Project FINE is a local, private, non-profit, tax exempt organization that helps newcomers integrate into the community. We provide foreign language interpreters and translators as well as opportunities for education, information, referral, and empowerment for immigrants and refugees. Our work is accomplished through a small staff, volunteers, interpreters, and extensive collaboration with local service providers.
Project FINE received support through the Minnesota Intelligent Rural Communities (MIRC) initiative.
Meet the Representatives:
Fatima Said
A refugee to the United States from her native Bosnia, Fatima Said came to Project FINE with a background in education and business, as well as 12 years of experience as a teacher and director of the Head Start program at Child Care Resources and Referral in Rochester. In addition to her duties at Project FINE, Fatima is also very involved in both the Winona and Rochester Communities.
Ask Us About
Project FINE has worked to provide computers and training to their constituents. They have received donated computers and money from community partners. They offer a wide range of computer classes and have computer science majors that are tutoring FINE clients. The community response to broadband efforts has been terrific; people come early to the classes and want more.
Learn more…
The following is an archive of a webinar in which Fatima spoke to the MIRC partners about the work in Winona:
Right of Way has come up with Minnesota Broadband Task Force subcommittee on Coordination across Government Levels – both this and earlier iterations of the Task Force. It’s a wonky issue. As a broadband consumer, I’m not super interested in rights of way – but from what I’ve seen it’s a very big issue for the broadband providers – especially as they build out services. I think the most recent chapter in they in Lake County story helps shine a light on why rights of way is such a big deal to the providers and to the local governments.
Last week the Lake County News Chronicle reported on Lake Connections issues gaining access to rights of way in the form of access to post fiber on the local utility poles…
Lake Connections is currently stringing aerial fiber along utility poles in Two Harbors for the project’s first phase. This fiber will be the backbone of the project, which will extend broadband service to residents in all of Lake County as well as parts of St. Louis County. But according to Lake County Commissioner Paul Bergman, the ownership of about 165 Two Harbors-based poles is in question.
Bergman informed the News-Chronicle last Monday that the county signed a pole attachment agreement with the city before stringing the fiber. The agreement, however, did not clearly state which poles the city owned and now Frontier is taking issue with the pole attachments.
“Lake County has placed fiber on Frontier-owned poles without submitting permit applications to Frontier,” said Kirk Lehman, general manager for Frontier Communications in northern Minnesota, in a prepared statement. He said Frontier has continuing property records that identify which poles they own, information which they provided to Lake Connections and the City of Two Harbors prior to construction.
But it seems that there are some questions about who is responsible for the poles…
Jeff Roiland, project manager for Lake Connections, said the city has been maintaining the poles in question for years and wonders why ownership is an issue. Two Harbors Mayor Randy Bolen conceded that the city has been maintaining and replacing the poles as needed, but he said the question of ownership never came up before the fiber project. Frontier said they didn’t authorize this city-performed maintenance on their poles.
So the plan seems to be to come up with an agreement…
Instead, city officials will set up a mediated meeting between Lake Connections and Frontier Communications.
At the action meeting Monday, the council approved a motion by Bolen to set up the meeting. In the motion, Bolen proposed that the meeting include County Administrator Matt Huddleston, Roiland, Klein, Overom, Kirk Lehman, Frontier Communications general manager for Northern Minnesota and another Frontier representative of Lehman’s choosing. Bolen said, with the exception of city attorney Overom, “attorneys and politicians” would not be permitted at the meeting.
If the issue isn’t resolved at the meeting, which Bolen said he hopes will happen within a week, the city will send a letter to the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission.
As hard as I’m sure this is for everyone involved – it’s a good example of why the Broadband Task Force is looking at these sorts of issues. A case where an ounce of prevention might be worth a pound of figuring out ownership after the fact.
In September, I wrote about a sneak preview of study from Craig Settles on Moving the Needle Forward on Broadband and Economic Development, which looked at the gap between what politicians seem to be touting as an outcome of better broadband and the actual reasonably expected benefits of broadband. The full report is now available. (I’m hoping that we’ll hear more about the report and the connection between broadband and economic development next month at the broadband conference in Duluth (Nov 13-14): Building our Connected Future: Minnesota’s Better with Broadband. Craig is one of the keynote speakers.
One of the things I really liked about the preview is that it provided a realistic chart that economic developers could use to figure out what kind of broadband speeds are required to achieve the goals they are trying to meet in their communities. The full report continues on with that theme; I think it works as a nice tool for economic developers and policymakers.
The original survey went to 1000 people; 365 recipients completed the survey. Here’s a breakdown of those respondents:
30% and 29% of respondents serve cities and counties respectively. 21% serve regions within their states. There is a heavy representation of rural communities (36%) and 20% of respondents serve a combination of rural, urban and suburban communities. Respondents overall represent areas with wide ranges of populations.
