From rl at radlab.com Sat Jan 5 17:05:25 2008 From: rl at radlab.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 17:05:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Jason Marks Elected NM PRC Chair Message-ID: >From the NM PRC's January 3, 2008 Press Release: NEW MEXICO PUBLIC REGULATION COMMISSION ELECTS MARKS AND JONES AS CHAIRMAN AND VICE CHAIRMAN Today at their first meeting of the New Year, the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission elected Commissioner Jason Marks (Dist. 1) as Chairman and Commissioner Sandy Jones (Dist. 5) as Vice-chairman. First elected in November 2004, Commissioner Marks has served the last three years as vice-chairman of the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission. Marks was at the forefront in making sure the Public Regulation Commission played an important role in the transition from fossil-fuel dependency to energy supplies that are environmentally and financially sustainable. In 2007, he sponsored and passed renewable energy rules at the Commission that creates diversity targets for solar energy and distributed generation. It has been an honor and privilege to serve the people of New Mexico as commissioner and now as chairman of the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission, Marks said. I gladly accept this chairmanship and I look forward to a very productive year in 2008. Commissioner Sandy Jones was sworn in on January 1, 2007 to his first elected office, New Mexico Public Regulation Commissioner for southwest New Mexico. Jones is committed to putting his business experience to work at the Public Regulation Commission to help small businesses to thrive. Recognizing the importance of small businesses and the fact that it is the backbone of our state economy; Jones is confident that given the tools to succeed, small businesses will create jobs necessary for the children of our state to stay at home in New Mexico to work and raise their families. Im proud to do this and I look forward to it, said Jones. Its an honor to serve as the vice-chairman of the Public Regulation Commission. For more information, please contact the PRC Public Information Office at 505.827.4446. NEW MEXICO PUBLIC REGULATION COMMISSION COMMISSIONERS: DISTRICT 1 JASON MARKS, CHAIRMAN DISTRICT 2 DAVID W. KING DISTRICT 3 BEN R. LUJAN DISTRICT 4 CAROL K. SLOAN DISTRICT 5 SANDY JONES, VICE CHAIRMAN ------------------------------------------------ Richard Lowenberg P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110, 505-603-5200 cell 1st-Mile Institute New Mexico Broadband Initiative www.1st-mile.com ------------------------------------------------ From rl at radlab.com Mon Jan 7 11:17:21 2008 From: rl at radlab.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2008 11:17:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: [1st-mile-nm] UTOPIA Article Message-ID: Utah's 'open service provider' fiber network, UTOPIA, has been the subject of numerous (biased vested-interest) position papers and articles of late, as it goes through some restructuring and growing pains. Pro-incumbent parties are opposed to UTOPIA. The following article, though biased in favor of UTOPIA, provides a fairly good update on the project. rl ----- www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_7890855# UTOPIA detractors don't see the big picture By Warren Woodward Salt Lake Tribune 01/05/2008 In nearly 15 years of being an Internet service provider in Utah, we at XMission have never seen a level of excitement among our subscribers like that generated by the UTOPIA fiber-to-the-home project. This is a groundbreaking effort we are tremendously excited to be a part of, and we are intensely proud of Utah for growing it right here in our own backyard. Early in UTOPIA's existence, it was decided that in order to maximize fairness among service providers, advertising should be limited to only those specific homes and businesses where UTOPIA was available. The unfortunate side effect of this strategy is that because advertising and education was isolated to these spotty areas, wider public knowledge of the project suffered. We find that, despite the excitement of some subscribers, the vast majority of the Utah public has no idea what UTOPIA is and how it can benefit our state. This, sadly, left Utah vulnerable to the hyperbole of the many UTOPIA detractors, a trap The Tribune itself has fallen into this week with both its news article ("UTOPIA: Could high-speed fiber optic end up cyber-paradise lost?" Dec. 30), and an editorial ("Utopian nightmare," Jan. 3). To clear some misunderstandings, UTOPIA is not in direct competition with existing telecommunication providers, not any more than the Salt Lake International Airport is in competition with Delta or Southwest. It is infrastructure only, and any business capable of offering service over fiber is encouraged to do so. Second, it is equally vital that people understand what exactly UTOPIA provides this community. Detractors who say that "no one needs fiber" don't see the big picture. This isn't just an amazing access network for today's public, it's a "future-proof" network that will support the telecommunication needs of Utah for decades to come, long after the existing switched-copper network has crumbled into obsolescence. The only question remaining is: How can we replace our copper with fiber? UTOPIA's solution to this is unique and visionary, and, despite stumbles, it's working. Some people seem to think that incumbents will eventually build this network themselves. By this reasoning, they would believe that GM or Ford would eventually have built Interstate 80. Does anyone really believe the interstate highway system would have been built by private enterprise with a profit margin in mind? It has never turned a penny in profit, but surely everyone recognizes its economic necessity. This is the exact same issue. Contrary to claims, there is no existing business plan that will bring ubiquitous fiber to this state, and by the time one arrives, the financial reality of our population density dictates that Utah will be long behind the curve. Instead, UTOPIA puts us on the forefront of the new century of communications. Which position is better for Utah? Perhaps UTOPIA's most significant mistake was its failure to adequately predict the severity of illegal opposition from incumbents, a sad necessity in a corporate age more prone to litigation than service. It is very important that the people of Utah understand that the delays in UTOPIA have been largely the effect of extensive legal obstructions by incumbents. While these maneuvers ultimately failed, they did succeed in causing lengthy and costly delays. Make no mistake, where available, UTOPIA is operating as promised. Our UTOPIA subscribers are already getting speeds 10 times faster than most cable modem users for less money. People who call this superfluous today are ignoring the reality: It will be necessary tomorrow, and there is no plan outside of UTOPIA to bring it to Utah. Utah needs UTOPIA, and XMission is proud to be part of it. --- * WARREN WOODWARD has managed broadband service at XMission for eight years, including UTOPIA service operations for the past three. ------------------------------------------------ Richard Lowenberg P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110, 505-603-5200 cell 1st-Mile Institute New Mexico Broadband Initiative www.1st-mile.com ------------------------------------------------ From rl at radlab.com Mon Jan 7 11:22:17 2008 From: rl at radlab.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2008 11:22:17 -0800 (PST) Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fair Use Best Practices Message-ID: As more of us with broadband connectivity become video content creators... The Fair Use Principles for User Generated Content (PDF) offer a set of guidelines that user-generated video sites should use in order to ensure that their attempts to keep infringing video offline don't run roughshod over users' rights to fair use of the content. The principles were formulated by a handful of public interest groups including the EFF, the ACLU, Public Knowledge, and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. www.eff.org/files/UGC_Fair_Use_Best_Practices_0.pdf ------------------------------------------------ Richard Lowenberg P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110, 505-603-5200 cell 1st-Mile Institute New Mexico Broadband Initiative www.1st-mile.com ------------------------------------------------ From editorsteve at gmail.com Mon Jan 7 12:34:30 2008 From: editorsteve at gmail.com (Steve Ross) Date: Mon, 07 Jan 2008 15:34:30 -0500 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] UTOPIA Article In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47828CD6.7000400@gmail.com> We've done many favorable stories on UTOPIA, and on the separate iProvo system with which UTOPIA shares a headend. It is clear that local customers benefit by the actions private network operators in the area have had to take to compete -- lower prices and better service for all. But it is also clear that UTOPIA has problems. Its take rate is around 16%. It needs somewhat more than that to break even -- 20-25%. It had projected more than 40%, which we always felt was high for the short term -- the pattern is that private incumbents will artificially lower prices and improve services to match the public entrant, reducing the need for customers to change providers. Nimble network operators have been able to get 40% and even 50% or better take rate under these circumstances, but it is not a slam-dunk. They can't know for sure what the private operators will do, but the private operators can come to the public operators' open meetings! Also, under state law, UTOPIA cannot offer retail services of its own, so it is somewhat limited to the providers it can "rent" bandwidth to. Finally, satellite video is cheap and easy to implement in Utah, reducing the number of potential customers. For comparative stats, see http://www.broadbandproperties.com/2007issues/november07/CoverStoryRender.pdf Steven S. Ross Editor-in-Chief Broadband Properties steve at broadbandproperties.com www.bbpmag.com SKYPE: editorsteve +1 781-284-8810 +1 646-216-8030 fax +1 201-456-5933 mobile Richard Lowenberg wrote: > Utah's 'open service provider' fiber network, UTOPIA, has been the subject > of numerous (biased vested-interest) position papers and articles of late, > as it goes through some restructuring and growing pains. Pro-incumbent > parties are opposed to UTOPIA. The following article, though biased in > favor of UTOPIA, provides a fairly good update on the project. > rl > ----- > > www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_7890855# > > UTOPIA detractors don't see the big picture > > By Warren Woodward > Salt Lake Tribune > 01/05/2008 > > In nearly 15 years of being an Internet service provider in Utah, we at > XMission have never seen a level of excitement among our subscribers like > that generated by the UTOPIA fiber-to-the-home project. > This is a groundbreaking effort we are tremendously excited to be a > part of, and we are intensely proud of Utah for growing it right here in > our own backyard. > > Early in UTOPIA's existence, it was decided that in order to maximize > fairness among service providers, advertising should be limited to only > those specific homes and businesses where UTOPIA was available. > The unfortunate side effect of this strategy is that because > advertising and education was isolated to these spotty areas, wider public > knowledge of the project suffered. We find that, despite the excitement of > some subscribers, the vast majority of the Utah public has no idea what > UTOPIA is and how it can benefit our state. > This, sadly, left Utah vulnerable to the hyperbole of the many UTOPIA > detractors, a trap