I have to give a nod to my friend Kevin Featherly for getting the details on St Paul Library’s Mobile Workplace Project. The good news is that they recently received a $300,000 grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
They are going to build a mobile computer lab. It’s a genius idea that I’ve heard before – but not seen implemented. The idea is to teach people to use computers and use them to help find jobs – especially to non-native English speakers. Can’t wait to see it!
After a hellacious flight, we’re arrived in Dublin – and well I’ll just say that the weather is perfect for catching up with some report reading. One quick note – I’m super happy with my pay-as-you-go mobile broadband provider here. It’s been 5 months, since I last logged in but one quick top-up (online payment), a desperatejog of my memory for my login ID and I’m back online in minutes! Soon we’ll set up something faster for better home access but mobile broadband has its definite advantages!
Back to report reading, today I’m enjoying the OECD’s Network Developments in Support of Innovation and User Needs. Their first line says it all,
“This report makes a case for investment in a competitive, open-access national fibre-to-the-home network rollout based on potential spillovers in four key sectors of the economy: electricity, health, transportation and education.”
In short, they looked at ROI on government spending in broadband based on cost savings realized in those four key sectors. The OECD postulates that,
“On average, a cost savings of between 0.5% and 1.5% in each of the four sectors over ten years resulting directly from the new broadband network platform could justify the cost of building a national point-to-point, fibre-to-the-home network.”
The savings they specifically call out include:
Electricity – creating smart grids with advanced metering options
Healthcare – health monitoring, which reminded me of presenter from Eindhoven about how they noted access to healthcare as a service they were able to provide to citizens who might not have known they wanted/needed broadband access
Transportation – remote data collection and dissemination of traffic trends
Education – better communication between schools and educators for coordination and professional development
The report makes the case that attempts should be made to support private investment – but I think it also touches on the fact that government investment, unlike most private investment, does not need to focus on fairly quick ROI. Governments generally have the luxury of accepting a slower ROI. Also governments can look at cost savings in other areas when calculating ROI.
I think Minnesota’s Scott County is a good example of a county focusing on cost savings. They have been working on a region-wide fiber backbone. Gary Shelton spoke about the network and savings almost a year ago at one of the Minnesota Ultra High-Speed Broadband Task Force meetings.
Here’s more information than you need about me – but I’m leaving for Ireland in three days. I’ll be there for six months and I’ve been looking for an excuse to do some traveling while I was there. So I owe a debt of gratitude to the Daily Yonder for their recent article on Broadband Lessons Beyond Our Border.
According to the Daily Yonder, “We have much to learn from other places, especially in connecting broadband in rural communities.” Well, I’m going to see if that’s true. (Not that I doubt it.)
As the Daily Yonder reports the US ranks number 15 in terms of the OECD International broadband subscriber rates. Some of the top countries have the advantage of densely populated areas. But many countries have are more like the US; again as the Daily Yonder reports, “These countries have higher rates of broadband adoption not because of fortuitous geography or densely-packed populations; rather, more of their citizens have access to high-speed internet connections because their governments made formal policy decisions which made the creation of such infrastructure a national priority.”
So it will be fun to learn more and report in. I’ll start with the latest on the Irish National Broadband Scheme. I know they have a goal of ubiquitous coverage by 2013 and have started by working with a provider to coverage the un- and underserved. I know they’ve been hosting broadband adoption meetings to promote especially commercial use of broadband. It will be interesting to see how it’s going.
Thanks to Ann Higgins for sending me a link to more details on the U of M’s successful ARRA broadband stimulus project. The details come straight from the Big U. Here are the guts of the project – but again more detail is available at the U of M’s News Release site.
The university will work with its partners to improve 10 existing public computer labs and establish a new computer lab at a public housing site, Glendale Homes in Minneapolis. This will add 93 new workstations and replace 49 existing stations and is based upon a model developed by the Office for Business and Community Economic Development (BCED).
The grant also will allow the labs to hire local residents as training and support staff and will provide software programs and culturally sensitive curriculum relevant to education, health and economic development. The project will be implemented by the Office for Business and Community Economic Development and the Urban Research and Outreach/Engagement Center (UROC), established in 2007. University of Minnesota Extension also will be involved.
The official word is out. Today the NTIA announced the next round of mapping grants. They awarded grants to Minnesota, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota and Tennessee.
Here’s the word on the Minnesota funding:
Minnesota: NTIA has awarded Connected Nation approximately $1.2 million for broadband data collection and mapping activities over a two-year period and almost $500,000 for broadband planning activities over a five-year period in Minnesota, bringing the total grant award to approximately $1.7 million. Connected Nation is the designated entity for the state of Minnesota.
