22, 2012

Broadband brings us better hockey

Here’s some fun news for the weekend, apparently AT&T and The Wild have cooked up a special iPhone app for fans coming to the game. According to their press release…

Using the arena’s Wi-Fi, the Minnesota Wild App enhances the fan experience during games at Xcel Energy Center with a number of unique features, including:

Food Ordering: Hungry fans can use this interactive feature to locate vendors throughout the Xcel Energy Center and even place food orders from their seats and be notified by text when their order is ready to be picked up. Xcel Energy Center is the first venue in the Twin Cities market to use this technology.

Live In-Stadium Instant Replays: Minnesota Wild fans attending a game at the Xcel Energy Center can access instant replays not shown on TV or the center-hung scoreboard.

Fan Zone: This feature provides integrated social networking that lets users inside the arena join groups, post updates and more.

Arena Guide: This venue map helps fans find what amenities are near their seats.

Additional features that are available to fans inside or outside the arena include:
Team Information and News: Sports fans at home and at the Xcel Energy Center can stay on top of their team with a player roster, stats and news right at their fingertips.

Access to Social Networking Sites: Easy access to the Minnesota Wild on Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare.

Events Calendar: Fans inside and outside the arena have access to a calendar of sponsored events at the arena.
MyWildNet: Games, arena information, replays and more can be accessed via the app.

“The Minnesota Wild App allows Wild fans to follow their team at an unprecedented level,” said Jim Ibister, Vice President, Facility Administration/General Manager, Saint Paul RiverCentre. “Whether at Xcel Energy Center or at home, fans can stay connected with latest Wild news and statistics at the touch of a fingertip.”

The Minnesota Wild App is available for free from the App Store on iPhone or at www.itunes.com/appstore.

I won’t pretend like the replays would be a big hit with me – but anything that shortens the food line, has to be good!

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Posted in Broadband Applications, economic development, MN

Posted by: Ann Treacy | January 21, 2012

SW Minnesota: the Ups & Downs of ARRA

I’ve been tracking progress of fiber deployment by the Southwest Minnesota Broadband Group (SMBG). It is an ARRA-funded project that is bringing fiber to homes in the following communities:

  • Bingham Lake,
  • Brewster
  • Heron Lake
  • Jackson
  • Lakefield
  • Okabena
  • Round Lake
  • Wilder

The project has been going very well – and even hooked up their first customer in December. So that part of Southwest Minnesota is going strong.

Unfortunately, according to Watch Dog, not all of Southwestern Minnesota is faring as well..

The recipient of a major federal stimulus grant and loan in southwestern Minnesota appears to be having second thoughts about proceeding with a broadband project spread out over three counties. The $15 million project which planned to expand broadband service in 15 communities may be in danger of going into the financial red zone, apparently due at least in part to the escalating costs of fiber optic cable.

Woodstock Telephone Company was approved by the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) to receive a $10.6 million grant and a $4.5 million loan from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to expand its fiber network by installing Fiber-to-the-Premise (FTTP) to an additional 3,600 premises in Lyon, Pipestone and Rock counties.

While there’s evidently been no formal announcement, the Minneota city administrator told the Freedom Foundation of Minnesota (FFM) that Woodstock Telephone informed her the company no longer intends to build a key facility in their community to house equipment for the network. FFM calls to Woodstock Telephone had not been returned at the time of this post.

I haven’t spoken to Woodstock, but I spoke to others who also indicated that Woodstock seemed as if it was running into some roadblocks.

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Posted in FTTH, Funding, MN, Rural | Tags:

Posted by: Ann Treacy | January 20, 2012

Sibley County keeps on broadband path

Last night I attended the public meeting of the Joint Powers in Sibley County to hear about their progress towards getting broadband in their area. They have been working on this for quite a while. The local governments (cities and county) have been working together through the Joint Powers to pursue a solution that would bring fiber to the area – and by area I mean cities, townships and farms.

Last night was an opportunity for the public and elected officials to hear from the various project partners. Each partner gave a presentation on their role and progress and/or plan for their role in the project.

There were well over 100 people there. Closer to 150, I’m sure – despite the fact that it was a bitterly cold night.

I took outline-type notes on the presentations – mostly because I thought it might inform and inspire other communities who are (or should be) looking at creating broadband options. Towards inspiration, I wish that I had a camera on Gary Evans from HBC, he spoke passionately about the need for broadband. I’ll paraphrase just one of his remarks…

“Broadband is an essential utility for a community. And the window for bringing it in to remain vital is closing.”