The Tribune itself has fallen into this week with both > its news article ("UTOPIA: Could high-speed fiber optic end up > cyber-paradise lost?" Dec. 30), and an editorial ("Utopian nightmare," > Jan. 3). > > To clear some misunderstandings, UTOPIA is not in direct competition > with existing telecommunication providers, not any more than the Salt Lake > International Airport is in competition with Delta or Southwest. It is > infrastructure only, and any business capable of offering service over > fiber is encouraged to do so. > Second, it is equally vital that people understand what exactly UTOPIA > provides this community. Detractors who say that "no one needs fiber" > don't see the big picture. This isn't just an amazing access network for > today's public, it's a "future-proof" network that will support the > telecommunication needs of Utah for decades to come, long after the > existing switched-copper network has crumbled into obsolescence. > The only question remaining is: How can we replace our copper with > fiber? UTOPIA's solution to this is unique and visionary, and, despite > stumbles, it's working. > > Some people seem to think that incumbents will eventually build this > network themselves. By this reasoning, they would believe that GM or Ford > would eventually have built Interstate 80. Does anyone really believe the > interstate highway system would have been built by private enterprise with > a profit margin in mind? It has never turned a penny in profit, but surely > everyone recognizes its economic necessity. This is the exact same issue. > Contrary to claims, there is no existing business plan that will bring > ubiquitous fiber to this state, and by the time one arrives, the financial > reality of our population density dictates that Utah will be long behind > the curve. Instead, UTOPIA puts us on the forefront of the new century of > communications. Which position is better for Utah? > > Perhaps UTOPIA's most significant mistake was its failure to > adequately predict the severity of illegal opposition from incumbents, a > sad necessity in a corporate age more prone to litigation than service. It > is very important that the people of Utah understand that the delays in > UTOPIA have been largely the effect of extensive legal obstructions by > incumbents. > While these maneuvers ultimately failed, they did succeed in causing > lengthy and costly delays. > > Make no mistake, where available, UTOPIA is operating as promised. Our > UTOPIA subscribers are already getting speeds 10 times faster than most > cable modem users for less money. > People who call this superfluous today are ignoring the reality: It > will be necessary tomorrow, and there is no plan outside of UTOPIA to > bring it to Utah. Utah needs UTOPIA, and XMission is proud to be part of > it. > > --- > * WARREN WOODWARD has managed broadband service at XMission for eight > years, including UTOPIA service operations for the past three. > > > ------------------------------------------------ > Richard Lowenberg > P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 > 505-989-9110, 505-603-5200 cell > > 1st-Mile Institute > New Mexico Broadband Initiative > www.1st-mile.com > ------------------------------------------------ > > > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > From rl at radlab.com Tue Jan 8 13:38:55 2008 From: rl at radlab.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2008 13:38:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Qwest DSL Upgrading Message-ID: www.dslreports.com/shownews/Qwest-Testing-Line-Bonded-DSL-90785 Qwest Testing Line Bonded DSL Still skittish about getting into IPTV 9:34AM Tuesday Jan 08 2008 Qwest will be spending $300 million over the next two years to bring 20Mbps VDSL to around 1.5 million customers. The company says they spent $70-100 million on the project in 2007, and will spend another $200 million this year. Qwest hopes to see a FTTN/VDSL penetration rate of 40% by 2010, and the upgrades are going to cost the company around $175 per home. The Rocky Mountain News says that Qwest is also testing line bonding: The technology could enable the Denver telco to provide data speeds of up to 35 to 38 megabits a second. Currently, the company's fastest advertised rates are 7 megabits a second. It's too early to say whether Qwest will ever go to a bonded DSL line platform. But if the technology proves to be commercially viable, it could be an option for providing video on demand. Of course that has also been AT&T's hope, and the industry (with Qwest in the front row) is watching to see whether AT&T can really provide multiple HD streams over copper without really compromising image quality. Qwest so far hasn't been keen to jump with both feet into the IPTV market, and unless U-Verse is a smashing success, it's likely to stay that way. ------------------------------------------------ Richard Lowenberg P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110, 505-603-5200 cell 1st-Mile Institute New Mexico Broadband Initiative www.1st-mile.com ------------------------------------------------ From rl at radlab.com Thu Jan 10 10:09:35 2008 From: rl at radlab.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 10:09:35 -0800 (PST) Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Connect Kentucky Provides Uncertain Model For Federal Legislation Message-ID: The following synopsis of a longer posting is forwarded from another list. Connect Kentucky and the off-shoot consulting firm, Connected Nation, have been getting a lot of press attention. I and others on and off the 1st-Mile list are very concerned about and in disagreement with the Connect Kentucky broadband model (the state subsidizing the incumbents). This is not a strategy that the 1st-Mile initiative advocates for NM. Art Brodsky, at Public Knowledge, lays it out very well, at length. rl ----- CONNECT KENTUCKY PROVIDES UNCERTAIN MODEL FOR FEDERAL LEGISLATION [SOURCE: Public Knowledge, AUTHOR: Art Brodsky] [Commentary] The only telecommunications legislation that has a chance of passing the Congress controlled by Democrats this year is modeled on a group whose apparent accomplishments are open to question and whose origins are in Republican politics in Kentucky. That group is Connected Nation, which began life as Connect Kentucky. Some say Connect Kentucky is nothing more than a sales force and front group for AT&T paid for by the telecommunications industry and by state and federal governments that has achieved far more in publicity than it has in actual accomplishment. Connect helps to promote AT&T services, while lobbying at the state capitol for the deregulation legislation the telephone company wants. [Much more at the URL below -- worth the read.] From rl at radlab.com Thu Jan 10 16:17:23 2008 From: rl at radlab.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 16:17:23 -0800 (PST) Subject: [1st-mile-nm] "Principles for an Open Broadband Future" Message-ID: 'Openness' is an over-riding principle of this 1st-Mile Initiative. The following is extracted from the Executive Summary of the July 2005 White Paper from Public Knowledge, "Principles for an Open Broadband Future". rl ------ www.publicknowledge.org/content/papers/open-broadband-future The U.S. needs to enact a clear set of principles for broadband services to ensure that these networks are widely deployed, open, affordable and accessible to all consumers. Without such principles, there is great danger that any future legislation on these issues will become a grab bag of special interest provisions. Therefore, the following principles should be the starting point for any telecommunications legislation ... Broadband networks must be: 1) open to competition from any entity, including municipalities; 2) open to the attachment of any equipment the user chooses, as long as it does not harm the technical operation of the broadband network; 3) open and accessible to consumers, application developers, and information service providers and to other networks, without restrictions or degradation, except for law enforcement or for network management purposes; 4) open, available and affordable to all consumers, regardless of income, race, geographic location, or disability; and 5) open to the maximally efficient number of licensed and unlicensed wireless providers. ------------------------------------------------ Richard Lowenberg P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110, 505-603-5200 cell 1st-Mile Institute New Mexico Broadband Initiative www.1st-mile.com ------------------------------------------------ From editorsteve at gmail.com Thu Jan 10 19:02:45 2008 From: editorsteve at gmail.com (Steve Ross) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 22:02:45 -0500 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] "Principles for an Open Broadband Future" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4786DC55.1040002@gmail.com> Openness can also benefit private network operators. See http://www.broadbandproperties.com/2007issues/december07/Dec_EcoDevopment.pdf In the December issue of my magazine -- long article by Mark Gaynor. His book, Network Services Investment Guide, from Wiley, is worth reading as well. Steven S. Ross Editor-in-Chief Broadband Properties steve at broadbandproperties.com www.bbpmag.com SKYPE: editorsteve +1 781-284-8810 +1 646-216-8030 fax +1 201-456-5933 mobile Richard Lowenberg wrote: > 'Openness' is an over-riding principle of this 1st-Mile Initiative. > The following is extracted from the Executive Summary of the July 2005 > White Paper from Public Knowledge, "Principles for an Open Broadband > Future". > rl > ------ > www.publicknowledge.org/content/papers/open-broadband-future > > > The U.S. needs to enact a clear set of principles for broadband services > to ensure that these networks are widely deployed, open, affordable and > accessible to all consumers. Without such principles, there is great > danger that any future legislation on these issues will become a grab bag > of special interest provisions. Therefore, the following principles should > be the starting point for any telecommunications legislation ... > > Broadband networks must be: > > 1) open to competition from any entity, including municipalities; > > 2) open to the attachment of any equipment the user chooses, as long > as it does not harm the technical operation of the broadband network; > > 3) open and accessible to consumers, application developers, and > information service providers and to other networks, without restrictions > or degradation, except for law enforcement or for network management > purposes; > > 4) open, available and affordable to all consumers, regardless of > income, race, geographic location, or disability; and > > 5) open to the maximally efficient number of licensed and unlicensed > wireless providers. > > > ------------------------------------------------ > Richard Lowenberg > P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 > 505-989-9110, 505-603-5200 cell > > 1st-Mile Institute > New Mexico Broadband Initiative > www.1st-mile.com > ------------------------------------------------ > > > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > From rl at radlab.com Sat Jan 12 15:26:21 2008 From: rl at radlab.