Last week I got to visit Todd County. Alex Weego at the Todd County Development Corporation invited me and Jan Hepola from Minnesota Technology to Todd County to talk to a few companies about how web-based technology might help themgrow their business. This post is long but I wanted to share what we learned about tech challenges that businesses in rural Minnesota are facing. Continue reading
Yesterday I was in New Ulm for a Chamber of Commerce meeting set up to promote their upcoming Tech Tuesday training. Yours truly is the trainer for the event and I’m really excited. (The Blandin Foundation is supporting the training through their Get Broadband program.)
Sheila Howk, New Ulm Retail Economic Development Coordinator, sent me a brief summer of the meeting:
We had a great turn out this morning! We had over 50 people who attended, and over 30 people who signed up for courses. Some feedback that I have heard already is the training that we have planned is short and too the point, exactly what we need. I also had people that were unable to attend the breakfast that would like to go to the classes.
But I also wanted to add my own notes. Continue reading
Last week was the NXTComm conference in Chicago. I wasn’t there; I was in Sauk Centre talking to businesses about web sites and I hope to tell you more about that later. But over the summer I am trying to track various conferences via new and blog for all of us. It’s the homebody’s version of professional development.
NXTCOmm is a conference and trade event for telecommunications and ICET professionals. Here are their keynote speakers – and various notes I could find on their presentations. I’m going to try to give fairly factual accounts but I fully admit that the resources I used below may be pretty biased. Continue reading
I just got off of the phone with Dick Nordvold, consultant to the Iron Range Community FiberNet. They recently unveiled a new web site that tracks their progress in building “state of the art communications network that will make voice, video and data services available in 12 Iron Range communities. This fiber-optic network will equal the capabilities of the best networks in the world and will be one of the few available in Minnesota.” (quoted from their web site)
I think the Iron Range project is interesting because it serves as a model for other rural communities looking into building out a network that will help the community thrive in future. Here are some of the quick facts:
First a little background for folks who don’t know about the project – then notes on my talk with Dick. Continue reading
Thanks to Jamie for sending me the update on Sprint’s latest purchase. Apparently they have an agreement to acquire Northern PCS Services, LLC, for $312.5 million, including the assumption of debt. (The purchase needs to be approved and should be next quarter – but this is the plan.)
Here’s a bit of info on Northern PCS gleaned from the Sprint press release:
Northern PCS, based in Waite Park, Minnesota, provides Sprint PCS services in certain small to mid-size markets in Minnesota, North Dakota, Wisconsin and Iowa, serving more than 167,000 direct wireless subscribers and more than 69,000 reseller subscribers in a coverage area of more than 1.8 million people. It employs about 240 people and had revenues for the twelve months ended December 31, 2006 of $130 million.
Sprint has acquired 6 similar small market affiliates in the last 2 years or so. Apparently Sprint has purchased affiliates who were unhappy with issues of competition; buying the companies has helped them avoid lawsuits – or so I learned from Xchange Online. I haven’t been able to find much more.
The Northern PCS domain name now points to Sprint, admittedly I don’t know if it always has. Darn, sometimes the purchased companies. On a tangent – I looked them up on the WayBack Machine (which archived many, many web sites and all I could find was their statistics page from 2002.) Hmmm – makes me want to check out more archived pages – if only I could see more recent stats.
Today Google started “Google Public Policy Blog: Google’s views on government, policy and politics.” They began the blog internally in April – so there’s a there there today – but the official unveiling is indeed today.
Past topics include:
What Do We Mean By “Net Neutrality”?
Google’s “People Operations” Guy Talks Immigration Policy
Google Politics, French Elections Edition
So you can see the topics are pretty broad. The reasons for the posts are fairly transparent at times – but they have opened up comments and at least when I read them, they didn’t appear to be censoring based on negative feedback.
I would like to see a list of categories for the blog posts – but there isn’t one, yet. I could spend quite a bit of time checking out their list of favorite blogs – but I won’t – at least I won’t tonight.
I just ran across an old favorite site of mine – well favorite work-related site. CyberTelecom tracks federal Internet law and regulations. It started in 1997. I think I used to visit it back when I worked for an ISP – in 1997.
They appear to be tracking everything happening with the FCC, they track items by topic, and they track/research wonderfully nerdy things on their blog, such as Stealth Trademarks, where they talk about the legality of using trademarked names in hidden places such as meta-tags.
I find stealth trademarks to be a very interesting topic. (Remember, I used to be a librarian.) I think they have just posted the first in a series of blog posts but so far using trademark names in meta-tags is illegal. I’ll have to wait for the updates to learn about keywords and pop-ups.
Finally, and possibly of greatest interest to this audience, CyberTelecom has just updated their list of ISP associations. They don’t list any in Minnesota – but they do mention that the Minnesota Internet Service Provider Association now leads to an adult site. I don’t remember anything called the Minnesota Internet Service Provider Association, but I do remember the Minnesota Internet Service Trade Association. I guess I’m not inspired enough to see if that leads to an adult site too. But I do appreciate the list of associations.
I have to be honest. I didn’t go to this meeting. I’m actually basking in the sun enjoying a beautiful weekend at Fun Ta Boot in Park Rapids, Minnesota – but I found an Internet coffee shop, I quickly checked my email and got this great update from Rick Birmingham. (Thanks Rick!)
If you missed the Mpls wireless kickoff event last night Chuck Olsen did a video piece on it at:
http://www.mnstories.com/archives/2007/06/wifi_in_minneap.html
Peter Fleck wrote a bit about it too:
http://www.pfhyper.com/weblog/2007/06/minneapolis-unwired-nitty-gritty.html
The Arrowhead Leader recently ran an article about the unveiling of the new Moose Lake web site.