Here are some of the quick takes from the project…

Their plan is to bring FTTH. If all goes well, they’d like to build the backbone this year and start bringing it to residents next year. The estimate cost is $50 million; they are looking for revenue bonding for $70 million. (Revenue bonds are paid back from revenue from the project – not with taxes. However, parties involved (Joint Powers and members) are responsible for keeping the reserves replenished throughout the project.)

The project is expected to have a positive margin by the end of year two. There are a couple of wildcard factors. First: take rate – the business plan assumes a 65% penetration rate where customers subscribe to at least two services (of the triple play offering). Second: interest rate – they need to get better than 6% interest rate.

There are other wildcards – such as ensuring other numbers are correct, and assuming there are no roadblocks, such as a lawsuit – but I think these that the take rate and interest rate are two biggies because they are outside the scope of the partners to a large degree.

Not surprisingly, attendees seemed most concerned about mitigating risk – starting with the bonding but also with potential lawsuits. They were clearly up on the history of Monticello’s project – but a lawyer has determined that the situation here is different, in part because as a countywide project they can escape some roadblocks set out for municipalities.

Here are more complete notes… Read More…

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Posted in Building Broadband Tools, Community Networks, Conferences, FTTH, Funding, MN

Posted by: Ann Treacy | January 19, 2012

Next Broadband Task Force Meeting: Jan 24

I’m pleased to share the agenda for the next Minnesota Broadband Task Force meeting. Also I have a copy of the official minutes - not yet approved - from the last meeting. (I also take unofficial notes, which are much longer, but not official.)

I am planning to attend this meeting and will take notes as best I can.

Governor’s Task Force on Broadband
TIES Building
Larpenteur Room
1667 Snelling Ave. N., St. Paul, MN 55108
January 24, 2012
10 AM – 2 PM

Agenda:
I. Greetings and Introductions 10:00 – 10:10

II. Approval of January 10, 2012 Minutes 10:10 – 10:20

III. Public Comments 10:20 – 10:30

IV. Discuss and Finalize Broadband Plan Outline 10:30 – 11:45

V. Lunch (working lunch if necessary) 11:45 – 12:30

VI. Discuss and Finalize Broadband Plan Outline (cont.) 12:30 – 1:30

VII. Additional Public Comments 1:30 – 1:40

VIII. Getting Info Out to Members-What and How 1:40 – 1:55

IX. Other Business/Next Meeting Agenda 1:55 – 2:00

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Posted in Conferences, Minnesota Advisory Task Force, MN, Policy

Posted by: Ann Treacy | January 19, 2012

Consignment shop sells on site and online in Winnebago MN

A friend just passed on this fun story about a blended business to borrow a term from the education field. It’s an outlet and secondhand store – but they sell items on site and online. Here’s a description from the Mankato Free Press…

Travis Fjeld’s new outlet store in Winnebago combines traditional second-hand and warehouse liquidation offerings with an array of Internet-based services for customers.

“Without the Internet access, we couldn’t do this in a small town,” said Fjeld of the community of 1,300.

He opened The Outlet Store on Main Street a few weeks ago. He sells other people’s items on consignment as well as warehouse liquidation inventory he purchases through online auctions.

I think it’s a nice example of economic development application of broadband – both for this individual business but for the community served by this business as well.

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Posted in Broadband Applications, economic development, MN

Posted by: Ann Treacy | January 18, 2012

Better driving? Now there’s an app for that.

I just learned from the MHTA (Minnesota High Tech Association) newsletter that research developed at the University of Minnesota is being used in a new mobile app intended to help kids become better drivers…

The technology behind DriveScribe has been licensed exclusively to Drive Power by the University of Minnesota’s Office for Technology Commercialization. Developed by U mechanical engineering researchers, DriveScribe combines several functions to promote safe driving. It provides real-time driver feedback and blocks phone calls, emails and text messages while the vehicles is in operation. The app will also notify parents of traffic violations and log activity to a web portal for later review.

Ironic that a cell phone can help someone drive better. I like the idea of fighting fire with fire – and while I suspect that tech savvy teens may find a way around it – I think that if they’re smart they won’t. And of course danger of losing car privileges is a big incentive to be smart, as I recall. The article goes on to say that while this app is starting with the teen driving market, there are other areas for them to grow…

DrvieScribe will likely expand beyond the teen market to help senior drivers, commercial vehicle fleets and insurance companies. For now, it uses social comparisons, points and rewards and a sophisticated scoring system to quantify the attributes of safe driving. It is known as the Safe Driver Score.

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Posted in education, MN, Wireless

Posted by: Ann Treacy | January 17, 2012

SOPA Strike FYI

If you run into troubles surfing your usual web haunts tomorrow – don’t try to adjust your computer, or router, or browser – it may be the SOPA blackout. Here’s the quick take from the SOPA Strike website…

On January 18th, 2012 the internet is going on strike to stop the web censorship bills in Congress! Now is our moment— we need you to do everything you can, whether you have a website or not.