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 15:26:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Qwest Comm. Strategic Update Message-ID: The new CEO and other high ranking Qwest leaders are providing some expected announcements about the company's strategic intentions for broadband deployment. "Fat Internet pipes to access VoD, not IPTV, will meet consumer demands of the future, new Qwest leadership believes" http://tinyurl.com/2r3y2w They just don't get it. rl ------------------------------------------------ Richard Lowenberg P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110, 505-603-5200 cell 1st-Mile Institute New Mexico Broadband Initiative www.1st-mile.com ------------------------------------------------ From editorsteve at gmail.com Sat Jan 12 17:25:18 2008 From: editorsteve at gmail.com (Steve Ross) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 20:25:18 -0500 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Qwest Comm. Strategic Update In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4789687E.7020601@gmail.com> They get it at Qwest. They just don't think they can afford it, and they are unwilling to explore partnerships with government to raise capital. British Telecom CEO said the same thing last year. But using a technique called "reporting," we found out what company insiders really were saying to each other. Verizon will end up overbuilding the most dense parts of the Qwest footprint once it finishes its own service area in 2011. The CLEC from Hell. Bye-bye Qwest unless they change strategies. Steven S. Ross Editor-in-Chief Broadband Properties steve at broadbandproperties.com www.bbpmag.com SKYPE: editorsteve +1 781-284-8810 +1 646-216-8030 fax +1 201-456-5933 mobile Richard Lowenberg wrote: > The new CEO and other high ranking Qwest leaders are providing some > expected announcements about the company's strategic intentions for > broadband deployment. > > "Fat Internet pipes to access VoD, not > IPTV, will meet consumer demands of > the future, new Qwest leadership believes" > > http://tinyurl.com/2r3y2w > > They just don't get it. > rl > > > ------------------------------------------------ > Richard Lowenberg > P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 > 505-989-9110, 505-603-5200 cell > > 1st-Mile Institute > New Mexico Broadband Initiative > www.1st-mile.com > ------------------------------------------------ > > > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > From rl at radlab.com Tue Jan 15 11:47:42 2008 From: rl at radlab.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 11:47:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Jim Baller Posting Message-ID: Last week, I posted a critique from Public Knowledge, of the Connect Kentucky and Connected Nation broadband initiatives. There's been some back and forth exchange on this, online. Jim Baller, a leading telecom. lawyer, posted the following, yesterday. He takes a most intelligent position in his conclusion. (There is a link to the Baller/Herbst Law Firm web site on the 1st-Mile web site's Resources page.) rl ----- AMERICAs GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS Many of you have asked me to comment on the controversy surrounding ConnectKentucky/ Connected Nation. Here are my first impress- sions. On this list and elsewhere, I have repeatedly praised CK/CN for their broadband mapping, consumer education, and demand aggregation activities. While some of their claims seemed exaggerated to me, I gave them the benefit of the doubt. At the same time, I often expressed concerns about their limited, incumbent-centric vision of Americas broadband needs and about their strong bias against public broadband initiatives. In his lengthy article, Art Brodsky has now called many of CK/CNs claims into question. Brian Meffert has responded on behalf of CK/CN. Links to both pieces appear below. I hope that Mr. Meffert will provide a more detailed response, that Mr. Brodsky will reply, and that the unnamed sources to which both refer will step forward and enlighten us about what really happened in Kentucky. In a matter of this import- ance, we need to know the facts, and we should not pre-judge them in either direction. Wherever the truth may lie, however, my main concerns about the CK/CN will remain. In 2002, the US Department of Commerce issued a report entitled Understanding Broadband Demand in which it observed that It is important to note here that the current generation of broadband technol- ogies (cable and DSL) may prove woefully insufficient to carry many of the advanced applications driving future demand. Today's broadband will be tomorrow's traffic jam, and the need for speed will persist as new applications and services gobble up existing bandwidth. http://tinyurl.com/34e49y Now, six years later, we can clearly see how prescient the Department of Commerce was. While CK/CN are stuck on single- digit DSL and cable modem speeds, the worlds leading nations are pushing rapidly toward speeds of 100 Mbps and 10 Gbps. Such speeds will completely tip the balance of innovation and competetiveness in their favor. Ironically, the bandwidth-rich appli- cations that these nations will foster would clog the arteries of the puny systems that CK/CNs initiatives would produce. To remain a leader in the emerging global economy, the United States needs a much bigger vision than CK/CNs. We need to give all Americans, including those in the rural areas that CK/CN would serve, candid and unbiased information about the stakes involved and about the full range of options available to their communities. Moreover, we cannot afford to exclude any potentially viable initiative public or private -- that can help the United States fulfill its vision. To be sure, we need reliable map of broad- band availability as well as speed, quality, and price. No one disputes this, and many tools are emerging to achieve this. We also need better consumer education, including accurate data about offerings of incumbent and competitive providers. At the very least, CK/CN deserve credit for highlighting these needs. But even more, America needs a national broadband strategy that is worthy of this great Nation. This can happen only if all major stakeholders, including the incum- bents, candidly acknowledge that America faces a tremendous challenge, that time is short, and that the public and private sectors must work together, in a spirit of mutual respect, to meet this great chal- lenge. We cannot allow the CK/CN controversy to bog us down or divert us from developing such a strategy. Jim Baller ------------------------------------------------ Richard Lowenberg P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110, 505-603-5200 cell 1st-Mile Institute New Mexico Broadband Initiative www.1st-mile.com ------------------------------------------------ From morshan at t-2-b.com Tue Jan 15 12:00:19 2008 From: morshan at t-2-b.com (Michael Orshan) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 13:00:19 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Jim Baller Posting In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <002c01c857b1$43565b60$6501a8c0@acer0aab77603b> Interesting. I've been meaning to send this. New Mexico is last. The FCC recently released their annual "Local Telephone Competition" report, which offers insight into the competition for local telephone service through 2006. The numbers weren't terribly surprising. CLECs continue to lose market share for local loops, and as of December 2006, provided 17.1% of the 167.5 million local access loops in the U.S. That percentage is down from December 2005's number of 17.9%. According to the FCC's numbers, CLECs peaked with 19.1% of local access loops in June 2005. Of course local loops are declining in general, thanks primarily to wireless substitution. There were 175.1 million local loops in December 2005, compared to December 2006's 167.5 million. RBOCs continued forbearance efforts, where they attempt to escape competitive mandates, aren't helping either. CLECs highest penetration of local loops occurred in Rhode Island (46%) and lowest penetration occurred in New Mexico (8%). Even though it's a year old, this FCC report provides a wealth of information about local telephone competition and includes extensive data about ILECs, CLECs, and wireless carriers. Michael Orshan www.marsound.com -----Original Message----- From: 1st-mile-nm-bounces at crank.dcn.davis.ca.us [mailto:1st-mile-nm-bounces at crank.dcn.davis.ca.us] On Behalf Of Richard Lowenberg Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2008 12:48 PM To: 1st-mile-nm at crank.dcn.davis.ca.us Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Jim Baller Posting Last week, I posted a critique from Public Knowledge, of the Connect Kentucky and Connected Nation broadband initiatives. There's been some back and forth exchange on this, online. Jim Baller, a leading telecom. lawyer, posted the following, yesterday. He takes a most intelligent position in his conclusion. (There is a link to the Baller/Herbst Law Firm web site on the 1st-Mile web site's Resources page.) rl ----- AMERICAs GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS Many of you have asked me to comment on the controversy surrounding ConnectKentucky/ Connected Nation. Here are my first impress- sions. On this list and elsewhere, I have repeatedly praised CK/CN for their broadband mapping, consumer education, and demand aggregation activities. While some of their claims seemed exaggerated to me, I gave them the benefit of the doubt. At the same time, I often expressed concerns about their limited, incumbent-centric vision of Americas broadband needs and about their strong bias against public broadband initiatives. In his lengthy article, Art Brodsky has now called many of CK/CNs claims into question. Brian Meffert has responded on behalf of CK/CN. Links to both pieces appear below. I hope that Mr. Meffert will provide a more detailed response, that Mr. Brodsky will reply, and that the unnamed sources to which both refer will step forward and enlighten us about what really happened in Kentucky. In a matter of this import- ance, we need to know the facts, and we should not pre-judge them in either direction. Wherever the truth may lie, however, my main concerns about the CK/CN will remain. In 2002, the US Department of Commerce issued a report entitled Understanding Broadband Demand in which it observed that It is important to note here that the current generation of broadband technol- ogies (cable and DSL) may prove woefully insufficient to carry many of the advanced applications driving future demand. Today's broadband will be tomorrow's traffic jam, and the need for speed will persist as new applications and services gobble up existing bandwidth. http://tinyurl.com/34e49y Now, six years later, we can clearly see how prescient the Department of Commerce was. While CK/CN are stuck on single- digit DSL and cable modem speeds, the worlds leading nations are pushing rapidly toward speeds of 100 Mbps and 10 Gbps. Such speeds will completely tip the balance of innovation and competetiveness in their favor. Ironically, the bandwidth-rich appli- cations that these nations will foster would clog the arteries of the puny systems that CK/CNs initiatives would produce. To remain a leader in the emerging global economy, the United States needs a much bigger vision than CK/CNs. We need to give all Americans, including those in the rural areas that CK/CN would serve, candid and unbiased information about the stakes involved and about the full range of options available to their communities. Moreover, we cannot afford to exclude any potentially viable initiative public or private -- that can help the United States fulfill its vision. To be sure, we need reliable map of broad- band availability as well as speed, quality, and price. No one disputes this, and many tools are emerging to achieve this. We also need better consumer education, including accurate data about offerings of incumbent and competitive providers. At the very least, CK/CN deserve credit for highlighting these needs. But even more, America needs a national broadband strategy that is worthy of this great Nation. This can happen only if all major stakeholders, including the incum- bents, candidly acknowledge that America faces a tremendous challenge, that time is short, and that the public and private sectors must work together, in a spirit of mutual respect, to meet this great chal- lenge. We