Cook County recently posted a Request for Proposal looking for “qualified firms to submit a proposal for the design and construction management of a planned FTTP network. This RFP is specifically for engineering services to design a fiber network throughout the County and to then manage the construction of the network.” You can learn more on the Cook County web site. Good luck!
Today was the final Task Force meeting. The recommendations will be published one week from today. Six months ago, I wasn’t so sure that this report was going to be finished in time. But it is. One of the most impressive aspects of the task force and the recommendations has been that they have been reached through consensus.
Today one member defined consensus as that means none of us agreed with everything – but it also means that everyone at least agreed enough to consent. Attending the meetings has been a study in consensus and collaboration. There was only one time where it felt like the conversation dipped into unfriendly tones – despite the fact that the topics covered were often close to the hearts of the members and the opinions were at polar ends of the spectrum.
There weren’t any actual votes on issues. To gauge support for an issue they did informal hand count and talked through potential hot buttons until they reached an solution that stood somewhere in the middle.
Some members would like to have seen higher speeds promoted, some people aren’t as interested in an ongoing broadband entity, others supported a strong statement of symmetry – but they compromised.
Here are the notes from the last session:
The Task Force has worked with consensus. Today should be a day for combing through to make sure that we agree with what’s in the report – and that shouldn’t be a stretch since we’ve been working with consensus.
There has been compromise. There are areas where each of us might feel we’ve gone too far or not far enough – but that’s part of compromise.
• Primary interest is connectivity for students. I think the report accomplishes it. There was a nice paragraph on this – we ‘ll want to put back in.
• There are some grammar changes
• Need available, affordable access
• print is small on map pages – because the maps come from the Connected Nation wall maps
• Did we take out the idea of having a staff to support broadband? No, just moved.
• Need to post archived reports on the Task Force web site; Mike O will be adding a report from the MCA in 1985
• Changed titles and corrected names
• Question on symmetry – did we want to add a sentence? Didn’t we have a sentence?
• We had talked about bonding as a possible funding issue – should we pull that out in the exec summary
• Add Minnesota ranking to charts where MN isn’t included – or otherwise find a way to call out the comparison to MN – that opens a can of worms in regard to quality of reports. Per capita stats can be misleading
• There is some concern about how the report will read to urban legislators. Perhaps we should have had a session in Frogtown.
o One concern is that the urban areas tend to have access to broadband but affordability and computer ownership are the issues.
o Broadband access doesn’t necessarily mean access for a community
• Need to get folks to recognize that broadband is available for communications and as a way to transport goods and services. Adding that spin will help garner support from the transportation folks. “BB access to the Internet has traditionally been communications; the TF has come to understand that the Internet can also be thought of as part of our transportation infrastructure.
• Most legislators will read the cover letter and the executive summary.
• What about adding fixed wireless? It’s growing especially in rural areas.
• Maybe we need to explain what IP address per capita would matter.
• We trash the FCC and state our minimum speed is 10 Mbps at 2015; we need to make sure that we add that year.
• Do we expect to see a map of access in the future?
• Spin the trashing of the FCC and try to be more encouraging.
• We should have built in MN’s early leadership with such things as gopher
• Page 60 – add the Blandin quote. Their response to the recommendations was quite good. (That’s a direct quote.) “The Blandin Foundation appreciates the hard work…”
• The pictures are from Minnesota.
• This is definitely a consensus report; although I disagree with having an ongoing board
• Maybe there’s a way to indicate the nature of consensus means no one member agrees with every portion
• We need to cite sources so that legislators realize that we did not come up with them – especially when it comes to projections
The folks at the Daily Yonder are so good. Wally Bowen has written a timely history of Net Neutrality. Timely because of the FCC’s movement towards Net Neutrality and timely because of the ghostly Halloween twist. I love the image of early lack of Net Neutrality when all of the phone calls came through the local operator and if she liked you, Mable could send all of the calls to you and none to your competitor. Apparently that need for neutrality spurred a Kansas undertaker to create the first telephone switch to bypass Mable. Bowen also tells the story of the Carterphone and how one man’s early remote phone started the discussion of the incumbents opening up their wires to competitors.
Last week I heard something about the NTIA/RUS planning to make grant announcements on November 7. That seemed ambitious to me. Turns out it was ambitious. According to Broadcasting & Cable, NTIA head Larry Strickling said Tuesday: “We’re going to take a few more weeks here to get this right…I will not fund a bad application.”
The article goes on to detail a Senate Commerce Committee’s Communications Subcommittee oversight hearing on the NTIA/RUS broadband stimulus funding process. They asked some good questions: Was the definition of remote appropriate? Should the funding come after the National Broadband policy? They aren’t new questions – but they are good.
StimulatingBroadband is gathering recommendations and comments that states are sending to the NTIA/RUS for broadband stimulus projects in their area. Minnesota has elected not to share this list. So I wanted to see how other states have ranked some of the national projects. I won’t pretend that I read the 20 or so applications word by word, but I scanned them and thought they were very interesting.