And here are the highlights, based on Craig’s blog post about the report:
only 11% of economic developers believe broadband’s biggest economic benefit to individuals is helping them find jobs;
18% of respondents have insufficient speeds to produce economic outcomes listed and have given up hope for a solution;
another 13% do not have enough speed to get the job done, but are actively trying to find or create a solution;
43.5% of respondents’ jurisdictions exist under duopoly conditions, 15.5% are in communities that live with a broadband monopoly;
about 12% of respondent’ say their communities plan to start building broadband networks in the next 18 months, another 22% hope to build a network at some point in the future;
64% of respondents reject convention broadband remedies for urban areas to say “faster speeds, cheaper services” will have the biggest impact on economic development (value of computing centers compromised by crappy infrastructure in poor communities);
fiber continues to outshine wireless in terms of expected impact on economic outcomes, with the biggest gap in expectations in the areas of attracting businesses to a community and making local companies more competitive; and
41% – 48% of respondents believe broadband can increase the number of home-based businesses; and
significant percentages of respondents say broadband adoption doesn’t mean jack if there are not programs in place to support workers, entrepreneurs and small businesses who get broadband access.
The report includes a nice comparison of economic impacts based on wireless versus fiber connectivity. Fiber clearly comes out on top, but it’s nice to see the delta, especially given the cost difference in deploying the two options.
Accompanying the report are open ended responses to two questions:
Tom Ardolf co-founded Cybermation with his wife, Susie, in 1996.
His experience began with 4 years in the Intelligence and Security Command of the U.S. Army, from 1979-1983, working with various high tech projects as an electronics technician. Upon discharge, Tom joined Sanders Associates, a leading defense contractor based in Nashua, New Hampshire spending 3 years working on classified projects in an R&D environment, primarily specialized airborne platforms that were deployed for special projects throughout the world.
Returning to Minnesota, Tom completed a Bachelors in Engineering Technology from 1985-1988 at St. Cloud State University while simultaneously founding RT Enterprises in July of 1986. Tom continued working on an MBA at SCSU, completing his Masters studies in 1993. Due to lack of any available custom installers, Tom and Susie founded Cybermation in 1996 when building their home. The next 5 years were spent gaining education and experience in custom electronics and home systems. In 2001, Tom and Susie also developed commercial property into the Ardolf Technology Center and they continue to manage it today.
The genesis of Cybermation from these early days created evolutions of change in Cybermation over the next decade. New “high water marks” continue to be achieved, with examples being one of three firms considered as the System Integrator of the Year in 2008, multiple projects being featured in trade magazines and the recipient of three Mark of Excellence awards by CEA in 2010. In Q3/2010, Cybermation rolled out the CyberHealth Division, focusing on the tele-wellness market. The firm quickly achieved national recognition in multiple publications for their unique marketing & implementation strategies. In May/2012, Cybermation spun off the low voltage practice to focus entirely on the CyberHealth Division. In August of 2012, Cybermation was granted a distributorship for GrandCare as a result of its success in sales and support of systems throughout Minnesota.
Cybermation is now strictly a tele-health and tele-wellness company that provides assistive technology to help the elderly remain independent and in their own homes for as long as possible. Personal Emergency Response Systems, lockable GPS locator watches, and medication dispensing systems are just a few of the items available. Among many of the helpful products that Cybermation supplies is the GrandCare System. GrandCare takes all the areas where a senior might need assistance and combines them into one easy to use, easy to manage touch screen system that requires no technical ability to use. Everything from medication reminders, locked control of medication disbursement, blood pressure and blood glucose monitoring and motion sensing are addressed. But the best part of GrandCare is that it takes these necessary services and adds something invaluable to them: socialization. With GrandCare’s simple emailing, video chatting, and picture streaming, as well as interactive calendar and appointment scheduling, it makes friends and family that are far away suddenly available to a loved one literally at the touch of a button. Add the fact that care givers can monitor all the information available through the system remotely, and you have a piece of equipment that is invaluable to someone who would like nothing more than to stay in their home, but needs a little care to be able to do so.
Learn more:
Instant Care – information on emergency response product
Med Ready – information on automated medical dispenser
Freedom GPS – information on Wandering protection and emergency alert
Thanks to Ann Higgins for the heads up on an article on squeezing more broadband out of copper infrastructure. The article pitches two specific solutions for improving service through copper, which could be good solutions, but it was really the question of what does a rural telco do to move forward that interested me. How do you makes the business case for major versus minor upgrades and what’s the final end game for most rural providers? This article offers more iterative approaches to better broadband.
There’s DSL Management Solution…
ASSIA proposes using its DSL Management Solution to accomplish the task of delivering a maximum of 100 Mbps of downstream throughput over a single copper pair, he said.
There’s vectoring…
Keith Russell, product manager of Alcatel-Lucent, thinks VDSL2 vectoring will do the job of pushing higher throughputs because its noise cancellation capabilities normalize all lines for smooth transport of IPTV signals.
Keith Russell, product manager of Alcatel-Lucent, thinks VDSL2 vectoring will do the job of pushing higher throughputs because its noise cancellation capabilities normalize all lines for smooth transport of IPTV signals.
Vectoring, though, has its drawbacks, Russell admitted.
There’s the Broadband Accelerator…
The B.A. is basically an “analog broadband amplifier” that is spliced into the line between the DSLAM and the residence to boost network performance, he said. It can–or should–deliver 15 to 30 megabits of bandwidth per household which would minimally feed a triple play offer.