A quick reminder – each state was asked to recommend one mapping project. Minnesota recommended Connect Minnesota’s proposal. I’m hoping to talk to Connect Minnesota about the project after the holidays. They are usually very accommodating with more info.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about a top 10 tech predictions for 2010 article written by the CEO of Mashable. One of the hot trends mentioned was mobile payments. So I was pleased this morning to read about a Minnesota-based company that is getting involved with mobile payments.
On December 21, MoneyGram launched a pilot of the service in a select number of agent locations in San Diego, California, and Hong Kong. Consumers can send transactions from these pilot locations to any SMART Money account linked to the SMART mobile phone in the Philippines. Most of the article I read focused on the service in the Philippines – but it wasn’t the details that struck me here.
I liked to see a trend getting some traction and I like to see a Minnesota-based company leading the way!
Last week BusinessNorth (the “business news source of Northern Minnesota and Wisconsin”) ran a couple of articles on the future (and present) of news in a wired world. They talk about how the readers of Duluth News Tribune have gone online. Unfortunately, few newspapers have a created successful business plan for an expanding online presence.
Some newspapers, including Superior Publishing Corp., (with 11 dailies and weeklies in Northeastern Minnesota and Northwest Wisconsin) have started to charge a fee for visitors to access some services. I’ve heard about combining free/fee-based content as a strategy for several years – but so far I haven’t heard of a great deal of success.
But as the BusinessNorth article points out – reporters deserve to be paid for their work and that’s hard to do when everyone gets their access for free – in a format that doesn’t necessarily support advertising revenue.
SavetheNews just posted some ideas for – funny enough – saving the news. They have 10 Journalism Resolutions for 2010. If you’re at all interested in the topic, it’s a fun article because the suggestions really tie into making the most of the technology – not trying to make the old model work; suggestions incldue creating an engaged community, cultivating collaboration, making media mobile and more.
What I wonder though is, with the big shift online and the big shift to the 24 hour new cycle, how will we find today’s news tomorrow. David Brauer recently hit on that topic, pointing out an article from the Chaska Herald pointing out that one other issue these days is archiving the news. Just as newspapers have tightened their belts, so have historical societies.
As a former librarian, I can tell you – those newspaper archives get used. The article points out that the microfiche machines are always booked out. The article refers to using technology to harvest archives – but how do you decide what qualifies as news? Do you include comments? DO you look for local bloggers? Do you look at topical blogs?
No answers today – but lots of questions.
Brad Finstad, executive director at Center for Rural Policy and Development wrote an editorial on the importance of broadband to the vitality of rural areas. Specifically he wrote about broadband as a way to keep a skilled workforce in rural areas.
Many people leave rural areas for the prospect of a better job in the metro areas – yet more employers are offering the opportunity for folks to work remotely. But to work remotely they need to have broadband access. He gives some nice examples.
It struck a chord with me as I plan to go to Ireland in a week – for six months. It really is true that will many jobs you can live anywhere while you work; very little will change for me while I’m overseas. The time difference comes up occasionally but so long as I can get broadband, I am as accessible as ever. It opens a huge door for the rural (and very livable) communities in Minnesota.
Thanks to Amalia Deloney for sending me a fun song and update on the Media Action Grassroots Network Policy Advocacy Day in DC. They had meetings with Commissioner Clyburn, Commissioner Copps and Chairman Genachowski as well as the Tri Caucus (Congressional Black, Hispanic and Asian Pacific Islander Caucuses). They discussed Net Neutrality and to call for Broadband to be defined as a Universal Service in the National Broadband Plan.
You can learn more from the song below – it’s a Lady Gaga-esque song; I have to give props to anyone who can fit Genachowski into a lyric!
Wednesday the FCC gave a sneak preview of its National Broadband Plan. I didn’t listen in on the session but I’ve checked out their materials online. So far I like a lot of what I see.
Broadband is part of the solution to the nation’s greatest challenges – that’s my favorite line from the presentation (Slide 30). The rest of the presentation supports the idea that broadband is a solution – not a problem – and we just need to tweak policies to ensure that we’re all part of the solution.
The FCC seems to recognize that what the federal government can do today (in a not-so-great economy) is to create policies that promote broadband access and adoption. To start they mention right-of-way, dig once, universal service fund, and spectrum deployment issues as well as suggestions for change that should help promote wider deployment.
I’ve been thinking about the universal service funds (USF) since I read a cautionary tale of USF in the Daily Yonder the other day. The authors (Sharon Strover and Nick Muntean) are wary that USP will favor “proprietary, privately-held infrastructures over net neutrality and shared infrastructure with multiple ownership types”. Yet as my colleague Bill Coleman points out in a comment to that article, “funds have enabled rural cooperatives and privately held independent telephone companies to expand their networks to reach their far flung customer base first with telephone service over party lines and now increasingly with fiber to the home networks offering voice, video and data services.”
There are (at least) two sides to each story and I think the FCC has outlined them in their preliminary sneak peek. That’s great but still leaves room for decision making. That being said it’s nice to see that so many sides have been heard. Here’s the outline for the presentation:
Again my interest was strongest in the first five items because I feel as if that’s where the FCC has the greatest control – at least until/unless there is money to be spent in the others areas.