cannot allow the CK/CN controversy to bog us down or divert us from developing such a strategy. Jim Baller ------------------------------------------------ Richard Lowenberg P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110, 505-603-5200 cell 1st-Mile Institute New Mexico Broadband Initiative www.1st-mile.com ------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ 1st-mile-nm mailing list 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm From granoff at zianet.com Tue Jan 15 12:07:44 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 13:07:44 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Jim Baller Posting In-Reply-To: <002c01c857b1$43565b60$6501a8c0@acer0aab77603b> References: <002c01c857b1$43565b60$6501a8c0@acer0aab77603b> Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20080115130723.0c7acc50@mail.zianet.com> Link is at http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-279231A1.pdf Marianne At 01:00 PM 1/15/2008 -0700, Michael Orshan wrote: >Interesting. I've been meaning to send this. New Mexico is last. > >The FCC recently released their annual "Local Telephone Competition" report, >which offers insight into the competition for local telephone service >through 2006. The numbers weren't terribly surprising. CLECs continue to >lose market share for local loops, and as of December 2006, provided 17.1% >of the 167.5 million local access loops in the U.S. That percentage is down >from December 2005's number of 17.9%. According to the FCC's numbers, CLECs >peaked with 19.1% of local access loops in June 2005. Of course local loops >are declining in general, thanks primarily to wireless substitution. There >were 175.1 million local loops in December 2005, compared to December 2006's >167.5 million. RBOCs continued forbearance efforts, where they attempt to >escape competitive mandates, aren't helping either. CLECs highest >penetration of local loops occurred in Rhode Island (46%) and lowest >penetration occurred in New Mexico (8%). Even though it's a year old, this >FCC report provides a wealth of information about local telephone >competition and includes extensive data about ILECs, CLECs, and wireless >carriers. > >Michael Orshan >www.marsound.com > > >-----Original Message----- >From: 1st-mile-nm-bounces at crank.dcn.davis.ca.us >[mailto:1st-mile-nm-bounces at crank.dcn.davis.ca.us] On Behalf Of Richard >Lowenberg >Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2008 12:48 PM >To: 1st-mile-nm at crank.dcn.davis.ca.us >Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Jim Baller Posting > >Last week, I posted a critique from Public Knowledge, of the Connect >Kentucky and Connected Nation broadband initiatives. There's been some >back and forth exchange on this, online. Jim Baller, a leading telecom. >lawyer, posted the following, yesterday. He takes a most intelligent >position in his conclusion. (There is a link to the Baller/Herbst Law >Firm web site on the 1st-Mile web site's Resources page.) >rl >----- > >AMERICAs GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS > >Many of you have asked me to comment on > the controversy surrounding ConnectKentucky/ > Connected Nation. Here are my first impress- > sions. > >On this list and elsewhere, I have repeatedly > praised CK/CN for their broadband mapping, > consumer education, and demand aggregation > activities. While some of their claims seemed > exaggerated to me, I gave them the benefit of > the doubt. At the same time, I often expressed > concerns about their limited, incumbent-centric > vision of Americas broadband needs and about > their strong bias against public broadband > initiatives. > >In his lengthy article, Art Brodsky has now > called many of CK/CNs claims into question. > Brian Meffert has responded on behalf of > CK/CN. Links to both pieces appear below. > >I hope that Mr. Meffert will provide a more > detailed response, that Mr. Brodsky will > reply, and that the unnamed sources to > which both refer will step forward and > enlighten us about what really happened > in Kentucky. In a matter of this import- > ance, we need to know the facts, and we > should not pre-judge them in either > direction. > >Wherever the truth may lie, however, my > main concerns about the CK/CN will remain. > In 2002, the US Department of Commerce > issued a report entitled Understanding > Broadband Demand in which it observed > that It is important to note here that the > current generation of broadband technol- > ogies (cable and DSL) may prove woefully > insufficient to carry many of the advanced > applications driving future demand. Today's > broadband will be tomorrow's traffic jam, > and the need for speed will persist as new > applications and services gobble up existing > bandwidth. http://tinyurl.com/34e49y > >Now, six years later, we can clearly see how > prescient the Department of Commerce > was. While CK/CN are stuck on single- > digit DSL and cable modem speeds, the > worlds leading nations are pushing rapidly > toward speeds of 100 Mbps and 10 Gbps. > Such speeds will completely tip the balance > of innovation and competetiveness in their > favor. Ironically, the bandwidth-rich appli- > cations that these nations will foster would > clog the arteries of the puny systems that > CK/CNs initiatives would produce. > >To remain a leader in the emerging global > economy, the United States needs a much > bigger vision than CK/CNs. We need to give > all Americans, including those in the rural > areas that CK/CN would serve, candid and > unbiased information about the stakes > involved and about the full range of options > available to their communities. Moreover, > we cannot afford to exclude any potentially > viable initiative public or private -- that > can help the United States fulfill its vision. > >To be sure, we need reliable map of broad- > band availability as well as speed, quality, > and price. No one disputes this, and many > tools are emerging to achieve this. We also > need better consumer education, including > accurate data about offerings of incumbent > and competitive providers. At the very least, > CK/CN deserve credit for highlighting these > needs. > >But even more, America needs a national > broadband strategy that is worthy of this > great Nation. This can happen only if all > major stakeholders, including the incum- > bents, candidly acknowledge that America > faces a tremendous challenge, that time is > short, and that the public and private > sectors must work together, in a spirit of > mutual respect, to meet this great chal- > lenge. We cannot allow the CK/CN > controversy to bog us down or divert us > from developing such a strategy. > >Jim Baller > > >------------------------------------------------ >Richard Lowenberg >P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 >505-989-9110, 505-603-5200 cell > >1st-Mile Institute >New Mexico Broadband Initiative >www.1st-mile.com >------------------------------------------------ > > > >_______________________________________________ >1st-mile-nm mailing list >1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > >_______________________________________________ >1st-mile-nm mailing list >1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > > > >-- >No virus found in this incoming message. >Checked by AVG Free Edition. >Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.2/1224 - Release Date: 1/14/2008 >5:39 PM From granoff at zianet.com Tue Jan 15 12:27:20 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 13:27:20 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Jim Baller Posting In-Reply-To: <002c01c857b1$43565b60$6501a8c0@acer0aab77603b> References: <002c01c857b1$43565b60$6501a8c0@acer0aab77603b> Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20080115131603.0c797c30@mail.zianet.com> Does anyone know what color white represents on the map on page 23 following figure 19? At 01:00 PM 1/15/2008 -0700, Michael Orshan wrote: >Interesting. I've been meaning to send this. New Mexico is last. > >The FCC recently released their annual "Local Telephone Competition" report, >which offers insight into the competition for local telephone service >through 2006. The numbers weren't terribly surprising. CLECs continue to >lose market share for local loops, and as of December 2006, provided 17.1% >of the 167.5 million local access loops in the U.S. That percentage is down >from December 2005's number of 17.9%. According to the FCC's numbers, CLECs >peaked with 19.1% of local access loops in June 2005. Of course local loops >are declining in general, thanks primarily to wireless substitution. There >were 175.1 million local loops in December 2005, compared to December 2006's >167.5 million. RBOCs continued forbearance efforts, where they attempt to >escape competitive mandates, aren't helping either. CLECs highest >penetration of local loops occurred in Rhode Island (46%) and lowest >penetration occurred in New Mexico (8%). Even though it's a year old, this >FCC report provides a wealth of information about local telephone >competition and includes extensive data about ILECs, CLECs, and wireless >carriers. > >Michael Orshan >www.marsound.com > > >-----Original Message----- >From: 1st-mile-nm-bounces at crank.dcn.davis.ca.us >[mailto:1st-mile-nm-bounces at crank.dcn.davis.ca.us] On Behalf Of Richard >Lowenberg >Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2008 12:48 PM >To: 1st-mile-nm at crank.dcn.davis.ca.us >Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Jim Baller Posting > >Last week, I posted a critique from Public Knowledge, of the Connect >Kentucky and Connected Nation broadband initiatives. There's been some >back and forth exchange on this, online. Jim Baller, a leading telecom. >lawyer, posted the following, yesterday. He takes a most intelligent >position in his conclusion. (There is a link to the Baller/Herbst Law >Firm web site on the 1st-Mile web site's Resources page.) >rl >----- > >AMERICAs GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS > >Many of you have asked me to comment on > the controversy surrounding ConnectKentucky/ > Connected Nation. Here are my first impress- > sions. > >On this list and elsewhere, I have repeatedly > praised CK/CN for their broadband mapping, > consumer education, and demand aggregation > activities. While some of their claims seemed > exaggerated to me, I gave them the benefit of > the doubt. At the same time, I often expressed > concerns about their limited, incumbent-centric > vision of Americas broadband needs and about > their strong bias against public broadband > initiatives. > >In his lengthy article, Art Brodsky has now > called many of CK/CNs claims into question. > Brian Meffert has responded on behalf of > CK/CN. Links to both pieces appear below. > >I hope that Mr. Meffert will provide a more > detailed response, that Mr. Brodsky will > reply, and that the unnamed sources to > which both refer will step forward and > enlighten us about what really happened > in Kentucky. In a matter of this import- > ance, we need to know the facts, and we > should not pre-judge them in either > direction. > >Wherever the truth may lie, however, my > main concerns about the CK/CN will remain. > In 2002, the US Department of Commerce > issued a report entitled Understanding > Broadband Demand in which it observed > that It is important to note here that the > current generation of broadband technol- > ogies (cable and DSL) may prove woefully > insufficient to carry many of the advanced > applications driving future demand. Today's > broadband will be tomorrow's traffic jam, > and the need for speed will persist as new > applications and services gobble up existing > bandwidth. http://tinyurl.com/34e49y > >Now, six years later, we can clearly see how > prescient the Department of Commerce > was. While CK/CN are stuck on single- > digit DSL and cable modem speeds, the > worlds