The goal, Auer said, is “to keep those customers happy with something you can deploy today.”
Again – three interesting approaches – but what does it mean in the trenches – for the providers and ultimately for folks in rural area? Brent Christensen, President of Minnesota Telecom Alliance was kind enough to help put some perspective on it for me…
This article hits the broadband deployment argument squarely on the head. What we have known for years as providers, who actually serve customers, is that they want broadband. If you ask the common person on the street how they get their broadband they probably couldn’t tell you, they just know they have it. They may not even know they have broadband, they just know they can get on the Internet. There are business cases where it makes sense to continue to use existing copper plant, while at the same time increasing broadband speed offerings. This is done two ways, either by shortening copper loop lengths by deploying Digital Loop Cabinets (fiber from the CO to the cabinet and using existing copper to the customer) or electronics like those suggested in the article to expand bandwidth capabilities from the existing copper (or both).
In my mind, fiber is the ultimate “end state”. There are many in the wireless world that would seriously disagree. Regardless, there is no way you can successfully build a fiber network and supporting infrastructure from scratch with no existing revenue. You start out so far in the hole you can never dig out to operate the new network, say nothing of repaying the borrowed money. That is why you no longer see private CLEC’s starting up the way they did after the 1996 act.
Both wired and wireless networks have their place. It isn’t just one or the other. Several MTA member companies have both and use both to provide broadband to their customers. My family’s company, for instance, is deploying unlicensed wireless broadband to CLEC customers they cannot reach today with fiber or copper. The goal is to develop the customer base and deploy wired services to them as it becomes necessary/feasible. That new revenue will pay for the upgrades and keep the company from having to service debt. This is one strategy of keeping the eye on the target….get broadband to customers who want it, and don’t have it today. Other MTA members have operations where that strategy doesn’t make sense for them. Those companies have existing customers and are using the revenues from those existing customers to re-build their infrastructure from copper to fiber.
The trick to being a successful provider (public or private) is that you have to be at the cutting edge of technology, not the bleeding edge. You have to always be one step ahead of the customer’s needs. If you are even with their needs you are too late. If you are more than one step ahead you will fail because you don’t have the resources to pay the necessary administrative and operational expenses.
PCs for People creates new opportunities by providing personal computers and education to people who have limited experience with technology due to social, physical and/or economic circumstances.
Meet the Representatives:
Sam Drong Sam serves as the Program Director for PCs for People. Over the last two years he has helped deliver over 1,000 computers to rural Minnesota, partnered with United Way to deliver computers to metro-area food shelves, and helped PCs for People gain industry certifications in data sanitization to ensure hard drives are completely erased.
Casey Sorenson Casey has been the Executive Director of PCs for People since it incorporated as 501(c)(3) non-profit organization in 2008. Under Casey’s leadership, the organization’s impact has vastly increased. Since 2008, PCs for People has gone from distributing 400 computers to 4,000 computers in 2012.
Ask Us About
In the last couple of years, working through the Minnesota Intelligent Rural Communities (MIRC) project, PCs for People has helped rural communities bring refurbished computers to low-income residents in the area. We work with local contacts to organize local used computer drives and computer give-away events. PCs for People drives the computer refurbishing process. We wipe the computers clean, install new software and test so that each computer recipient gets a computer built to support their needs. The video below describes the process through a tour of our facilities in St Paul.
It’s a business week for broadband in Minnesota. It’s good to see. Last night Kanabec County learned more about their options at meeting with U-reka Broadband, the company selected last May to perform a comprehensive broadband network feasibility study. According to the Kanabec County Times…
A goal of KBI is to improve broadband access across the county in order to meet the State of Minnesota Broadband Task Force 2015 goals. This task force was appointed by Governor Mark Dayton in November 2011. Those goals include “border-to-border” high speed Internet and cell phone access throughout Minnesota by 2015.
Like many predominantly rural counties, Kanabec is noticing a growing chasm in broadband speeds in their area. The cities have considerably faster broadband access that outlying areas. According to the feasibility study unveiled last night…
Kanabec County has a digital divide between the residents of Mora and Ogilvie and the remainder of the rural residents of the county. Only twenty-three percent of the counties residents have access to competitive broadband services and with the improvement of Midcontinent broadband services due in November of 2012 this gap will continue to grow. The incumbent rural providers do not have plans for service improvement that will match the State of Minnesota Broadband Task Force goals and competition is limited within Kanabec County.
The study considered two models…
Two models were considered for this study: 1) A rural Fiber-Wireless Hybrid project which would deliver wireless broadband services in partnership with a private provider to all of Kanabec County and provide a foundation for a future FTTP build and 2) A rural FTTP build utilizing a private provider to deliver voice, video and internet services. Both models were developed and each has a high probability of success; to achieve a cash flow position on the FTTP network a $10.00 monthly fee per subscriber would be required to make the financials of the project viable.
The report details the demand for improved service – both in terms of statistics and based on conversations with key stakeholders in sectors such as healthcare, business, local government and education. It details costs associated with each model. It also outlines current options available through incumbent providers. The Kanabec County Times succinctly posits the next steps…
The Hybrid Fiber-Wireless Network was estimated to cost approximately $7 million. The FTTP Network was estimated to cost approximately $2 million to cover town/city areas and $9 million to cover rural areas.