Bill Carlson, Community Broadband Coordinator, said, “We want this web site to be the first stop for people wanting to find out more about Moose Lake.”
The web site include a directory of area businesses, updates on community events and news, e-government info such as city ordinances and city minutes, and information about the area.
But the neatest features are the email and text messages alerts. Community members can sign up to get alerts related to a number of topics – including emergency alerts.
The plan is not necessarily to use it for incidents such as tornado warnings but for topics such as missing persons.
The City of Moose Lake is a Get Broadband community, which means they received funding from the Blandin Foundation for the project. They are also applying for FEMA grant for equipment such as laptops for each emergency vehicle.
WCA has created a web site that is the “go-to resource for comments by – and comparisons between – top U.S. policymakers regarding the pace and benefits of broadband deployments.”
They give nice broadband profiles for everyone and you can comment. The profiles include what they say and (more importantly) what they’d done in terms of broadband in the past.
They track the campaigns and post any news that is broaband-related and they track individual issues including:
Rural Broadband Deployment
Interoperability
Net Neutrality
Applications in Education
Applications in Military
On an only semi-related note. The WCA Annual Conference is happening now. The line up looks great – if only it were happening in Minnesota. I’ll be sure to check back with them next week to see if they will be posting notes or presentations online.
I don’t want to get anyone in trouble – but I found an archive of a recent Thomas Friedman article online: (Thomas Friedman: U.S.-trained high-tech workers will displace us). Usually I think you have to pay to access the articles on the NY Times so this was a Lucky Strike Extra for me!
Thomas Friedman, originally from Minnesota, has written books about how the Internet has flattened the world. One example of his theory is my plan to move to Ireland this fall and have you all think I’m still at my desk in St Paul. If I can get to the Internet, then my move should be seamless for blog readers and clients alike. Bill Coleman may have even found me a way to do free video phone calls over the Internet – so folks can even see me if they want.
Back to Friedman – he recently published an article praising the US for stellar advance tech degrees – and admonishing the US for not doing more to retain the many foreign students who take advantage of our great educational opportunities. He points out that we’re mentoring our own technical and economic replacements around the world! Now that’s not such a bad thing except that we’re forgetting to keep some of the seeds to replenish and expand the original crop.
In this case the Internet (and broadband) is a double edge sword – because suddenly geography doesn’t matter. Location, location, location isn’t the answer so long as you can access the Internet – many of us can do our jobs and run our businesses from anywhere.
I don’t want to get too political but Friedman points out that:
9/11, and the failing Iraq war, have sucked up almost all the oxygen in this country — oxygen needed to discuss seriously education, health care, climate change and competitiveness, notes Garrett Graff, an editor at Washingtonian Magazine and author of the upcoming book “The First Campaign,” which deals with this theme.
I might chime in to add broadband to the list of items that need to be addressed and won’t be until we find more oxygen. Unfortunately, while we’re busy not addressing this issue other countries are moving ahead – without us.
We’re a long way form North Carolina (despite the hot weather today) – but an article on the Baller Herbst’s email list about North Carolina caught my eye.
Think South is a blog maintained by the Center for a Better South. They recently ran a post on North Carolina cities’ reaction to a bill being considered in the North Carolina State Legislature to limit the ability of municipalities to provide Broadband Internet access to residents.
Not surprisingly, telecommunication and cable companies support the bill. Cities don’t. One issue brought up by cities is the potential impact on rural and/or poor areas where private entities are often not interested in investing in infrastructure to support connectivity.
The blog quotes an article from the Independent Weekly that quotes Rep. Angela Bryant (D-Halifax, Nash):
“Technology’s moving so fast, some of my cities and counties say that as far as they’re concerned, broadband service is almost like electricity, water and natural gas in terms of how essential it would be for citizens to have it and how much of a deprivation it would be not to, just because private industry won’t do it,” she [Rep. Angela Bryant (D-Halifax, Nash)] says. She’d like to find some balance between the concerns of the industry and needs of local communities.
It’s hard not to see both sides. The municipalities (who don’t pay taxes and don’t need to make a profit) would have a distinct advantage in the marketplace. Yet, a community without broadband access runs the risk of a distinct economic disadvantage. Where do we strike a balance? It’s an interesting question and I’m sure that the issues that surface in North Carolina could surface here in Minnesota too.
The Broadband Policy Summit happened this week near DC. I wasn’t there but I have been trying to track notes on it for those of us who didn’t go. I havne’t found much yet – but here’s what I found:
Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA) gave the keynote address. John Bergmayer from Public Knowledge provided a nice summary of his speech. A super condensed version:
I was able to find FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell’s speech online. Here is my super quick abbreviation:
The OECD rumors of our decline are exaggerated. They aren’t measuring the right thing. The US is ramping up to leapfrog beyond many European counties. The counties with governments who have taken over broadband deployment may be doing well now but innovation has been thwarted and so improvement will not continue. The US needs to encourage growth by allowing the market to growing fairly freely. When consumers really demand broadband providers will rise to the occasion, increased access to spectrum will help.
I’ve been looking for something on John Kneuer’s speech or any other mention but came up empty handed. Perhaps the hosts will be posting presentations and notes later.
Sorry folks – I should have posted this yesterday.
The June eNews is now online. It includes updates from the Get Broadband communities, Coleman’s Corner, an article on WiMax and more…
The Renville Get Broadband community students have created a fun videocast of their welding class. Thanks to Annie Tepfer for sending it to me.