leading nations are pushing rapidly > toward speeds of 100 Mbps and 10 Gbps. > Such speeds will completely tip the balance > of innovation and competetiveness in their > favor. Ironically, the bandwidth-rich appli- > cations that these nations will foster would > clog the arteries of the puny systems that > CK/CNs initiatives would produce. > >To remain a leader in the emerging global > economy, the United States needs a much > bigger vision than CK/CNs. We need to give > all Americans, including those in the rural > areas that CK/CN would serve, candid and > unbiased information about the stakes > involved and about the full range of options > available to their communities. Moreover, > we cannot afford to exclude any potentially > viable initiative public or private -- that > can help the United States fulfill its vision. > >To be sure, we need reliable map of broad- > band availability as well as speed, quality, > and price. No one disputes this, and many > tools are emerging to achieve this. We also > need better consumer education, including > accurate data about offerings of incumbent > and competitive providers. At the very least, > CK/CN deserve credit for highlighting these > needs. > >But even more, America needs a national > broadband strategy that is worthy of this > great Nation. This can happen only if all > major stakeholders, including the incum- > bents, candidly acknowledge that America > faces a tremendous challenge, that time is > short, and that the public and private > sectors must work together, in a spirit of > mutual respect, to meet this great chal- > lenge. We cannot allow the CK/CN > controversy to bog us down or divert us > from developing such a strategy. > >Jim Baller > > >------------------------------------------------ >Richard Lowenberg >P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 >505-989-9110, 505-603-5200 cell > >1st-Mile Institute >New Mexico Broadband Initiative >www.1st-mile.com >------------------------------------------------ > > > >_______________________________________________ >1st-mile-nm mailing list >1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > >_______________________________________________ >1st-mile-nm mailing list >1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > > > >-- >No virus found in this incoming message. >Checked by AVG Free Edition. >Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.2/1224 - Release Date: 1/14/2008 >5:39 PM -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Tue Jan 15 12:33:50 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 13:33:50 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Call it what is Message-ID: <478D18AE.1020203@ideapete.com> One of the major hurdles, that will have to be overcome, to achieve REAL first mile connectivity, and hence long term high speed broadband goals is to for once and forever align storage calculations with transmission calculations. We store digital data in megabytes and gigabytes and now terrabytes and soon petabytes but when this same data is transfered to anything the speed is measured in bits or 1/ 10 of the storage calculations, which are now transmitted measured in megabits = 1/10 megabyte / gigabit etc. This enables the larger telcos to constantly baffle washington claiming that current and future targets are just fine thank you, whats all the fuss about because they are purposely clouding the issue with stupid math The IT industry is the only one in the world that measures is storage capacity in one calculation and then measures the movement of the same by dividing the factor by 10. This is like saying my car gets 250 galobits to the mile or I walked 150 milobits today or my car cruises at 800 milobits per hour and is utterly insane As a result we have idiotic companies claiming Broadband service supplying Kilobyte ( Calling them megabit ) sluggish connections and charging people for through the wazzo. Having just completed a presentation to senior government officials who staunchly defended the point that a megabyte is the same as a megabit ( ably assisted by Qwest / ATT consultants ) I am constantly stunned at the amount of government officials and beuro planners regulating this industry and hence a huge amount of the public at large who flat out do not understand this. Hence the long term policy based on these decisions is totally doomed to fail. Don't believe me, call up any two senior government bureaucrats you know and check it out. We will never make the world understand what a phenomenal problem we have in connectivity unless this issue is once and for all tackled. One common measurement for the storage and transmission of data period " the BYTE " ( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ 3210 La Paz Lane Santa Fe, NM 87507 /Albuquerque// Office: 505-890-9649/ /Santa Fe// Office: 505-629-4227/ /Cell: 505-690-3627/ /Fax: 866-642-8918/ /_Mailto:pete at ideapete.com _/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Tue Jan 15 12:33:50 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 13:33:50 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Call it what is Message-ID: <478D18AE.1020203@ideapete.com> One of the major hurdles, that will have to be overcome, to achieve REAL first mile connectivity, and hence long term high speed broadband goals is to for once and forever align storage calculations with transmission calculations. We store digital data in megabytes and gigabytes and now terrabytes and soon petabytes but when this same data is transfered to anything the speed is measured in bits or 1/ 10 of the storage calculations, which are now transmitted measured in megabits = 1/10 megabyte / gigabit etc. This enables the larger telcos to constantly baffle washington claiming that current and future targets are just fine thank you, whats all the fuss about because they are purposely clouding the issue with stupid math The IT industry is the only one in the world that measures is storage capacity in one calculation and then measures the movement of the same by dividing the factor by 10. This is like saying my car gets 250 galobits to the mile or I walked 150 milobits today or my car cruises at 800 milobits per hour and is utterly insane As a result we have idiotic companies claiming Broadband service supplying Kilobyte ( Calling them megabit ) sluggish connections and charging people for through the wazzo. Having just completed a presentation to senior government officials who staunchly defended the point that a megabyte is the same as a megabit ( ably assisted by Qwest / ATT consultants ) I am constantly stunned at the amount of government officials and beuro planners regulating this industry and hence a huge amount of the public at large who flat out do not understand this. Hence the long term policy based on these decisions is totally doomed to fail. Don't believe me, call up any two senior government bureaucrats you know and check it out. We will never make the world understand what a phenomenal problem we have in connectivity unless this issue is once and for all tackled. One common measurement for the storage and transmission of data period " the BYTE " ( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ 3210 La Paz Lane Santa Fe, NM 87507 /Albuquerque// Office: 505-890-9649/ /Santa Fe// Office: 505-629-4227/ /Cell: 505-690-3627/ /Fax: 866-642-8918/ /_Mailto:pete at ideapete.com _/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Vince.Bradley at state.nm.us Tue Jan 15 13:04:34 2008 From: Vince.Bradley at state.nm.us (Bradley, Vince, DoIT) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 14:04:34 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Call it what is Message-ID: Peter, Very well said......... Vince Bradley State of NM/ RF/IT Engineer ________________________________ Sent from my BlackBerry Device -----Original Message----- From: 1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org <1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org> To: 1st-Mile-NM <1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org>; 1st-mile-nm at crank.dcn.davis.ca.us <1st-mile-nm at crank.dcn.davis.ca.us> Sent: Tue Jan 15 13:33:50 2008 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Call it what is One of the major hurdles, that will have to be overcome, to achieve REAL first mile connectivity, and hence long term high speed broadband goals is to for once and forever align storage calculations with transmission calculations. We store digital data in megabytes and gigabytes and now terrabytes and soon petabytes but when this same data is transfered to anything the speed is measured in bits or 1/ 10 of the storage calculations, which are now transmitted measured in megabits = 1/10 megabyte / gigabit etc. This enables the larger telcos to constantly baffle washington claiming that current and future targets are just fine thank you, whats all the fuss about because they are purposely clouding the issue with stupid math The IT industry is the only one in the world that measures is storage capacity in one calculation and then measures the movement of the same by dividing the factor by 10. This is like saying my car gets 250 galobits to the mile or I walked 150 milobits today or my car cruises at 800 milobits per hour and is utterly insane As a result we have idiotic companies claiming Broadband service supplying Kilobyte ( Calling them megabit ) sluggish connections and charging people for through the wazzo. Having just completed a presentation to senior government officials who staunchly defended the point that a megabyte is the same as a megabit ( ably assisted by Qwest / ATT consultants ) I am constantly stunned at the amount of government officials and beuro planners regulating this industry and hence a huge amount of the public at large who flat out do not understand this. Hence the long term policy based on these decisions is totally doomed to fail. Don't believe me, call up any two senior government bureaucrats you know and check it out. We will never make the world understand what a phenomenal problem we have in connectivity unless this issue is once and for all tackled. One common measurement for the storage and transmission of data period " the BYTE " ( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston IDEAS www.ideapete.com 3210 La Paz Lane Santa Fe, NM 87507 Albuquerque Office: 505-890-9649 Santa Fe Office: 505-629-4227 Cell: 505-690-3627 Fax: 866-642-8918 Mailto:pete at ideapete.com ______________________________________________________________________ This inbound email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. ______________________________________________________________________ Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail, including all attachments is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited unless specifically provided under the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender and destroy all copies of this message. -- This email has been scanned by the Sybari - Antigen Email System. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Vince.Bradley at state.nm.us Tue Jan 15 13:04:34 2008 From: Vince.Bradley at state.nm.us (Bradley, Vince, DoIT) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 14:04:34 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Call it what is Message-ID: Peter, Very well said......... Vince Bradley State of NM/ RF/IT Engineer ________________________________ Sent from my BlackBerry Device -----Original Message----- From: 1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org <1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org> To: 1st-Mile-NM <1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org>; 1st-mile-nm at crank.dcn.davis.ca.us <1st-mile-nm at crank.dcn.davis.ca.us> Sent: Tue Jan 15 13:33:50 2008 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Call it what is One of the major hurdles, that will have to be overcome, to achieve REAL first mile connectivity, and hence long term high speed broadband goals is to for once and forever align storage calculations with transmission calculations. We store digital data in megabytes and gigabytes and now terrabytes and soon petabytes but when this same data is transfered to anything the speed is measured in bits or 1/ 10 of the storage calculations, which are now transmitted measured in megabits = 1/10 megabyte / gigabit etc. This enables the larger telcos to constantly baffle washington claiming that current and future targets are just fine thank you, whats all the fuss about because they are purposely clouding the issue with stupid math The IT industry is the only one in the world that measures is storage capacity in one calculation and then measures the movement of the same by dividing the factor by 10. This is like saying my car gets 250 galobits to the mile or I walked 150 milobits today or my car cruises at 800 milobits per hour and is utterly insane As a result we have idiotic companies claiming Broadband service supplying Kilobyte ( Calling them megabit ) sluggish connections and charging people for through the wazzo. Having just completed a presentation to senior government officials who staunchly defended the point that a megabyte is the same as a megabit ( ably assisted by Qwest / ATT consultants ) I am constantly stunned at the amount of government officials and beuro planners regulating this industry and hence a huge amount of the public at large who flat out do not understand this. Hence the long term policy based on these decisions is totally doomed to fail. Don't believe me, call up any two senior government bureaucrats you know and check it out. We will never make the world understand what a phenomenal problem we have in connectivity unless this issue is once and for all tackled. One common measurement for the storage and transmission of data period " the BYTE " ( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston IDEAS www.ideapete.com 3210 La Paz Lane Santa Fe, NM 87507 Albuquerque Office: 505-890-9649 Santa Fe Office: 505-629-4227 Cell: 505-690-3627 Fax: 866-642-8918 Mailto:pete at ideapete.com ______________________________________________________________________ This inbound email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. ______________________________________________________________________ Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail, including all attachments is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited unless specifically provided under the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender and destroy all copies of this message. -- This email has been scanned by the Sybari - Antigen Email System. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Tue Jan 15 13:20:33 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 14:20:33 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Call it what is In-Reply-To: <478D18AE.1020203@ideapete.com> References: <478D18AE.1020203@ideapete.com> Message-ID: <478D23A1.7010001@ideapete.com> Corrected post / thanks for the compliments and feedback peter wrote: > One of the major hurdles, that will have to be overcome, to achieve > REAL first mile connectivity, and hence long term high speed broadband > goals is to for once and forever align storage calculations with > transmission calculations. > > We store digital data in megabytes and gigabytes and now terrabytes > and soon petabytes but when this same data is transfered to anything > the speed is measured in bits or 1/ 10 of the storage calculations, > which are now transmitted measured in megabits = 1/10 megabyte / > gigabit etc. > > This enables the larger telcos to constantly baffle washington > claiming that current and future targets are just fine thank you, > whats all the fuss about because they are purposely clouding the issue > with stupid math > > The IT industry is the only one in the world that measures is storage > capacity in one calculation and then measures the movement of the same > by dividing the factor by 10. > > This is like saying my car gets 250 milobits to the gallon or I walked > 150 milobits today or my car cruises at 800 milobits per hour and is > utterly insane > > As a result we have idiotic companies claiming Broadband service > supplying Kilobyte ( Calling them megabit ) sluggish connections and > charging people for through the wazzo. > > Having just completed a presentation to senior government officials > who staunchly defended the point that a megabyte is the same as a > megabit ( ably assisted by Qwest / ATT consultants ) I am constantly > stunned at the amount of government officials and beuro planners > regulating this industry and hence a huge amount of the public at > large who flat out do not understand this. Hence the long term policy > based on these decisions is totally doomed to fail. > > Don't believe me, call up any two senior government bureaucrats you > know and check it out. > > We will never make the world understand what a phenomenal problem we > have in connectivity unless this issue is once and for all tackled. > > One common measurement for the storage and transmission of data period > " the BYTE " > > ( : ( : pete > > -- > > Peter Baston > > *IDEAS* > > /www.ideapete.com/ > > 3210 La Paz Lane > > Santa Fe, NM 87507 > > /Albuquerque// Office: 505-890-9649/ > > /Santa Fe// Office: 505-629-4227/ > > /Cell: 505-690-3627/ > > /Fax: 866-642-8918/ > > /_Mailto:pete at ideapete.com _/ > > > > > -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ 3210 La Paz Lane Santa Fe, NM 87507 /Albuquerque// Office: 505-890-9649/ /Santa Fe// Office: 505-629-4227/ /Cell: 505-690-3627/ /Fax: 866-642-8918/ /_Mailto:pete at ideapete.com _/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Tue Jan 15 13:20:33 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 14:20:33 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Call it what is In-Reply-To: <478D18AE.1020203@ideapete.com> References: <478D18AE.1020203@ideapete.com> Message-ID: <478D23A1.7010001@ideapete.com> Corrected post / thanks for the compliments and feedback peter wrote: > One of the major hurdles, that will have to be overcome, to achieve > REAL first mile connectivity, and hence long term high speed broadband > goals is to for once and forever align storage calculations with > transmission calculations. > > We store digital data in megabytes and gigabytes and now terrabytes > and soon petabytes but when this same data is transfered to anything > the speed is measured in bits or 1/ 10 of the storage calculations, > which are now transmitted measured in megabits = 1/10 megabyte / > gigabit etc. > > This enables the larger telcos to constantly baffle washington > claiming that current and future targets are just fine thank you, > whats all the fuss about because they are purposely clouding the issue > with stupid math > > The IT industry is the only one in the world that measures is storage > capacity in one calculation and then measures the movement of the same > by dividing the factor by 10. > > This is like saying my car gets 250 milobits to the gallon or I walked > 150 milobits today or my car cruises at 800 milobits per hour and is > utterly insane > > As a result we have idiotic companies claiming Broadband service > supplying Kilobyte ( Calling them megabit ) sluggish connections and > charging people for through the wazzo. > > Having just completed a presentation to senior government officials > who staunchly defended the point that a megabyte is the same as a > megabit ( ably assisted by Qwest / ATT consultants ) I am constantly > stunned at the amount of government officials and beuro planners > regulating this industry and hence a huge amount of the public at > large who flat out do not understand this. Hence the long term policy > based on these decisions is totally doomed to fail. > > Don't believe me, call up any two senior government bureaucrats you > know and check it out. > > We will never make the world understand what a phenomenal problem we > have in connectivity unless this issue is once and for all tackled. > > One common measurement for the storage and transmission of data period > " the BYTE " > > ( : ( : pete > > -- > > Peter Baston > > *IDEAS* > > /www.ideapete.com/ > > 3210 La Paz Lane > > Santa Fe, NM 87507 > > /Albuquerque// Office: 505-890-9649/ > > /Santa Fe// Office: 505-629-4227/ > > /Cell: 505-690-3627/ > > /Fax: 866-642-8918/ > > /_Mailto:pete at ideapete.com _/ > > > > > -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ 3210 La Paz Lane Santa Fe, NM 87507 /Albuquerque// Office: 505-890-9649/ /Santa Fe// Office: 505-629-4227/ /Cell: 505-690-3627/ /Fax: 866-642-8918/ /_Mailto:pete at ideapete.com _/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rl at radlab.com Thu Jan 17 14:41:51 2008 From: rl at radlab.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 14:41:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: [1st-mile-nm] California Broadband Initiative Message-ID: As a proponant of 'a strategic integrated broadband plan for New Mexico', I'm paying attention to other states' plans, which are to be learned from, and which I post links to on this list. Here's the latest from California. www.calink.ca.gov/taskforcereport/ The California Broadband Task Force has just completed its Final Report on current and proposed broadband access (w/ maps), opportunities and initiatives. This is one step in the California Broadband Initiative. ------------------------------------------------ Richard Lowenberg P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110, 505-603-5200 cell 1st-Mile Institute New Mexico Broadband Initiative www.1st-mile.com ------------------------------------------------ From rl at radlab.com Thu Jan 17 14:56:52 2008 From: rl at radlab.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 14:56:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: [1st-mile-nm] NM Legislature: Broadband? Message-ID: A question: Are there any broadband telecommunications projects and financial appropriations requests before the Legislature in this session? If any of you know, please post to this list, or post to me and I'll complile and re-post information. I have not been able to find much. The DoIT is requesting $6 million for a new computing applications center (at UNM) to support the Supercomputer, which will be housed at Intel facilities. What about the State Libraries, the IDEAL NM distance ed. project, tele-health, other .gov or community programs requiring broadband support? Richard ------------------------------------------------ Richard Lowenberg P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110, 505-603-5200 cell 1st-Mile Institute New Mexico Broadband Initiative www.1st-mile.com ------------------------------------------------ From pete at ideapete.com Thu Jan 17 15:37:31 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 16:37:31 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] California Broadband Initiative In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <478FE6BB.4040503@ideapete.com> Until we get real time digital maps that show speeds up and down in realistic numbers of megabytes the ones in this report look like them came with support of the cable and telco companies and slanted appropriately . The report seems very heavy on the usual gushing broadband healthcare initiatives etall but very light on real meat like applications , real need usability, competition , cost etc We should agitate that an edict should be passed that real Broadband is nothing less that 25 megabytes per second up and down and anything less than that is tinyskinnyband period. It always fascinates me when government departments publish static text and maps in pdf on a website instead of doing Google mashups to show whats really happening