Next steps for KBI include deciding who, such as Kanabec County or the city of Mora, will be sponsoring the organization and going forward, making decisions about which model they prefer and continuing to develop and investigate partnerships with wireless providers and existing providers like Midcontinent and CenturyLink.
It’s interesting to take a look at the unique assets and challenges in Kanabec, but for other communities considering broadband the report is also a nice peek at what they need to consider in their own community.
I’ve mentioned it before – but not for a while – it’s also nice to see the report invoke the Minnesota Broadband Goals. Because there wasn’t any funding attached to the speed goals set by the state (5-10 Mbps up and 10-20 Mbps down by 2015) it’s easy to think that the goals aren’t having an impact, but clearly they are. Counties are making decisions based on the goals set in 2010.
Mark Erickson was kind enough to share the video from the meeting with me. The video is OK; the audio is good. I’ve tried to line up the description of action with the video below – but the video was cropped automatically at 15 minutes by the recording device, not necessarily at breaks that made sense for content. (Handouts from the meeting are also available.) The big news – the formation of the Rural Telephone Coop is actually the last video.
The first half of the meeting focused on what RS Fiber needs to do to move forward. The expectation is that the business case may improve now that Sibley County dropped out of the project because Sibley County really represented a large number of the rural folks. Numbers that I heard noted that it cost about $2500 to get fiber to homes in town but $10,000 to homes (farms) in the rural areas. So losing those high cost subscribers will alter the business plan. So the engineers are working on a new business case based on the new specifications and each community will need to approve the new plan. [Note: I’ve had some difficulty with the audio on the first video; I’ve defaulted to my back up video, as you’ll see taken from the back of the room.]
Another issue is that one community (Henderson) was waiting to hear what happened with Sibley County before they decided whether or not to move forward. One frustration was not having buy-in for that community so when the engineers are working on the new plan they may need to work on a plan with and a plan without Henderson. The compromise is that Henderson is now slated to be one of the first communities required to approve the final version of the plan.
Participating communities need local legal counsel to approve the business plan to move forward with bonds. This has been an issue but the Joint Power heard from Peter Cooper from McGrann Shea about they would like to pursue an approval for the Joint Power. To be clear, their approval is not assured but it sounds like they have a plan that they would like to try to flesh out with the communities. Each community will need to contract with McGrann Shea – the contract will not be with the Joint Powers Group. And with a contract comes a bill. The cost mentioned yesterday was $70,000. It sounds as if that may be reduced now that Sibley has dropped out.
The Joint Powers also heard from folks from the marketing committee. It was clearly a bittersweet announcement as the rural contingency of the marketing committee, which I think was a passionate and active part seemed to reluctantly resign. The group and the audience recognized the hard work of the committee. The folks in the rural areas have really brought a unique perspective and considerable energy to the project.
The big news is that Jeff Nielsen from United Farmers Union announced that they were working on a rural telephone cooperative. It was clearly new in the making but folks were enthusiastic. The new cooperative is eager to work with RS Fiber. It sounds as if they might want to own the network but would like to contract with RS Fiber to run the network. RS Fiber has been working with Doug Dawson and Hiawatha Broadband (HBC). Both left word that they would be willing to work with the new cooperative as well.
It’s exciting stuff. It’s fun to see what’s happening around the state – but I also like to share the complete notes and video especially for other communities that are thinking about broadband. Good to know what might come up, what questions to ask, what options are out there.
Yesterday the Public Utilities Commission filed a list of the recipients of CenturyLink Tier 2 funds. For folks who aren’t elbows deep into telecommunications policy…
The Tier 2 Special Fund was created by the Minnesota Performance Assurance Plan (MPAP). The MPAP. a plan proposed by Quest {now CenturyLink d.b.a. Qwest) and approved by the Commission, established wholesale service quality standards and self-executing remedies for failure to meet those standards.
I pulled that definition from the filing itself. In short, Qwest/CenturyLink is penalized when they don’t meet quality standards set out by the PUC. That money has recently been awarded to schools that applied to grants. Below is a list of the lucky recipients…
Minnesota Public Utilities Commission K-12 Telecommunications Grant Recipients
We’ve been tracking the Cloquet Valley Internet Initiative and their quest for improved broadband. Today I’m pleased to share an update from Jan Keough from CVII…
The Cloquet Valley Internet Initiative (CVII) is about a year and a half along. Here’s an update on progress in our quest to bring broadband internet to the citizens of our nine township area. I wish I could report that fiber optic cable is being installed, but we’re not there yet! The feasibility study recently conducted for us by U-reka Broadband Ventures gave us new ideas and incentive to move forward. Prior to that study, there were no improvements in sight! John Shultz and JoAnne Johnson (U-reka) provided an objective analysis and also some recommendations for next steps.
