Monthly Archives: May 2008

Blandin Broadband initiative gets nice recognition

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We have fun news to share for the Blandin Foundation and the many people who help the Foundation promote and support ultra speed broadband. Governor Pawlenty sent a nice letter commending Blandin Foundation, among others, for leadership in laying groundwork that led to the establishment of an ‘Ultra-High Speed Broadband Task Force’. The Task Force will make recommendations to the Governor and legislature regarding the establishment of a high speed broadband goal for the state and a plan to implement that goal. This is the legislation that Jim Hoolihan commended in his commentary published May 8 in the Pioneer Press. Establishment of such a Task Force has been a key objective of Blandin’s Broadband Initiative.

Phoenix Center says US is on track internationally with broadband

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Phoenix Center ReportThanks to Ann Higgins for sending me info on the Phoenix Center report, The Broadband Efficiency Index: What Really Drives Broadband Adoption Across the OECD?

They reshuffle OECD numbers to claim that the US is holding its own with broadband adoption when you figure in mitigating circumstances. So, that makes me doubtful – although if you jump to the recommendations they win me over.

The recommendation is (and I’m taking great liberties here) to invest in the mitigating circumstances such as education and computer ownership. They also allow that the answer will be different for each country depending on what the local mitigating circumstances are.

So they come up with a prediction for broadband adoption for a country based on “income, income inequality, education attainment, age, and so forth”. Then they compare the prediction with the actual broadband adoption.

Using their equations, the US fares better. “Significantly, the United States has an efficiency index of 96.7%, which is slightly higher than the purported “broadband miracles” of Japan and Korea (96.3%, 95.8%).” There are a few poorer countries that also do much better with this method of calculating broadband success.

In the end it reminds me of every quote I’ve ever heard about statistics – but as I said they won me over in by recommending that we take a look at the roots of the problems – the mitigating circumstances – to improve broadband adoption.

Also they bring up a good point by recognizing that each country has different mitigating circumstances. People try to dismiss the OECD ranking because of one factor or another – such as population density. Well this report demonstrates that sometimes population density is a factor and sometimes it isn’t – so to focus unilaterally on population density to dismiss the OECD rankings, doesn’t work. In that respect this methodology is more inclusive.

I looked into the Phoenix Center a bit. They are a nonprofit think tank that strives to promote free markets. The Phoenix Center President is Lawrence J. Spiwak, former senior attorney with the Competition Division in the FCC’s Office of General Counsel.

Notes for the Blandin Broadband Strategy Board Meeting

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Bill Coleman has asked me to post materials for the Blandin Broadband Strategy Board meeting. I believe that the meeting is today.

So here is a PowerPoint presentation and 4 handouts:

  1. A look at possible broadband board priorities
  2. Text on S.F. No. 1918 – the bill on the High Speed Broadband Goal Task Force
  3. Information on Intelligent Community Forum competition
  4. Cook County Review

I assume that these documents are open to the public – if not you may find them gone tomorrow.  I found them to be interesting and suspect that others might be as well.

A lawsuit in the works in Monitcello

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Thanks to Lynne Dahl-Fleming for sending me the following update on the Get Broadband project in Monticello. It will be interesting to see what happens with the lawsuit. Things have gone so well in Monticello that I’m sure this will be just a pebble on the path to broadband – and hopefully an opportunity for other communities to learn how to handle the situation as lawsuits from incumbents seem to be on the rise.

(There have been some nice articles in the Monticello Times on this story – but unfortunately they’re not online yet. Update: thanks to Lynne for the link to the stories, which are now online! I really enjoyed the editorial (I’d include the link when/if I can – again thanks to Lynne for the udpate link!) from Mike Shoemer who while clearly a fan of TDS calls their lawsuit and accelerated plan for FTTH “shady”. Like many incumbents in other areas, TDS has taken a “wait and see” approach to network upgrades, letting the municipality do a lot of their business and market development and trying to take the lead once the municipality has already invested time and money into a public network.)

On May 21st the City of Monticello obtained commitments from private investors to purchase revenue bonds sufficient to finance the establishment of a city owned and operated telecommunications utility called “FiberNet Monticello”. Obtaining investor support for the FiberNet Monticello business plan is a true demonstration of the financial viability of the project and a key milestone in development of the system. An important factor in the success to date is the overwhelming support of the citizens as reflected in the 74% favorable vote In the September 2007 referendum.

On May 22nd the City Council was prepared to meet to vote on authorizing sale of the bonds. Less than 48 hours prior to that intended vote TDS Telecom through its subsidiary Bridgewater Telephone served a lawsuit against the City claiming that state laws do not grant the right to use revenue bonds for establishment of a telecommunications system, despite express language in the statute allowing revenue bonds to be issued for revenue based “utilities and public conveniences”.