Then again that would show the real truth Doesn't it strike anyone as odd when that with all the digital traffic routing patterns available that someone feels the need to convert this to paper the scan the paper and publish it back on a website. Then again it could be me I cannot believe this came from the same state as Gig or bust and sadly in NM we are more attuned to K or pop ( : ( : pete Richard Lowenberg wrote: > As a proponant of 'a strategic integrated broadband plan for New Mexico', > I'm paying attention to other states' plans, which are to be learned from, > and which I post links to on this list. > > Here's the latest from California. > > www.calink.ca.gov/taskforcereport/ > > The California Broadband Task Force has just completed its Final Report on > current and proposed broadband access (w/ maps), opportunities and > initiatives. This is one step in the California Broadband Initiative. > > > > > ------------------------------------------------ > Richard Lowenberg > P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 > 505-989-9110, 505-603-5200 cell > > 1st-Mile Institute > New Mexico Broadband Initiative > www.1st-mile.com > ------------------------------------------------ > > > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > > -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ 3210 La Paz Lane Santa Fe, NM 87507 /Albuquerque// Office: 505-890-9649/ /Santa Fe// Office: 505-629-4227/ /Cell: 505-690-3627/ /Fax: 866-642-8918/ /_Mailto:pete at ideapete.com _/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Fri Jan 18 09:21:26 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 10:21:26 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Here comes the next line of Cable defense play Message-ID: <4790E016.2050704@ideapete.com> http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,141500-c,dslcablesatellite/article.html The idiot plan 1. Don't build the infrastructure needed for current and future service even though you have been paid for it with profits cashflow monopoly etc 2. When Government starts to lean on you because of complaints pretend your in compliance by moving math megabytes to megabits 3. Introduce tiered bandwidth use pricing and get paid for it all over again Telcos up next ( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ /_Mailto:pete at ideapete.com _/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Fri Jan 18 09:21:26 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 10:21:26 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Here comes the next line of Cable defense play Message-ID: <4790E016.2050704@ideapete.com> http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,141500-c,dslcablesatellite/article.html The idiot plan 1. Don't build the infrastructure needed for current and future service even though you have been paid for it with profits cashflow monopoly etc 2. When Government starts to lean on you because of complaints pretend your in compliance by moving math megabytes to megabits 3. Introduce tiered bandwidth use pricing and get paid for it all over again Telcos up next ( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ /_Mailto:pete at ideapete.com _/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Fri Jan 18 15:13:33 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 16:13:33 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fun question at the legislature Message-ID: <4791329D.3050009@ideapete.com> OK now I REST my case About 35 - 40 people from state / county / city / gov at the legislature were asked this question, in passing conversation, at the round house this week 1st question = Do you think that internet speed / broadband both to the user and from the user is critical to our states future ? Everyone answered " Yes absolutely and more gushing comment Yada yada yada " These included Senators / Legislators / Mangers at all / staff even tech staff at all levels 2nd question = Do you know the difference between a Megabyte and a Megabit ? Only one could answer positively and she was a state database admin and grinned like crazy, shaking her head, when I explained what was going on ( Most brushed it off as a unique techie term or worse waffled ) Simply -------------if they do NOT know what it is in how in the heck can they legislate it No I did not record names its just to embarrassing, but I think we should encourage the press to do something similar ( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rl at radlab.com Sat Jan 19 15:02:36 2008 From: rl at radlab.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2008 15:02:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: [1st-mile-nm] The Economist: Broadband - Open up those highways Message-ID: From the Economist: more of what we already know. rl ----- Broadband Open up those highways Jan 17th 2008 | TOKYO From The Economist print edition www.economist.com.hk/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10534573 Rapid internet services are a boon. But not all regulators understand them. In eras past, economic success depended on creating networks that could shift people, merchandise and electric power as efficiently and as widely as possible. Today's equivalent is broadband: the high-speed internet service that has become as vital a tool for producers and distributors of goods as it is for people plugging into all the social and cultural opportunities offered by the web. Easy access to cheap, fast internet services has become a facilitator of economic growth and a measure of economic performance. No wonder, then, that statistics show a surge in broadband use, especially in places that are already prosperous. The OECD, a rich-country club, says the number of subscribers in its 30 members was 221m last June-a 24% leap over a year earlier. But it is not always the most powerful economies that are most wired. In Denmark, the Netherlands and Switzerland, over 30% of inhabitants have broadband. In America, by contrast, the proportion is 22%, only slightly above the OECD average of just under 20%. In terms of speed, Japan leads the world. Its average advertised download speed is 95 megabits per second. France and Korea are ranked second and third, but are less than half as fast, and the median among OECD countries is not much more than a tenth. America's average speed is supposed to be a bit above the median, but most users find that it isn't, or that the faster speeds are vastly more expensive. A New Yorker who wants the same quality of broadband as a Parisian has to pay around $150 more per month. What accounts for the differences among rich countries? Two or three years ago demography was often cited: small, densely populated countries were easier to wire up than big, sparsely inhabited ones. But the leaders in broadband usage include Canada, where a tiny population is spread over a vast area. The best explanation, in fact, is that broadband thrives on a mix of competition and active regulation, to ensure an open contest. A lack of competition-boosting oversight is one reason for the poor record of the United States (and indeed for New Zealand, another unexpected laggard). Most Americans have a choice of only two broadband providers, either a telecoms or a cable operator. This virtual duopoly suits both sorts of provider, and neither has raced to offer its customers faster access. In some American states, prices have risen; in most other countries they have dropped. In theory, America's 1996 Telecoms Act obliged operators to rent out their lines to rivals; in practice, a regulatory decision and then a court ruling (in 2003 and 2004 respectively) have made it easy for operators to keep competitors out. The supposed aim of these decisions was to force new firms to build their own infrastructure, instead of piggybacking on facilities set up by older outfits. But new entrants have found it hard to join the fray. In any event, those American rulings may have been based on a faulty idea of how competition works in this area. As Taylor Reynolds, an OECD analyst, puts it, innovation usually comes in steps: newcomers first rent space on an existing network, to build up customers and income. Then they create new and better infrastructure, as and when they need it. In France, for example, the regulator forced France T?l?com to rent out its lines. One small start-up firm benefited from this opportunity and then installed technology that was much faster than any of its rivals'. It won so many customers that other operators had to follow suit. In Canada, too, the regulator mandated line- sharing, and provinces subsidised trunk lines from which smaller operators could lease capacity to provide service. In South Korea, where half the population lives in flats, each block owns its own internal cabling and allows rival operators to put their equipment in the basement; each tenant then chooses which to use. In Japan, politicians put pressure on the dominant operator, NTT, to connect people's homes by high-speed fibre lines. And this week the communications ministry indicated that it will make NTT open those fibre connections to rivals. As broadband grows more popular, the political mood may change in many countries. At present, consumers are often misled by the speeds that operators promise to deliver. Soon regulators can expect to face pressure to ensure truth in advertising, as well as to promote easier access. Pressure will also come to correct another problem: most operators cap the amount of traffic users may send and receive each month, and nearly all provide far less speed for sending than for receiving. In other words, broadband doesn't really offer a two- way street. This will matter more as users turn into creators of content, from videos to blogs, and ask to be treated with due respect. From granoff at zianet.com Mon Jan 21 10:12:27 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 11:12:27 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: Mutual Assured Distruction comes to Telecom Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20080121111046.0399dd80@mail.zianet.com> FYI - from another list. >VZ sues Cox Cable over VoIP patents > >http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=143627&site=cdn > > >FCC attorneys rejoice ... > > From pete at ideapete.com Mon Jan 21 11:02:04 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 12:02:04 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] New 3G Cellphone signals could kill new digital TV pictures Message-ID: <4794EC2C.9080807@ideapete.com> More problems for cellular telcos and digital TV, see the EBU reports http://voipservices.tmcnet.com/news/2008/01/11/119029.htm Dare we say fiber is the one and only way to go ( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Mon Jan 21 11:02:04 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 12:02:04 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] New 3G Cellphone signals could kill new digital TV pictures Message-ID: <4794EC2C.9080807@ideapete.com> More problems for cellular telcos and digital TV, see the EBU reports http://voipservices.tmcnet.com/news/2008/01/11/119029.htm Dare we say fiber is the one and only way to go ( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rl at radlab.com Fri Jan 25 10:15:29 2008 From: rl at radlab.