And just to let you know how bad it is “up here”…Judy and Lee operate a marketing business out of their home in Pequaywan Township. It can take hours just to log into the internet and hours to send a moderate-size graphic on slow DSL. A lot of people only have access to dial-up internet. Medical professionals can’t work on their records at home because internet options don’t allow for encryption. North Star Township spent several hundred dollars to rig up a tall antenna to be able to get internet to our fire hall through an ATT device!
Our goal is consistent with the State of Minnesota broadband goal of 10 Mbps (down) and 5 Mbps (up). The good news is that U-reka study pointed us toward a short-term / long-term transition toward our goal, and many people in our townships are already seeing improved internet. The two new satellite systems, Exede and Gen4, are far far superior to their predecessors, Wildblue and Hughesnet, and many folks have upgraded. These two systems are delivering up to 12 Mbps down and 1-5 Mbps up, and the latency isn’t too bad. I upgraded from Wildblue to Exede and I can now Skype and stream video and operate multiple internet devices at once. If you don’t need encryption or VPN, we have found these two satellite systems to be pretty good. Some, like my township, are starting to use ATT wireless from the local cellphone tower, but most have to install an expensive antenna to get a decent signal! Both of these options are subject to data plans; the satellite systems seem to be more generous for a reasonable price.
The U-reka folks recommended that we continue to engage the providers, as the Connect America funds are being accepted and new partnerships between providers are forming. We met last week with our electric coop, Coop Light and Power, to hear about their new fixed (tower-based) wireless system. CLP wants to use the towers to improve their smart-grid approach to electricity management and delivery, but they also want to offer fast internet (up to 7 Mbps) as well. With only a few new towers, they could cover many of our townships. CLP is very interested in collaborating with Town Boards to site and market their system, and Normanna Township is actively working with CLP. After last week’s meeting, other townships seem interested. While not a wired system, a faster wireless internet that lacks the latency problems of satellite could be a short-term and economically feasible approach for our rural areas.
We are also scheduling meetings with Frontier Communications and with the Lake County fiber project, Lake Connections. Our second feasibility study (Thanks again to the Blandin Foundation for financial support!), being conducted by Compass Consultants and to be completed in December, will provide us with engineering and business plans for fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) and fiber-to-the-node (FTTN) + DSL. If the DSL and fiber optic providers are interested in expanding into our townships, we want to offer assistance by providing engineering specifications and the business analysis. We see a fiber optic-based system as the best solution for providing our citizens with 21st Century broadband options, but we know that it is very expensive, and we will need some partners. We will be trying to meet with CenturyLink and Paul Bunyan soon. We will be attending the Blandin Broadband Conference to meet people, hear about opportunities and tell our story!
Townships have unique challenges in attracting broadband at speeds approaching the State of Minnesota goal. Like many townships in Minnesota and rural America, our area has very few anchor institutions except for our township fire departments and township offices. We have no schools or hospitals or libraries or banks – our residents typically work, learn, participate in health care, and interact with businesses in Duluth, Hermantown, Cloquet and Two Harbors. Township government is ill-equipped to bond or otherwise fund major infrastructure projects. Our normal business is fighting fires and emergency service, grading and plowing roads, and some have cemeteries. Adjacent cities and our county (the largest in Minnesota) are not interested in funding broadband projects for rural areas. All we can do is try to convince partners (including providers) that we can assist them with a market for internet. We are reminding providers, as well as state and federal programs, that rural townships have students, teachers, seniors, small businesses, and all the same needs as city residents for modern applications of the internet. Townships can be good partners in designing and promoting broadband!
Today I attended the Sibley County Commissioners’ Meeting. I expected to hear Economic Developer Tim Dolan speak about the RS Fiber project for 15 minutes. ( I recently wrote up a quick review of the RS Fiber project for folks who want details.) What I heard was almost 45 minutes of debate and then a vote by the Commissioners to discontinue their relationship with RS Fiber. There were 50-60 audience members in the meeting and I heard there were another couple of dozen people outside the room.
I captured the meeting on video; it’s not the best quality but I think the audio is OK. For ease of upload and hopefully to get viewers to the section that most interests them I have divided the video into the following three segments:
Tim Dolan Speaks on Benefits of Fiber
Economic Developer Tim Dolan began by talking about the benefits of fiber and encouraged the Commission to consider moving forward with plans for a community-wide fiber project. Other speakers promoting the fiber plan include: Gaylord Mayor Brenda Pautsch, Kevin Lauwagie, board chair for United Farmers’ Cooperative headquartered in Winthrop, Jeff Nielsen from United Farmers Union and Lyle Wiese from Kelso Township.
County Attorney Dave Schauer on Legal Matters
The County Attorney recounted a phone conversation from the day before detailing the legal issues and subsequent financial issues. In short, the counties and cities need to find a legal counsel that will authorize a move forward. They have had previous legal counsel look at their business plan and contracts and none have felt comfortable giving such authority. There is new counsel willing to take a look at the situation but the cost is $70,000 – or about $5,000 to each entity. (A letter from attorneys at Dorsey Whitney was handed out at the meeting.)
Debate and Vote
There was discussion, mostly among Commissioners, on the situation. In the end, they voted 3 to 2 to discontinue the project. The following Commissioners voted yes (to leave project): Jim Nytes, Jim Swanson, Bill Pinske; the following voted no (to continue project): Joy Cohrs and Harold Pettis.