The City is confident that it is well within its legal rights to use revenue bonds to build a municipal network and that it will prevail against the suit. The City will vigorously oppose the law suit. Defense of the lawsuit is partially afforded through the City’s membership in the League of Minnesota Cities Insurance Trust.

Both the timing and the grounds alleged in the suit lead to the impression that the suit was intended to interfere with the award of the bonds and create additional costs for the City project.

The City plans to move forward with the project and its bond managers will continue to prepare for the bond sale which will include a disclosure to investors of the existence of the lawsuit.

All other aspects of the FiberNet Monticello project have gone forward successfully on schedule including network engineering, construction planning and negotiating a management contract.

The goals of the FiberNet project remain the same: choice of service provider; competitive rates; local service; local ownership; economic development and economic returns to the community. We will need the continued support of the citizens of Monticello to overcome the legal obstacles TDS/Bridgewater Telephone is placing in the path of FiberNet Monticello.

Broadband Update for Wadena

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Thanks to Dean Uselman for sending me an update for Wadena’s Get Broadband project:

Wadena has partnered with Minnesota State Community & Technical College, Wadena Campus to offer a series of Internet training classes, “Internet 101 Being a Better Internet User”. The first two classes have focused on a curriculum for the general public and beginners and have been a great success serving more than 50 new and learning Internet users.

A business-focused class was on May 21st called “Open for Business, Internet marketing 101”. The class targeted business owners and focused on marketing their business and online sales through high speed Internet. The class was well attended and several new websites for local businesses will come from it.

Tri-County Hospital in Wadena has completed the installation of a fiber optic line to their satellite clinic in Henning as a match of $7,500.00 of the Blandin Foundation Get Broadband Grant. According to Dennis Miley, Hospital Administrator and Cindy Uselman, Grants and Programs Manager, Tri-County Hospital has become the industry leader in providing telemedicine services and educating staff and physicians at hospitals throughout greater Minnesota and Eastern North Dakota on the implementation of telemedicine using broadband.

Dean also sent me a great take off on Abbott and Costello’s Who’s on First with a techie spin… Continue reading →

Public Private Fiber-to-the-Home in Powell Wyoming

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Thanks to David Russell of Calix for the head up on the progress in Powell, Wyoming. He is out west helping them celebrate.

The City of Powell has built a public-private partnership with network service provider TCT; and municipal-broadband- network facilitator U.S. MetroNets (USM) to build PowelLink – municipal Fiber-to-the-Home network.

The network will provide high-bandwidth advanced IP services to both residents and businesses, and will serve as a magnet for this community of 5,500 residents in northern Wyoming. USM is managing the service, the City is providing access to the network and TCT will be providing services.

It will be great to see how this works out. It sounds like a viable strategy to me. USM has been able to obtain private funding.

Broadband is economical and environmental

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economic and environmentalThanks to Bill Coleman for passing on a paper by Joe Fuhr from Widener University. Bill saw Joe’s presentation at the Intelligent Community Forum and passed it (Broadband Services: Economic and Environmental Benefits) on to me.

His “study finds that wide adoption and use of broadband applications can achieve a net reduction of 1 billion tons of greenhouse gas over 10 years, which, if converted into energy saved, would constitute 11% of annual U.S. oil imports.”

Here are the potential savings:

  1. Email and other electronic communications reduce the need for letters thus reducing the need for paper. Reduction in first-class mail, plastics saved from downloading music/video and office paper from emails and electronic documents could reduce emissions by 67.2 million tons.
  2. Telecommuters use less gas to get to work thus saving gallons of gas. Over the next ten years that is expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 247.7 million tons due to less driving, 28.1 million tons due to reduced office construction, and 312.4 million tons because of energy saved by businesses.
  3. E-commerce required less square footage for shop space thus saving the energy required to operate shops. Over the next ten years that is predicted to reduce greenhouse gases by 206.3 million (U.S.) tons.
  4. Teleconferences reduce the need for business travel – again saving gallons of gas for driving and/or flying to conferences and meetings. Over the next ten years that is expected to reduce greenhouse emissions by 199.8 million tons, if 10% of airline travel could be replaced by teleconferencing.

Joe points out that these savings will only be realized when broadband become ubiquitous. Right now I think cost is a big deterrent for many potential subscribers. Perhaps distilling the savings (monetary is probably better than environmental) to a family or individual level might help some potential subscribers find a way to shift expense from one bucket to another in the family budget to make broadband more affordable.

