Topic: Uncategorized

Why are we here? It’s the quintessential existential question. [Say that five times fast—heck, try it slow.] But aside from our sense of humanity, the answer to this question is important for municipalities that are interested in participating in the broadband marketplace, according to Bryan Baker, president of Com-Control Inc.

Baker’s presentation, “Got … Light?” was among the first presentations on the DCE launch pad this fine Thursday morning in Phoenix. The reason why most city leaders are interested in a broadband initiative—Baker says there are 400 such community initiatives currently in the United States—are interested spurring economic development and creating a revenue stream. In short, to compete.

Broadband is the new phase of industrialization, Baker says, stressing, “It’s not really a choice.” If municipalities don’t improve their broadband communications, they will be left in the dust.

Baker equates broadband networks to the railway system. In the beginning, the core infrastructure was originally built to connect key areas for national economic welfare. Those that were connected thrived, while those that weren't lagged. Now, he says municipals have to take up the cause, become Davids in the fight against service provider Goliaths.

In order to compete with the large broadband communications companies, municipalities have to create a strong value proposition, Baker says. Customer service is one key attribute that alternative provides can promote as a benefit. "You don't just sell a box," he says. "Sell the experience."

Last Mile had a fine time learning about the various struggles and successes of this year's Smart Community Awards and was proud to announce its two winners. Bristol, Va., won as the city with a population less than 200,000 and Tucson, Ariz., won as the city with a population more than 200,000. Though these two cities' networks were quite different--fiber-based in Bristol and wireless in Tucson--their challenges were very similar. And so too were their message to the attendees who gathered in the Digital City EXPO Exhibit Hall for the award ceremony.

Sandy Crusenberry, executive director of the Bristol Virginia Utilities (BVU) marketing division, BVU Focus, accepted the award and showed the audience a video about the city's network. Bristol faced a legal battle on its way to providing a city-wide fiber to the premises network. BVU owns and operates the network. [You can read more about Bristol in this Last Mile article from the July/August 2007 issue.]

Richard Nassi, transportation administrator in Tucson, told the story of how Tucson has deployed a wireless network for its ER-Link, which is used in emergency response vehicles and transmit streaming video to the local hospital so that doctors are able to have advanced notice and diagnostics of a patient in transport.

What both of these cities had in common was the leadership involved in bringing broadband to its citizens. We look forward to learning even more about these Smart Communities as we will provide you with in-depth profiles of the award winners in the March issue of Last Mile.

The phrase of the day is "demand aggregation" In order for municipalities to deploy a broadband network, they need to know the kind of demand they will have for services and how to generate it. Demand aggregation is why municipalities need a strong marketing base to compete in the broadband industry.

Live from the conference floor, Last Mile is here to bring you the highlights from the Digital City EXPO at the Radisson Fort McDowell Resort in Phoenix. Today and tomorrow, our road warrior reporters will bring you updates from the educational sessions and exhibits Wednesday and Thursday.

What a great start to the conference. Kicking off Wednesday’s schedule was Galen Updike, from the Arizona Government Information Technology Agency (GITA), who spoke to a full house of network consultants, private business representatives and education experts, but by a show of hands a majority were municipal representatives.

Updike spoke about the transformative communication technologies and networking issues facing the state of Arizona. “As we connect more and more to the Internet and other communications, the more and more that we will have evolve the infrastructure and change with those trends.”

The younger generations of people in the world have evolved with the technology, Updike says. Younger people think in more graphical and multimedia terms than older people today. As that evolution continues, so too will communications technologies. “My concern is not just for government, my concern is for all of Arizona,” Updike says. Ubiquitous and affordable advanced telecommunications services are a boon for business and economic development and for improved livelihoods. According to studies that Updike quoted, Arizona and its citizens could see a $8.5 increase in GDP from broadband deployments.

The growth for broadband in Arizona is key in the rural areas. “The quality of life will be complemented by broadband,” he says. However, the United States is way behind. 

The role of government is critical to broadband, Updike says, who, in turn, was critical of government leaders who are slow to adapt to the modern needs for better communications infrastructure.

In addition, the United States has to update its definition of high-speed and broadband services to provide connectivity at rates similar to European and Asian countries.

Broadband is also critical to education in the United Stats. Updike stated that 60 percent of the schools in Arizona are using a dialup connection. “Can you imagine trying to use rich media over a 56K connection?” he says. “We have to do something.”

Unfortunately, there are many barriers to broadband deployments, Updike says. Broadband is not treated as a critical infrastructure for a community, but as a private business entity. As such, there is no middle mile infrastructure in most communities. “We have to remember that broadband is for the people,” he says. Government leaders have to better manage supply and demand for high speed connectivity.

Stay tuned for more as we bring the action from Digital City EXPO.

Hello, from Digital City EXPO in Phoenix. Throughout Wednesday and Thursday, we at Last Mile will bring you the latest news and updates from the conference floor. Please stay tuned ...

The mythical Phoenix flies in the face of the status quo. When the bird grows old and useless, it ignites its nest and a new bird arises, reborn and rejuvenated. How apropos, then, for the Digital City EXPO to gather a nest of broadband industry leaders in the city that bears that fantastic bird’s name to demonstrate how communities can shirk the status quo by deploying high speed voice, data and video services to spark economic growth and set ablaze citizen enthusiasm.