Here’s a partial list of folks planning to participate (from the SOPA Strike List):

  • Google
  • WordPress
  • Wikipedia
  • Internet Archive
  • Center for Technology and Democracy
  • reddit
  • Electronic Frontier Foundation

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a primer on SOPA. The update since I wrote that is that SOPA has been put on ice until outstanding concerns have been addressed. MSNBC reports..

A House subcommittee was slated to prepare the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, for a vote later this month; the Senate had planned a vote on the companion bill, PIPA (The Protect IP Act,) even sooner. Now, it appears both votes will be delayed.

A little more detail indicates that the issue for SOPA may be in the technical details (again from MSNBC)…

Meanwhile, several signs point to SOPA legislation hitting some serious speedbumps. On Saturday, a statement issued by White House cyberczar Howard Schmidt, and other administration technology officials, threw cold water on SOPA’s anti-piracy efforts.

“Our analysis of the DNS filtering provisions in some proposed legislation suggests that they pose a real risk to cybersecurity and yet leave contraband goods and services accessible online,” says the response, referring to SOPA’s proposal to allow law enforcement officials to blacklist Web sites — cut them off from U.S. users — that allegedly encourage piracy. The response, posted at WhiteHouse.gov on Saturday, does not take a position on SOPA, but it cautioned lawmakers that the administration will oppose anti-piracy efforts that might increase censorship.

The White House has also responded to public comments on SOPA…

Right now, Congress is debating a few pieces of legislation concerning the very real issue of online piracy, including the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), the PROTECT IP Act and the Online Protection and Digital Enforcement Act (OPEN). We want to take this opportunity to tell you what the Administration will support—and what we will not support. Any effective legislation should reflect a wide range of stakeholders, including everyone from content creators to the engineers that build and maintain the infrastructure of the Internet.
…
Any effort to combat online piracy must guard against the risk of online censorship of lawful activity and must not inhibit innovation by our dynamic businesses large and small.
…
We must avoid creating new cybersecurity risks or disrupting the underlying architecture of the Internet.
…
So, rather than just look at how legislation can be stopped, ask yourself: Where do we go from here? Don’t limit your opinion to what’s the wrong thing to do, ask yourself what’s right. Already, many of members of Congress are asking for public input around the issue. We are paying close attention to those opportunities, as well as to public input to the Administration. The organizer of this petition and a random sample of the signers will be invited to a conference call to discuss this issue further with Administration officials and soon after that, we will host an online event to get more input and answer your questions. Details on that will follow in the coming days.

(For an interesting take on whether or how piracy does hurt America’s economy, check out Tim O’Reilly’s article.)

As mentioned in the primer, it’s an interesting issue because the folks who get the news out generally have some skin in the game so it’s difficult to get a read on the topic that isn’t impassioned. It will be very interesting to see how traditional media cover the blackout tomorrow. It will also be interesting to see what an impact it has on those of us who are online all day, every day.

Finally – if I were a group such as the Minnesota Broadband Task Force, I might look at the blackout as a sneak peek as what might happen if sites were every shut down outside of their own volition. Can we carry on business effectively and efficiently without our regular online tools? (Not just in terms of SOPA and piracy, but a glimpse as the importance of security and redundancy!)

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Posted in Broadband Applications, economic development, Policy

Posted by: Ann Treacy | January 17, 2012

Renville-Sibley Fiber Project: Meeting Jan 19

I thought some folks might be interested in attending this meeting – thank to Mark Erickson for allowing me to share the info. For folks outside the community, I thought it might be interesting to see what’s happening in other areas and maybe learn from what other folks are doing…

The City of Arlington and the RS Fiber Joint Powers Board will be hosting a gathering of representatives from the 11 city councils and two county commissions that make up the RS Fiber Joint Powers Board on Thursday, January 19th at the Arlington Community Center.

The focus of the meeting is to update all of the councils and commissions on the progress of the project and discuss next steps for moving forward.

An agenda for the meeting is attached, along with bios for the presenters.

A light supper will be served beginning at 6 p.m. sponsored by the Sibley County Economic Development Commission (SEDCO).

The meeting will begin at 7 p.m.

Representatives from each council and commission will have assigned seating.

The gathering is a work session. No motions or votes will be allowed or taken. If a particular city or county needs to call their group to order, please let RS Fiber JPB Chair Jim Swanson know ahead of the meeting and he will accommodate your request.

There will be five presentations made during the meeting.

During the presentations questions will only be allowed from councils and commissions.

Handouts of the presentations will be available at the meeting.

A general Q&A session will take place following the presentations for the general public.