I like Joe’s paper even more than the Broadband Better than Roads report I read earlier this year.

Update on big broadband in St Paul

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The Twin Cities got a quick mention on DSL Reports this week (Comcast, Qwest Annoyed With Twin Cities Wi-Fi Plans). The quick take is that incumbents are starting to offer great bandwidth speeds but the Cities are saying it’s just not enough. (It isn’t mentioned in this article but I think people if not the Cities themselves are also saying, it’s too expensive.)

The picture looks similar to one painted in other communities. The city gets involved with broadband – often out of frustration with current choices. The incumbents may or may not come to the table – but let’s just say in many cases, they don’t become part of the solution.

The incumbents counter public efforts by providing better broadband that often does not meet the speeds being sought by the local governments yet it better than what’s currently offered. The incumbents might also talk about how it is too expensive for the city to offer broadband or they claim that it is illegal for the city to offer broadband.

The Pioneer Press recently ran an article on boosting broadband in the school that exemplifies this situation. St. Paul Public Schools is upgrading their 1.5 megabit-per-second lines to 10-megabit-per-second service. (First – the Schools have been running on a T1. Criminy I may have taken that order in the mid-90s. I can’t believe they are just upgrading now!)

The city and schools are happy for the upgrade but recognize that it too will soon be outdated. The incumbents (Comcast and Qwest) say that’s more bandwidth than anyone needs. Well, except in Japan where the service is 10 times as fast!

So the cities (St Paul and Egan in this case) are on the hunt for a better solution. The incumbents feel that the cities should talk to them. They claim they can up the speeds as soon as there is demand. St Paul will be looking first at a provider that can meet the needs of the city and then will consider needs of residents – if incumbents have met the need so be it. If not we might be looking at a new provider in town in St Paul.

PC World on Broadband Issues

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PC World recently published a range of articles on broadband. If you have a friend or colleague who has wanted to know more about broadband but was too busy to ask – you could send them these articles.

Broadband Policy: The Connected Nation Model – gives a nice description of Connected Nation. They point out that what makes Connected Nation (built from ConnectKentucky) a winner is their ability to tell a story. I have wondered in the past why Connected Nation seems to have caught the imagination of policymakers and I think this is it.

To Connected Nation’s credit, they work with local communities, recognizing that one solution does not fit all and only by working with locals are you create a solution that will work locally.

A strike against Connected Nation is its strong affiliation with incumbent providers.

Broadband: How the US Stacks up – highlights points for and arguments against the OECD report. In short, in the US we pay more for less broadband that more than half of the 30 countries that the OECD investigates. People can make excuses for this showing – but if we want to be world class I think we have to listen to the criticism and try to do better.

Does the US Need a New Broadband Policy? – I have to admit this was another good article. It outlines the facets of a broadband policy such as net neutrality, competition, deregulation, universal access and more. Here’s my favorite line:

U.S. residents have to decide what they want: fast broadband or broadband competition, Atkinson [Robert Atkinson of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF)] said.

I don’t know if it’s true but it does seem that the desire to maintain competition is what separates the US from many other countries. Other countries either have the power to demand that providers act a certain way or they manage the providers.

2008 FTTH Conference & Expo in Nashville

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FTTH CouncilThis looks like a great conference coming up in September. It’s in Nashville – but that’s just a good excuse to hear some great music while you’re there.

The 2008 FTTH Conference & Expo in Nashville will be the place to learn about the operations, financing, marketing and technology of fiber to the home services that are transforming communities around the world.

Who Should Attend?
• Service providers
• Rural telcos
• Municipalities
• Municipal utilities
• Developers and aggregators
• Anyone with a stake in the future of FTTH deployment

Register Now!
Register now and save $200! Visit online registration to view options.

Learn more

Broadband plan in Australia

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I remember when Australia was connected to the Internet with a 56K line. Of course at that time MRNet (Minnesota’s biggest Internet provider at the time) was connected to the backbone with a T3. But it seems as if Australia is on track to leave Minnesota in the cyber dust.

The Australian government is geared to invest US$4.4 billion in a national fiber-optic network, to be built in partnership with the private sector. Even better – the government’s preference is to work with an open access provider or wholesaler that is separate from a retail provider.

Right now Telstra is the country’s largest retailer and wholesaler. And Telstra is kind of pegged as the provider for the new network. But the government might insist or at least encourage Telstra to divide itself based on operation (whole versus retail broadband service). This has been a successful approach in other areas such as New Zealand and Europe.