That's right, gentle readers, the 2008 Digital City EXPO will fly into the Radisson Fort McDowell Resort in Phoenix, Jan. 22-24, to host three days of pre-conference activities, educational workshops and sessions and an exposition all in the name of community broadband design and deployment. The conference caters specifically to municipal leaders, IT professionals, university officials, healthcare advocates and any community representatives interested in creating a network to deliver high speed and high bandwidth communications to their population.
 
After three straight years of being hosted in the Washington, D.C., area, the Digital City EXPO packed up and headed west for greener fields. The Southwest presents a rich environment for broadband deployment, illustrated by three sessions that will focus specifically on regional broadband deployments. Lester Godsey from Queen Creek, Ariz., will speak about deploying broadband in a rural community. Representatives from Design Nine will talk about the 1st Mile New Mexico project. And, Jack Conie of Ca-botics has recently worked on projects in Scottsdale, Ariz., and Albuquerque, N.M., where his company is deploying fiber through sewer lines. (You can read more about Ca-botics on page 32 of the current issue of Last Mile.) In addition, members of the Arizona Telecommunications and Information Council (ATIC) will be on hand to offer their experiences in broadband.

The annual event offers attendees the opportunity to learn how their community can build a reliable broadband network, keep it maintained and develop content, but it also offers plenty of time to network with colleagues and broadband professionals.

Don’t forget about this spotlight moment: the announcement of the 2008 Last Mile Smart Community Award, which will be presented during the networking reception Wednesday evening. The Smart Community Award is given to two municipalities each year for outstanding commitment to broadband deployment, such as providing ubiquitous access to services, spurring economic development and enhancing public safety.
The Smart Community Award is given to a municipality with a population of more than 200,000 and to another with a population of less than 200,000. Cleveland and Lafayette, La., won the awards in 2007. (Check out the stories behind the 2007 Smart Community Award winners in our archives.)

The Digital City EXPO is produced by Benjamin Media Inc., the publisher of Last Mile. For updates and more information or to register online, visit www.digitalcityexpo.com.

And last but certainly not least, I, Brad Kramer, will also be lurking about. I hope to see you there.

Each year Last Mile deems two cities as Smart Communities, awarded to one community with a population of 200,000 or more and one with less than 200,000. Last year's winners, Cleveland and Lafayette, La., are prime examples of communities bridging the digital divide in the effort to provide broadband communications to all citizens.

Last Mile is currently seeking entrants for the 2008 awards, which will be presented at the next Digital City Expo in January. Do you know of a community that has been active in providing ubiquitous broadband to its population? Let us know about. We now have an online entry form, which you can access here.

[Note: Digital City Expo is produced by Benjamin Media Inc., the parent company of Last Mile.]

Comcast took a hit this weekend from the Associated Press in Sunday's Cleveland Plain Dealer. One incident involved the company's customer service and the other was on the topic of net neutrality.

It seems a 75-year-old woman in Bristow, Va., was dissatisfied with her triple play service -- or lack thereof. The woman, Mona Shaw, identified as a "churchgoing secretary of the local AARP branch," was fined and received a suspended jail sentence for smashing a keyboard and computer monitor with a hammer. It seems she went to hit the phone, but the article is unclear about whether she connected.

"I figured, 'Hey, my phone is screwed up. So is yours,'" Shaw said. The AP reports that Shaw became angry after a technician failed to show up for an appointment, then a technician didn't finish the installation and finally waited for two hours at an office appointment before being told the manager had left for the day. That's when she came back with the hammer.

In the other story, the AP conducted a study that the news service claims proves that Comcast interferes with file sharing. An AP reporter attempted to download the King James Bible (no copyright issues), using the file sharing program BitTorrent. In two out of the three tries, the transfer was actively blocked accompanied by a message that originated from Comcast, according to the article. On the third try, the download started after a 10-minute delay. All uploading attempts failed.

The AP article blasts Comcast for not adhering to its policy of the treating all Internet traffic equally, the principle also known as net neutrality.

It will be interesting to see if Comcast reacts to these articles and whether other customers will claim similar findings.

It seems NASA is placing itself among the leaders in broadband deployment. According to a very credible source, the agency is scheduled to install a brand new wireless Internet access network -- they call it "Wi-Fi" -- by 2017.

According to agency officials, accessing the Internet has been an ongoing struggle for NASA. Still relying on a single dial-up modem, employees nevertheless continue to get disconnected from the Internet whenever the Johnson Space Center receives an incoming call or someone picks up the phone to dial out. In 2005, NASA attempted to upgrade from dial-up to DSL, but the program was aborted when engineers were unable to get the Ethernet hub to function.

Next thing you know they'll be putting someone on the moon.

These past two weeks have been a whirlwind at the Last Mile office. We were in Chicago for WiMAX World last week, back in Ohio for the weekend where this blogger competed in -- well, ran in -- the Akron Marathon with fellow colleagues at Benjamin Media, publisher of Last Mile, and now we're in Orlando for the FTTH Conference.

Here are some highlights:

• Rexburg, Idaho, has made headway with its WiMAX deployment, which the rural community rolled out with the help of DigitalBridge in June.
• I finished the marathon in 4:26:48. Now, you want to talk about how important the last mile is? If you don't cover that whole distance, you have nothing but a lot of agony. It didn't matter how long I got there, I just got there.
• Today, I'm off to check out the Fiber-Powered Pavilion. Looks pretty cool. I'll report back later this week.