Renville County Votes In
At about the same time Renville County Commissioners voted unanimously to move forward with the plan.
Current status of RS Fiber is this: Renville County (by commissioners for its rural) and all of the cities in the project area except for Henderson have voted to move forward to bonding, most with the contingency of a favorable bond counsel opinion.
Henderson has not yet taken this final vote.
Sibley County (by commissioners for its rural area) has voted to withdraw from the project.
The RS Fiber Joint Powers Board will be meeting tomorrow (Wednesday, October 24) at 7 p.m. on the 2nd floor of the Winthrop City Hall to discuss the next steps in the project and how the withdrawal of Sibley County affects things. As always, this is a public meeting and any who are interested in learning about the work of the board are invited to attend.
I’m a little sad to report that the ICF (Intelligent Community Forum) Smart21 cities have been announced and there’s not one Minnesota community in the mix. Dakota County made the list in 2010, 2011 and 2012 but did not apply this year. Here is the list:
Ballarat, Victoria, Australia
Castelo de Vide, Portugal
Columbus, Ohio, USA
Heraklion, Crete, Greece
Hsinchu City, Taiwan
Jiading New City, China
Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Mitchell, South Dakota, USA
Oulu, Finland
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Prospect, So. Australia, Australia
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Stratford, Ontario, Canada
Taichung City, Taiwan
Tallinn, Estonia
Taoyuan County, Taiwan
Tirana, Albania
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Wanganui, New Zealand
Whittlesea, Victoria, Australia
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
This report identifies opportunity costs that arise from this gap. These costs exist today, but the pace at which data transmission capability is growing means that the inequality between the technology being newly deployed and the technology that was deployed a decade or more ago is increasing. Networks that connect research institutions in the United States can move 100,000 times more data per unit of time than the dial-up connections that some Americans still must use. The technology gap is not a fixed deficit that once filled, stays filled. The technology gap will be larger—much larger—in the future, along with the information and technology gap, unless significant action is taken to overcome it.
Cause:
The report recognizes that population density plays a large role in availability – especially when access to broadband involves building new infrastructure. And as the definition of broadband changes (gets faster), infrastructure upgrades are required to provide the service. Building infrastructure is a real barrier.
While villages, towns, and small cities in areas outside metropolitan areas have a better chance of being “haves,” areas outside population concentrations are likely disproportionately among the “have nots.” A baseline scenario for the future of broadband would not expect areas without broadband service getting it. This builds from the assumption that the financial factors that determine where there are enough customers are unlikely to change. Funds provided through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) have provided the capital required to make investments in some areas, and many projects funded by that legislation have not yet been completed. However, once these projects are complete, additional federal dollars are unlikely, especially at the scale provided under the ARRA.
The report also notes the difference between the “can-nots” and the “do-nots” – folks who don’t have access and folks who have access but don’t subscribe. Converting the folks that choose not to subscribe is one way to increase profitability in a given area and in turn encourage greater investment. Ironically, increasing population density is also way to make a community more attractive to providers – but I think that’s a chicken and egg situation. Which comes first – increase in population or improved broadband access? Few people want to move to an area without access; few businesses want to invest in an area with population.
Effect:
The chart below shows the resulting disparities based on rural-urban divide…
So there are the hard numbers – but what does it mean in terms of utility? The report offers a few answers…
Broadband can have a direct impact:
The evidence about broadband levels of service first reaching a community shows it brings economic and population growth with it. For example, an analysis of the impact of broadband availability found that counties with broadband availability by 1999 experienced higher employment growth in employment and the number of businesses.
And broadband provides a tool that helps close other socioeconomic gaps in rural areas…
Broadband creates new opportunities for increasing learning opportunities in rural America. Online education programs create opportunities for people to obtain training and credentials far from the campuses where the training originates. It also creates the opportunity to bring specialized programs to areas where the population density is too low to support a traditional, campus-based program. Online education programs, using rich visual content, are unavailable to people who do not have broadband levels of service …
Rural areas have fewer surgeons to do surgeries and fewer specialists to refer patients for imaging services, and it is more difficult for consumers to seek out health-care services at a greater distance. Telemedicine creates new opportunities for rural residents to obtain medical services. The health-care sector is emerging as a heavy user of telecommunications services. Improved imaging techniques result in larger and larger data files. Moving those files between providers requires substantial capacity. The demand from hospitals alone means that any community with a hospital has, or will come to have, a substantial “off ramp” from the broadband superhighway. …
Employers and government officials have endorsed telecommuting as a win-win. Employers save on occupancy costs, and governments see less use of highways at peak times. Employees benefit from being able to take advantage of lower housing costs in less densely populated areas. However, without broadband, an area cannot host telecommuters, costing the “have not” area a household, and leaving telecommuters with a smaller range of feasible housing locations. …
And broadband plays a role in all industry sectors, I’ll just highlight one from the report…
A group of agriculture and information scientists at the University of Illinois recently concluded, “Information technology … could have at least as big an impact on agriculture in the next half century as mechanization had in the previous century.”