Connect Arkansas

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Thanks to Ann Higgins for sending me an update on Connect Arkansas (Panel Discusses Progress Toward Statewide Broadband Access). Arkansas is a step or two ahead of Minnesota in the drive for broadband. A Broadband Advisory Council and Connect Arkansas was created by the General Assembly in March 2007.

The Council recently reported on their recommendations – including $750,000 to begin funding the first phase of broadband deployment. The bad news is that no money has been appropriated for the deployment; the good news is that the Arkansas Science & Technology Authority maybe able to help.

The Connect Arkansas folks are still working on the reports and maps of broadband access and coverage.

New OECD Report is Out

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The OECD ranks broadband penetration, growth, coverage and use of broadband of their 30 member countries.

The US is holding at number 15 for broadband penetration; the really bad news is that we’re down to 17th in broadband growth, which indicates to me that our solid ranking of 15 must be in jeopardy. I’m afraid we’re going to fare even worse soon if we don’t starting rowing together in the right direction.

Two of the greatest strikes against us are cost of broadband and speeds offered. Almost have of the 30 OECD member countries have faster broadband and 60 percent pay less.

The OECD makes recommendations to help broadband and I see theme emerging that I brought up last week when comparing the Broadband 2.0 Manifesto from Heavy Reading and the Blandin Foundation’s Live at the Speed of Light report. Specifically they mention:

Open Access
Affordable
Always On
Abundant Bandwidth
Competition
Neutrality
Interoperability
Safe and Secure
Policy-enabled
Wired and wireless (wireless especially as a means to reach rural communities)

Home and Community Options, Inc.

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Light Speed Grant Recipient

Peter Walsh, Project Coordinator

Project Update

May 21, 2008

 

 

The new news is that we have been playing with our IP Video with two-way audio.  Not quite video conferencing but quite workable.  The fiber connection between the two sites really enhances performance.  When I ran the same configuration via the cable modem the delay was objectionable but over the fiber it was almost non existent.  My next step is to train a staff person and her supervisor so they can conduct some supervision via the IP video.  We also intend to experiment with a real video conferencing solution.  We will get to that next month.

 

The staff training is in its final stages and we are just rounding up our stragglers so we can have attained a uniform base level of competency.  It is so encouraging to hear the staff verbalize their satisfaction and to have them reinforce the importance of everybody getting the training.

 

We now have eight sights implementing our eFile program.  We have four sights fully implemented, four about 75% implemented and we have another two just starting the process.  This system enables a program to go completely paperless with all of the required documentation and standardizes all the forms and templates across all programs.  Another side benefit that we just realized was how much it reduced training of existing employees who transfer from one program to another.  We just had one staff who had been using the eFile switch to a new program and there was no lag time at all as the eFile was the same in her new program.

 

Our remote monitoring program is progressing slowly, but progressing.  We have now solved our IP Intercom problem and by the end of June we should have full duplex audio streaming out of our test facility.  This is quite a robust application and we are anxious to start testing other facets of it.

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.

Ireland needs broadband for businesses

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irish sheepThanks to Bernadine Joselyn for passing on the recent article on the economic development and broadband (Lack of broadband hampers new business start-ups) from Silicon Republic.

The article talks a little bit about something I know – business startups in Ireland could be higher if access to broadband was better. Apparently less than 90 percent of Ireland has access to broadband.

Bartley O’Connor, associate director of PricewaterhouseCoopers in Ireland claims, “This is affecting business start-ups, not just end users. There could be hundreds more businesses in the country if not for the lack of broadband. People are losing out.”

Well, I live in suburban Dublin (or as my husband who grew up here says, “an urban village”) and I have broadband – but I can tell you that I can upload only one minute of video to YouTube at a time. So the broadband even in this pretty upper scale suburb ain’t great. I work with a couple of businesses here and it’s quite common for them to mail me CDs with graphics for their web sites rather than email them because the email just can’t take a few attachments.

I can’t imagine what it’s like in rural areas. Now I just reported that I did find broadband in the Aran Islands and it’s tough to get more remote than an Island off the coast of Galway – but that is an area heavily invested in tourism. I know we drove through many areas that were not served well.

In some ways I think that Ireland still wrestles with the romantic view of thatched cottages and sheep farmers – and they are still here – but it’s tough to run a business based on that vision. To sell the sheep you need to be online these days.

I do read more about the need for broadband in the popular press here. They do have a national strategy, even if it has yet to be implemented. The government plays a larger role in day to day life here – providing everything from TV shows to garbage collection so in some ways I think that the road will be smoother for them when they do get serious. They won’t have the challenges that we have in the US of vendors who are invested in the market’s status quo.