Cards will be passed out prior to the general Q&A and questions will be read from those cards.

Wade Werner from the AGGW Cable Commission and GFW will be taping the meeting.

Shannon Sweeney from David Drown Associates will moderate the presentations and Q&A.

If you have any comments, questions or suggestions please contact either me or one of the members of the JPB.

If you know of someone you think should receive this email, please forward it to them.

This is a public meeting and everyone is welcome.

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Posted in Conferences, FTTH, MN, Rural, Vendors

Posted by: Ann Treacy | January 17, 2012

Broadband for Bear Cubs

I always like to see Minnesota in the news for broadband related activity. Today’s news is a little different and the funny thing is that the news comes to me direct from the Sarasota Herald (FLA). Apparently Lily the bear’s sister will be giving birth while the world (with broadband) watches.

Lily was the Black Bear that gave birth in Ely, Minnesota last year. This year her sister is stepping in…

Three-year-old Jewel is the younger sister of Lily, who gave birth in January 2010 to Hope. The birth and early days were followed by millions of viewers over the Internet. A hunter killed Hope last year and biologists say it was a blow to their research.

This is the third year the institute and the North American Bear Center are broadcasting from dens in northeastern Minnesota.

I think it has been a huge opportunity for the Wildlife Research Institute to raise both awareness and funds. They are apparently expecting her to give birth any day now. I checked it out and it is kind of amazing how much they are learning through the webcams.

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Posted in economic development, education, MN, Rural

Posted by: Ann Treacy | January 13, 2012

PUC meeting on FCC Order (USF/ICC/CAF/VoIP): Full Notes

Today I attended the PUC panel presentation on the Implications for Minnesota of the FCC’s Universal Service/Intercarrier Compensation Order. “The Order” is the Connect America Fund Order, Reforms USF/ICC for Broadband; it includes USF and ICC rules related to price-cap and rate-of-return carriers, the Connect America Fund and ICC for VoIP providers among many other issues. The report is 700 pages long – and as the panelists pointed out that while the ink is drying many parties are bringing up lawsuits and items for consideration that may change how the particulars play out.

My understanding of the Order is very high level and a little looser than I’ve like it to be. There are changes in who may get the funding. The push seems to be to move towards explicitly funding broadband deployment in unserved areas. Broadband has been defined as 4 Mbps download and 1 Mbps up. Strides are being made to track access at an increasingly granular level and to fund only one provider in each area and only if no other provider is present. (One speaker noted that this may be setting the stage for a voucher system in the future.)

There are also changes in sources of the funding. Upheaval of the funding will have an impact on those currently receiving it. So regardless of the long term game plan those changes are an issue – businesses cases have been made based on the old criteria. In fact ARRA funding was awarded based on those business cases. Providers in most areas seemed sensitive to that issue – although clearly some will benefit from the changes too.

There seem to be concerns about the sources of funding being felt more acutely by the end customer than is previously the case. There were also concerns about the speed goals set out by the FCC (via the National Broadband Plan). One provider was wary of the 4down/1up goal because that eliminates some technologies (DSL). It was noted that deployment would be faster and wider if the up goal was 768 kbps. Another provider was discouraged at the limitation of 4down/1up, pointing out that this was not fast enough, especially since cable is more in line with 14down/6up.

The providers also had advice for the PUC. Pay attention and make sure Minnesota gets it fair share of the $4.3 billion caught my ear. It was suggested that while on the surface it appears as if the FCC has handed down an edict of sort, the devil will be in the details and those will be sorted out by the PUC. The video below actually includes comments from all of the presenters on advice/observations for the PUC.

So there are some broad strokes from the day. I will also include my detailed notes – but again there are portions of this that are alphabet soup for me. I’ve done my best to take down what folks said – but if you feel I got something wrong – please feel free to shout it out. Also I know there were some technical glitches so I’m doing my best to get this out in a timely fashion. (In other words please excuse typos.) I did hear that an audio archive of the presentation will be available on the PUC site. If I hear when I’ll post again.)

During the session, industry leaders addressed three topics:

  1. universal service funding
  2. intercarrier compensation and
  3. the substantive and procedural tasks that the Commission can be expected to face in the coming months (video of answer to this below)

The speakers were:

  • Jeff Lindsey; CenturyLink
  • Brent Christensen; Minnesota Telecom Alliance
  • Dan Lipschultz; Moss & Barnett PA, competitive carrier perspective
  • Tom Cohen; Kelley, Drye & Warren LLP for the American Cable Association
  • Dave Conn; T-Mobile
  • Dennis Ahlers; Minnesota Department of Commerce.

Moderated by PUC Commissioner Betsy Wergin Read More…

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Posted in Conferences, MN, Policy

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