Some states gave very long lists of recommended projects, such as Virginia with 66. Some states really whittled the list; Massachusetts narrowed it down to three. One state decided not to offer recommendations (Alaska). Most states seemed to focus on infrastructure. Some states seem to have been involved with the broadband stimulus project from the onset, such as Vermont. Some states had detailed descriptions of the considerable constraints of the recommendation process (no metrics, uneven applications…); other states, such as Kansas, shared their own metrics for judging applications.
I didn’t see a lot of national applications mentioned in the mix. I noticed a couple of states mentioned Connected Nation projects (Kansas and South Carolina). I saw Level 3 (CA, FLA, GA, KS, TX) was mentioned a few times. I saw a lot of wireless projects and a few fiber networks. I saw some rural areas and some not-so-rural places mentioned. I saw some local resources partner with national resources such as the National Education Foundation’s online courses and on-site instructors. Lots of libraries and schools got involved. (I have notes on the specific state recommendations below.)
While I was looking at the state recommendations, Minnesota’s Freedom Foundation was looking at the Minnesota applications. MinnPost ran a recent article on findings from the Freedom Foundation, which “actively advocates the principles of individual freedom, personal responsibility, economic freedom, and limited government”. They call out a few proposals where they feel that too much money is being requested for “dubious projects”. It’s great to know that someone is looking at government costs; I’d love to see them take a different approach on the funding and track the potential return on investment or what’s the cost of not investing in some projects? Looking at ROI in terms of jobs created and economic development is a fair assessment of applications for stimulus funds; in fact some of the states’ recommendations specifically called out jobs created in the metrics they used to recommend applications.)
Below are notes on recommendations from the State. I grabbed what was easy to grab for my own comparison. I thought they might be of interest, so I’m sharing my notes but the info provided is uneven – often due to format more than discrepancy in information provided. Continue reading
The Minnesota Ultra High Speed Task Force will have its final working meeting next week on Friday, October 30, 2009. The meeting starts at 9:30 and end at 1:15 or until necessary.
They are meeting at Thomson Reuters. The public is welcome. I will be there taking notes. Here is the agenda:
9:30 – 9:40 Opening comments; review meeting agenda
Approve meeting minutes from October 16th meeting
9:40 – 9:50 Public comment
9:50 – 10:00 Group photo
10:00 – 11:00 Review and approve final version of report
11:00 – 11:15 Break
11:15 – 11:45 Signing ceremony
11:45 – 12:00 Review rollout activities (FYI for TF Members)
• Report Rollout at the Capitol – November 6th
o 10:00 – 11:00 am Press conference with Governor’s office & Committee Chairs (Room 181 State Office Building)
o 11:00 am – 12:30 pm Joint Legislative Hearing
(Room G-15 State Capitol)
• MHTA-sponsored breakfast meeting with technology & business leaders –November 9th
o 7:30 – 9:00 am at ADC in Eden Prairie – Panel
• Blandin Conference in Duluth November 19th 10:45-11:35 a.m. – Panel
12:00 – 12:45 Lunch – Lunch tickets provided, seating in Alcove
12:45 – 1:15* Closing comments, adjourn final meeting
*In the event we need more time, please do not make plans for earlier departures.
Here’s the news from DSL Reports:
Wisconsin-based TDS Telecom (see our user reviews) today announced that the company will soon launch 50 Mbps downstream and 20 upstream upstream fiber service in Monticello, Minnesota. According to the company, the service will cost customers $64.95/month when bundled with local phone service. For those who don’t want to bundle, the company also offers a nice looking “Broadband Raw” tier, that includes 50 Mbps service and local access to 911 services for $49.95/month.
As DSL Reports points out, the road to ultra high speed broadband in Monticello has been long and winding – but they now have great speeds and a good price. It seems as if competition has been good to the residents and businesses in Monticello.
I don’t have a ton of details, but here’s what I know:
The TISP Forum turns the spotlight on Wireless. The Forum will welcome both Elert and Associates and Frontier Communications to the platform. Elert will talk about 4 G Wireless network technology and what it means for future access to broadband. Frontier Communications will talk about its evolving wireless network in Minnesota & what it means for the broadband mix in the state. Full program details to follow.
MinnPost recently ran an article on the high tech immigration issue. Some folks want to open the door wider for skilled technology workers to come into the US; some folks want to hold off on visa and give any jobs to “qualified Americans” first.
The debate reminds me of the broadband in discussion in that one side is focusing on how the US competes with the rest of the world and the other side is focused on internal issues only. For the US I think the short term answer will be a hybrid solution – but the long term answer is something else. In terms of getting qualified tech workers, Aman Kapoor, a private tech entrepreneur in Florida offers what I think is the best and most obvious long term solution:
“The bigger policy debate is what the U.S. education system should be like,” Kapoor said. “Will the next generation have better skills? That’s how you make a nation more competitive.”
In terms of broadband I think there’s a tension between ubiquitous access, world class speeds and affordability. Again in the short term, I think the answer will be a hybrid solution but there’s a long term answer too. I don’t know what that is yet – but it’s going to take long term planning and investment. An off the cuff brainstorm, maybe the plan is to call broadband a utility to promote ubiquity and teach people how to use it to make the market demand world class speeds. The increase in demand should help lower costs or at least the shift in use may expand consumers’ definition of affordable.