What lies ahead is the transition to agriculture that operates as a cyber-physical system, that is, a system that achieves higher levels of output with fewer inputs by combining vast quantities of information to identify the optimal use of the land and inputs including seed, equipment, water, and fertilizer. The capacity to move large amounts of data rapidly will be a limiting factor to the development of this system.
The report does a good job of explaining that the top applications from 10 years ago are not the top applications today – and the applications today will probably not be the top ten in ten years’ time, which of course helps make the original point that the broadband gap does not get “filled” it must be updated to match the rate of growth in the market. But that doesn’t make broadband a problem; it’s an infrastructure that provides a solution to closing gaps in education, health care, economics.
The report ends with a warning…
There is a very real danger of a growing technology gap between rural and urban America. This gap, if not addressed, will have growing consequences for the American economy, both urban and rural.
RS Fiber has been working on community spear-headed fiber project; they have hit some speed bumps along the way – mostly a series of postponed votes, which have put the project in a holding pattern. It looks like the next important meeting has just been scheduled for October 23. I thought it might be helpful to recap the project a bit.
RS Fiber is a community-owned High Speed Fiber Optic Connection to every home, farm, business and government office to provide everyone with low-cost, reliable high speed Internet, crystal clear cable television, and phone services. Fiber to the Home (FTTH) has become the leading technology for next-generation communications network worldwide.
They are somewhat unique in the scope of their plans – specifically the plan to include farms. Farms are almost inherently harder to serve because they tend to be spread out in low population density areas, which means more fiber pulled to reach each location. (Dave Peters of MPR wrote a nice piece on their decision to serve farmers – or not – two years ago.)
The project has been moving forward – RS Fiber has been having local meetings with cities and counties involved – asking folks to vote whether to move forward. On September 25, Fiber shared on update…
Nine of the 11 communities have approved bonding resolutions. (Both Stewart and Winthrop passed their bond resolutions tonight. Another town is expected to pass the resolution tomorrow night.)
Sibley and Renville counties vote tomorrow morning. The joint powers board meets Thursday to assess participation and move the project forward.
Unfortunately for RS Fiber, that vote was postponed until Oct 9. The Mankato Free Press reported…
Commissioners said they want more information on the legal and financial particulars of the RS Fiber venture, a grass-roots effort that began nearly two years ago.
Then the Oct 9 vote was postponed as well. RS Fiber explained on their Facebook page…
After more than 90 minutes of comments and discussion, the commissioners decided to wait until a bond counsel opinion has been received before taking action on the matter. Commissioner Jim Swanson stated, “We all agree on the benefits,” but said that if it were put to a contingency vote at that moment, he would vote no. The meeting ended without a motion, and the consensus that the matter would be brought up again when there is something to act on.
Earlier this week, I tried to post two sides of the issue based on local letters to the editor. That just about brings us up to date. This morning, through the RS Fiber Facebook Page I’ve learned that another meeting has been scheduled for the Sibley County Commissioners…
SHOW OF RS FIBER SUPPORT NEEDED AT THE SIBLEY COUNTY COMMISSIONERS MEETING TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2012 10:00 AM
• Did you pledge “YES” for fiber to be brought to your home or business?
• Did you know that the towns and Renville County are expected to move forward?
• Did you know our Sibley County commissioners have not taken a stand yet?
• Do you know that the project door is expected to close October 30th, AND, if the Sibley commissioners do not vote “yes”, rural Sibley County will NOT get fiber?
The Commissioners have the financing documents in hand and need to vote on whether to move forward or not. While we all know that with every project there are risks involved, there are also risks of NOT moving forward.
The return of pledge cards and support from prior public meetings clearly shows the need for these services.
The time has come when the rubber hits the road. If the commissioners do not vote “yes” at this point, the project will move forward and rural Sibley county will be left out. Time has run out and the cities and Renville County are expected to move forward with or without rural Sibley County.
We need everyone in the project area to attend Tuesday’s commissioner meeting in Gaylord to demonstrate your continued support for the fiber project to remain a county wide project.
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Sibley County Courthouse
Commissioners Room (second floor)
10:00 AM
The Sibley County Commissioner Agenda does not seem to indicate a vote has been scheduled – but Economic Development Director Tim Dolan is slated to give a bonding update at 10:15.
Last week I spent an hour talking to my 13 year old niece about copyright. She likes to create new videos from old videos. She gets videos online or from DVDs. She modifies them. She posts her videos online. Her question – her worry really – Is it illegal to use old videos to create new videos?
I wish my grown up clients had half the foresight she has to recognize that copyright matters. Unfortunately I didn’t have a clear cut answer for her – except to say that copyright is in transition. And then I realized that maybe all of us could use a refresher on copyright. As a librarian, I think of myself as pretty up on the issue – but I hadn’t really looked at the issue for a while either. Part of the transition can be blamed on the increased ease of publishing due to technology (and broadband) – but I think the bigger issue is the byproduct of that change. Most of us are now both consumers and producers of content, which means we care about the wholesale and retail aspects of copyright. In my niece’s example, she wants to be able to use the video clip from Disney to create her mashup; she also wants credit for the new work she has created. I rationalize that this fits in a blog about broadband because it’s just one of many ways that broadband is changing the rules by which we live.