The first list of ARRA broadband awards is out. One grant was made in Minnesota:
MINNESOTA: Regents of the University of Minnesota, $2.9 million grant with matching funds of $741,000 to enhance broadband awareness and use for residents in four federally-designated poverty zones in Minneapolis and St. Paul.
I wrote about this project earlier when it was featured in the Liberian Journal. Congrats to the U of M! Rah, rah, rah, for Ski-U-Mah!
No Minnesota projects received BIP (RUS) funding but this is the first announcement. Announcements are expected to continue through February. Today’s awards total $182.7 million taken from the original pool of $7.2 billion. So there are plenty of decisions left to be made.
Vice President Biden is in Georgia today to announce the first round of ARRA-funded broadband projects. The last deadline the RUS/NTIA gave was that they’d start announcing funded projects in mid-December and it looks like they are going to make that prediction.
According to ABC News,
The White House outlined four types of awards being made today:
Middle Mile Awards – Build and improve connections to communities lacking sufficient broadband access.
Last Mile Awards – Connect end users like homes, hospitals and schools to their community’s broadband infrastructure (the middle mile).
Public Computing – Expand computer center capacity for public use in libraries, community colleges and other public venues.
Sustainable Adoption – Fund innovative projects that promote broadband demand.
AP Technology goes so far as to preview a few of the recipeints:
• A $33.5 million grant to the North Georgia Network Cooperative for a fiber-optic ring that will bring high-speed Internet connections to the northern Georgia foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. The project will serve an eight-county area with a population of 334,000.
• A $25.4 million grant to the Biddleford Internet Corp., a partnership between the University of Maine and service providers, to build three fiber-optic rings across rural Maine. The network will pass through more than 100 communities with 110,000 households and will connect 10 University of Maine campuses.
• A combined grant/loan of $2.4 million to the Consolidated Electric Cooperative in north central Ohio to build a 166-mile fiber network that will be used, among other things, to connect 16 electrical substations to support a smart grid project.
Other projects receiving funds include a 4G wireless network to be built by an Alaska Native Corporation in southwestern Alaska, a fiber-to-the-home project in a remote corner of New Hampshire and computer centers for 84 libraries in Arizona.
So what does that mean in Minnesota? I don’t know. I’ve only heard of two projects in Minnesota that have been contacted for more information. (That being said I haven’t done a survey or any research. This is just what I’ve heard.)
I have also heard that an announcement will be made soon about funding for mapping in Minnesota. (Spoiler alert, I think we’ll hear that Minnesota got funding.) Perhaps that is part of the announcement today, although I don’t think it will be. Some mapping projects have already been announced and it seems as if the mapping announcements have been handled different from other grant applications.
Thanks to Steve Borsch & John Schultz for keeping me informed today!
Thanks to Bill Coleman for sending the following to me. It’s not an award specifically geared at broadband projects – but it would be fun to see some broadband projects recognized for their innovation.
The Humphrey Institute, the Association of Minnesota Counties, the League of Minnesota Cities , and the Minnesota School Boards Association are accepting nominations for the Local Government Innovation Awards (see application). Officials from cities, counties, and school districts are encouraged to identify innovative practices that have led to greater efficiency and better public service.
Applicants should submit innovations made in the last two years. Submissions are due Friday, January 15, 2010.
The MN Sun newspapers recently looked at the Minnesota Ultra High-Speed Task Force report from the perspective of Dakota County. There were two Task Force members who had direct connections to Dakota County (Eagan-based Thomson Reuters Chief Operating Officer Rick King and Eagan Communications Director Tom Garrison).
But more interesting than the connections were the comparisons. As you may recall, the report promotes download at speeds that reach 10-20 megabits per second (mpbs) and upload speeds that reach 5-10 mbps by 2015. The article points out the even in Eagan, a city that is considered well wired, the average resident has access to those download speeds, but not those upload speeds. The hope is that such an increase in broadband would put Minnesota goal in the top five nationally in both average upload and download speed and in the top 15 compared to other states and countries.
Dakota County is working on efforts to improve broadband access for its businesses and residents. The article highlights a few projects, including a fun video I mentioned in an earlier post and work of the Eagan Technology Working Group.
I had to contrast the broadband view posted by Dakota County with the editorial in the St Cloud Times that really indicated that the Task Force was aiming too high. It’s interesting to see the different views – and speaks to the challenge of ubiquitous broadband coverage.
The Park Rapids Enterprise recently ran an article supporting the Ultra High-Speed Broadband Task Force. The editorial seems to particularly focus on the goal of ubiquity:
We agree that these are appropriate goals for the state. Hubbard County and the lakes area in particular are behind when it comes to the availability of high-speed broadband. The need and the demand are here.