What I do know for sure is that we need to start long term planning soon – like yesterday – and yet much of what I’ve seen happening is still pretty short term. One of the things I’m looking forward to most at the November Blandin Broadband Conference, is the University Student Competition. Colleges and universities across Minnesota have been invited to develop presentations illustrating their view of a how a tech savvy rural community will successfully function in the year 2020. I think getting the students of today to think about the future is a great start.
For folks outside Minneapolis, this may be of limited interest – but food for thought if you want to expand broadband access in your own community:
As part of a community benefits agreement between the city of Minneapolis and USI Wireless, the city is offering 100 free wireless Internet accounts to nonprofit organizations. To be eligible, nonprofit organizations must be located in the city of Minneapolis and:
Provide free public computer access
Provide technology literacy training, and/or
Provide technology support for underserved communities
Applications are due by October 30, 2009.
Please contact Jennifer Lastoka at Jennifer.Laskota@ci.minneapolis.mn.us or (612) 673-3163 with questions.
Apparently Governor Pawlenty passed on his recommendations on Minnesota-focused NTIA/RUS broadband stimulus applications. I wish I could share the list with you but the Governor has decided that information is not a public document. So I don’t have it. StimulatingBroadband has done a great job gathering information on the situation here in Minnesota.
The short take is – most states (all maybe) have made this information available but Minnesota has decided not to make it available. They’ve listed a bunch of legal reasons – but even legal counsel quoted in the StimulatingBroadband wondered how long the list could remain under wraps. I don’t know if the NTIA/RUS will keep the list secret.
It’s frustrating. The Minnesota Ultra High-Speed Broadband Task Force has been so transparent with their information. I’ve gotten spoiled. Also I think the NTIA/RUS has made strides to be transparent with their processes so it seems against the spirit of the stimulus ideals not to maintain transparency. There are a lot of applicants in Minnesota waiting to hear about what their chances are for funding. Should they be getting ready to hit the ground running with the money; should they be coming up with a contingency plan?
I don’t know how much weight the Governor’s list will have but being as the volunteer reviewers still seem to be in a holding pattern I have to think the States’ views are going to matter. So I guess I’ve got to say – come on Gov throw the hometown team a bone, let us know what you said.
Lots of folks are wondering why the list is closed. As the article indicates, Minnesota maybe trying to avoid criticism for their choices. The article says, “the decision to treat the NTIA response as non-public fuels a growing debate over whether States preferred public and government projects over private ones. It would appear that Minnesota could be shielding its rankings from the same type of criticisms other states are facing.” An underlying factor, may be the criticism they received for endorsing the Connection Nation mapping proposal. (I’m not making excuses, just trying to understand.)
The Intelligent Community Forum is a think tank that studies the economic and social development of the 21st Century community. They have a contest each year and name their top “Intelligent Communities.” Here’s their definition of Intelligent Communities:
Intelligent Communities are those which have – whether through crisis or foresight – come to understand the enormous challenges of the Broadband Economy, and have taken conscious steps to create an economy capable of prospering in it.
Folks who attended the Blandin Broadband Conference last fall learned more about the Intelligent Community Forum from Robert Bell. There was at least one community that paid attention to that session; Dakota County was just named one of the Smart21 Communities, which is quite an honor. Dakota Future took the lead on the effort – starting with Bill Coleman, who many will also know from his work with the Blanidn Foundation.
Dakota Future is a countywide economic development organization in Dakota County MN. Bill serves as contract executive director. Earlier this year, Dakota Future set a goal to be named as a Top Seven Intelligent Community in the annual global competition sponsored by the Intelligent Community Forum. To begin the process, Dakota Future completed a benchmarking exercise that would enable comparison with the top seven finalists of the past four years. By completing the benchmarking, Dakota Future also entered the competition for the 2010 Intelligent Community.
Here are some remarks from Bill:
We received the benchmarking results a week ago and were encouraged that our goal would be in reach if we put our mind to it. We established teams to work on each of the five intelligent community elements and set a work schedule to get our house in order in time for a September 2010 application deadline for the 2011 competition.
We are excited to have achieved Top 21 recognition. The Top Seven will be announced in January; the Intelligent Community of the Year will be announced in May. The Top 21 designation is quite a pleasant surprise to our team and will serve as motivation to our newly formed initiative.
Some days you’re just not on – like yesterday. How did I miss Dakota County at an Intelligent Community Forum Smart community?
Mea culpa Dakota County.
I’m very excited to see them on the list. I’ve been tracking their progress. I’m going to see if I can get someone from Dakota County to talk a little bit about their success – but I wanted to mention their good news asap.
Last night, the Intelligent Community Forum announced their top 21 Smart Communities:
Virginia has 3 towns in the list; I’m waiting for the day that Minnesota has such a showing.
The Minnesota Ultra High-Speed Broadband met today. It’s the penultimate meeting before the final recommendations are published. Most of the excitement happened in the morning – but everything was resolved. They are well on their way to have recommendations in time. I’m hoping to have the next iteration of the recommendations to share early next week. Until then here are the notes from today… Continue reading