The University of Maryland has a nice primer on copyright and fair use. In short, you can copyright a creation or idea that has been “fixed”, which might mean written, painted, recorded, even by a cell phone. You cannot copyright a fact and you can’t copyright access to a work (so you can’t copyright web links). It’s tough to protect short phrases, although that may lead to Trademark issues.
Many folks refer to Fair Use. The University of Maryland primer covers this too. They highlight four factors to consider:
The purpose and character of the use – does the new use significantly change the original or appeal to a new audience? Is the new use for educational or nonprofit purposes?
The nature of the copyrighted work – is the original work published or unpublished, more factual or creative? (Unpublished, creative works are tougher to use.)
The amount and substantiality of the portion used – generally the more you use, the less you can claim fair use.
The effect of use on the potential market for the copyrighted work – does your new use compete adversely with the original?
There is a more recent ownership tool that has been created to support online digital rights that promote sharing – the Creative Commons. The Creative Commons tracks six levels of openness and allows you to easily tag your work by levels, from allowing anyone to do anything with your work to allowing people to share only and requiring credit.
Now just to take a glimpse at specific copyright conundrums:
Copyright for Artists
I saw a great talk last summer on how “Everything is a Remix.” Kirby Ferguson mentioned a range of artists from Bob Dylan to Danger Mouse and moved onto Steve Jobs to describe the create process: copy, transform and combine. The role of technology as a tool for self-expression has itself been transformational so to try to cap that cap that transformation with copyright would be difficult – and in many ways I think folks have recognized that. (For another great look at the impact of technology on art, check out Larry Lessig’s talk Laws that choke creativity; he starts with John Phillip Soussa!) For my niece I found a great lesson plan (wonderful tool for educators!) on Fair Use: Remix Culture, Mashups, and Copyright. The answer to her worry really was in the Fair Use clause – that so long as the work was transformed and did not have an effect on the potential market, she was OK to copy, transform and combine.
The second edge of that sword, however, means that someone can use her work in the same way. There’s a blog maintained by a graphic artist that has some good, practical advice for artists on how to register copyright, consider licensing agreements, use social media to shame others to respecting your copyright and more.
Part of the issue with artists I think is feeling like copyright is going to be a David and Goliath issue, that either you’re too small to get noticed or the offender is so big you’d never be able to afford a confrontation in court. While it’s true there are so many more outlets for creative expression and it seems impossible to track them all, it’s something the big player – especially those who host content are considering as they move forward. Check out the Video on how YouTube thinks about copyright:
More and more technology is turning out to be the solution – as well as the disruption.
Copyright for Schools
Schools and teachers have always seemed to have a special relationship with copyright – they are called out by name as an exception that makes the Fair Use case. There is a recent effort to make materials even more open, Open Educational Resources – born of the marriage or shrinking budgets and increased use of devices in the classroom I’m sure. The video probably does as a good a job as any explaining the ideal. The hiccup of course is that to access much of the Open Educational Resources, a school must have a broadband connection, the teacher must have access to a computer and often the tools are optimized when the students have access to devices. All of which cost money too.
An internal memo distributed to Associated Press executives in 2009 noted: “The evidence is everywhere: original news content is being scraped, syndicated and monetized without fair compensation to those who produce, report and verify it. AP’s legal division continues to document rampant unauthorized use of AP content on literally tens of thousands of websites.” Since then, the AP has worked to patrol and charge users for its content.
Copyright litigation has even become a business model, if briefly and unsuccessfully. The copyright holding company, Righthaven, purchased the copyright rights to newspaper stories from large metropolitan dailies, such as the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Denver Post (which in 2011 opted out of what its CEO called a “dumb idea”), and without warning sued those quoting from that material. Small-time bloggers were often intimidated into paying hundreds or thousands of dollars to Righthaven, even when they may have been correctly employing fair use. When cases went to court, though, Righthaven’s claims were summarily rejected; Righthaven’s ability to claim standing was shaky, and so was its claim that users had infringed rather than employing their fair use rights. Now, Righthaven’s very existence appears in doubt.
At the root of the issue is the desire to bring information to light balanced with a growing concern for being sued. The concern for everyone is the impact this dilemma may have on bringing information to light.
The American University School of Communication has a range of “Code of Best Practice” books that also address copyright for specific audiences.
Copyright for Social Media Users
Finally is a situation most of us have to deal with on one level or another – copyright and social media. The same rules hold true in terms of what images, music text you have permission to post. (Facebook for example clearly “prohibits users from posting content that violates another party’s intellectual property rights .” But I think the bigger question is who owns the material you have posted. I could do a whole post on that alone – so to be brief I’ll just look at Facebook. They maintain that, “You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook.” But they go on to say that they have permission to use it until you delete that content (Intellectual Property) unless someone else has saved your content as it would not be deleted through their account…
For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (IP content), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it.
When you delete IP content, it is deleted in a manner similar to emptying the recycle bin on a computer. However, you understand that removed content may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time (but will not be available to others).
Project FINE