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 10:15:29 -0800 (PST) Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Qwest Moving 90 Jobs Out of Albuquerque Message-ID: (Forwarded from subscriber, Carroll Cagle.) Qwest Moving 90 Jobs Out of Albuquerque Albuquerque Journal Thursday, January 24, 2008 Qwest Communications announced Wednesday it will eliminate 90 New Mexico jobs by closing its Albuquerque operator and information service headquarters April 18. Qwest spokesman Gary Younger said the 90 people working at the headquarters will be given the opportunity to follow those jobs to Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota or Utah. In addition, the workers will be given the chance to transfer to any open Qwest job in New Mexico for which they are qualified. They will be given preferential treatment among applicants for those jobs, Younger added. The reason for the closing is that Qwest is consolidating its operator and information services into fewer, larger offices, he said. Service to telephone customers should be not be affected, he said. Qwest serves 14 mostly western territories and is New Mexico's largest land line phone provider. ------------------------------------------------ Richard Lowenberg P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110, 505-603-5200 cell 1st-Mile Institute New Mexico Broadband Initiative www.1st-mile.com ------------------------------------------------ From rl at radlab.com Tue Jan 29 16:31:13 2008 From: rl at radlab.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2008 16:31:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: [1st-mile-nm] USDA Rural Development Grants Announced Message-ID: Of interest to rural and native communities in NM (and surrounds): The USDA Rural Development Program has just announced 2008 Grants (and Loans). www.usda.gov/rus/telecom/commconnect.htm Rural Development Community Connect Grant Program Applications Due: March 28 The Community Connect program serves rural communities where broadband service is least likely to be available, but where it can make a tremendous difference in the quality of life for citizens. The projects funded by these grants will help rural residents tap into the enormous potential of the Internet. ------ www.usda.gov/rus/telecom/dlt/dlt.htm Distance Learning and Telemedicine Program Applications Due: April 12 Eligible purposes are primarily user equipment that functions via telecommunications systems for the purposes of connecting students and teachers or medical professionals and patients at separate sites. Examples are video-conferencing or teleradiology equipment. The Grant Program funds equipment that operates over telecommunications systems, but does not fund the telecommunications links themselves. In additions, it funds such things as the acquisition of instructional programming and technical assistance and instruction for using eligible equipment. ------------------------------------------------ Richard Lowenberg P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110, 505-603-5200 cell 1st-Mile Institute New Mexico Broadband Initiative www.1st-mile.com ------------------------------------------------ From rl at radlab.com Wed Jan 30 09:47:20 2008 From: rl at radlab.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2008 09:47:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Internet Exaflood Message-ID: This is the latest in a series of reports on the rapid increase in network traffic (in the US). It provokes concern and calls to action for investments, deployments and policies to address this critical aspect of our economies and local-global society development. rl ----- STUDY: U.S. NET TRAFFIC TO GROW 50-FOLD BY 2015 Estimating the Exaflood: The Impact of Video and Rich Media on the Internet http://www.discovery.org/a/4428 New technologies are dramatically transforming the Internet and could boost IP traffic in the United States more than 50-fold within the next decade, according to Estimating the Exaflood: The Impact of Video and Rich Media on the Internet, a report released by the Discovery Institute. The 24-page report, co-authored by Bret Swanson and George Gilder, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, describes the technologies and trends that will drive Internet growth. It projects IP traffic levels overall and by application. By 2015, video calling and virtual windows, for example, could total 400 exabytes a year, or about 40 percent of U.S. traffic. The report estimates that by 2015 annual U.S. Internet and IP traffic will reach 1,000 exabytes, or one zettabyte, which is one million million billion bytes of data. A zettabyte is roughly equivalent to 50 million Libraries of Congress. According to the report, capacity in broadband access networks to homes and businesses must expand by a factor of between 10 and 100 over the next few years. New network investments expanding bandwidth, storage, and traffic management capabilities in the U.S. could total more than $100 billion in the next half-decade alone. Technology remains the key engine of U.S. economic growth and its competitive edge, the authors contend. Policies that encourage investment and innovation in our digital and communications sectors should be among Americas highest national priorities, they believe. ------------------------------------------------ Richard Lowenberg P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110, 505-603-5200 cell 1st-Mile Institute New Mexico Broadband Initiative www.1st-mile.com ------------------------------------------------ From rl at radlab.com Wed Jan 30 10:13:44 2008 From: rl at radlab.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2008 10:13:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Educause: A Blueprint for Big Broadband Message-ID: The call for 'big broadband' for all, is getting louder. Will New Mexico take a leadership role, or continue to be on the wrong side of the 'digital divide'? rl ----- www.educause.edu/content.asp?page_id=1176&ID=1544&bhcp=1 EDUCAUSE Proposes New Approach to Broadband Development EDUCAUSE, the association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology, today proposed bringing the federal government, state governments, and the private sector together as part of a new approach to making high-speed Internet services available across the country. The group, whose membership includes information technology officials from more than 2,200 colleges, universities, and other educational organizations, said that a new "universal broadband fund" would be necessary so that "Big Broadband" - services of 100 mbps - could be made widely available. Because of the high costs of making certain that advanced services can be widely deployed, EDUCAUSE suggested that the approximately $100 billion cost for deploying broadband be shared. For example, the Federal government, state governments, and private industry could each contribute one-third of the cost. That way, for example, the Federal government would be responsible for $8 billion per year for four years. The money would be distributed through a new Universal Broadband Fund, which would be administered separately from existing Federal telephone-support mechanisms. The new fund would be part of EDUCAUSE's eight-point Blueprint for Big Broadband Connectivity. The other elements are: (1) leadership, vision, and goals providing overall policy direction; (2) new organizations to make certain the program runs properly; (3) tax incentives for investment; (4) an open and nondiscriminatory network that network operators can't impede or degrade lawful services or applications; (5) state and local government construction of their own networks; (6) enhanced consumer education about broadband services; and (7) increased resources for broadband research. EDUCAUSE Vice President Mark Luker said the report is a positive contribution to current debates over broadband funding. "By bringing together the federal government, state governments, and the private sector, EDUCAUSE is proposing a solution to take the burden from any one part of the economy while making certain that benefits of a new advanced network will be available to all." The entire report, "A Blueprint for Big Broadband," is available online at http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/EPO0801.pdf. The report also contains a detailed analysis of broadband deployment in the United States and in key countries around the world. ------------------------------------------------ Richard Lowenberg P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110, 505-603-5200 cell 1st-Mile Institute New Mexico Broadband Initiative www.1st-mile.com ------------------------------------------------ From editorsteve at gmail.com Wed Jan 30 10:25:57 2008 From: editorsteve at gmail.com (Steve Ross) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2008 13:25:57 -0500 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Internet Exaflood In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47A0C135.1000904@gmail.com> We've actually run those numbers -- Bret spoke at the FTTH Council meeting in October, and we reported on it in our December issue. But we actually think they are too low. The historic growth of traffic into and out of metro rings would be closer to 500-fold in seven years, 1000-fold in 10 years -- as their own "backbone" data suggests. What's more, the technologies that would create that demand are already obvious -- 4K HD video, 3D HD video, huge surge in peer to peer networking, and Metcalf's Law. Hell, my 88-year-old mother uses more bandwidth than I do (Netflix downloads, 2-way video with her great-grandchild). And her demographic isn't even being explored. Steven S. Ross Editor-in-Chief Broadband Properties steve at broadbandproperties.com www.bbpmag.com SKYPE: editorsteve +1 781-284-8810 +1 646-216-8030 fax +1 201-456-5933 mobile Richard Lowenberg wrote: > This is the latest in a series of reports on the rapid increase in network > traffic (in the US). It provokes concern and calls to action for > investments, deployments and policies to address this critical aspect of > our economies and local-global society development. > rl > ----- > > STUDY: U.S. NET TRAFFIC TO GROW 50-FOLD BY 2015 > > Estimating the Exaflood: The Impact of Video and Rich Media on the > Internet > > http://www.discovery.org/a/4428 > > New technologies are dramatically transforming the Internet and could > boost IP traffic in the United States more than 50-fold within the next > decade, according to Estimating the Exaflood: The Impact of Video and Rich > Media on the Internet, a report released by the Discovery Institute. The > 24-page report, co-authored by Bret Swanson and George Gilder, a senior > fellow at the Discovery Institute, describes the technologies and trends > that will drive Internet growth. It projects IP traffic levels overall and > by application. By 2015, video calling and virtual windows, for example, > could total 400 exabytes a year, or about 40 percent of U.S. traffic. The > report estimates that by 2015 annual U.S. Internet and IP traffic will > reach 1,000 exabytes, or one zettabyte, which is one million million > billion bytes of data. A zettabyte is roughly equivalent to 50 million > Libraries of Congress. According to the report, capacity in broadband > access networks to homes and businesses must expand by a factor of between > 10 and 100 over the next few years. New network investments expanding > bandwidth, storage, and traffic management capabilities in the U.S. could > total more than $100 billion in the next half-decade alone. Technology > remains the key engine of U.S. economic growth and its competitive edge, > the authors contend. Policies that encourage investment and innovation in > our digital and communications sectors should be among Americas highest > national priorities, they believe. > > > ------------------------------------------------ > Richard Lowenberg > P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 > 505-989-9110, 505-603-5200 cell > > 1st-Mile Institute > New Mexico Broadband Initiative > www.1st-mile.com > ------------------------------------------------ > > > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > From rl at radlab.com Wed Jan 30 21:55:52 2008 From: rl at radlab.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2008 21:55:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: [1st-mile-nm] President's 'Broadband for All' Mission Accomplished Message-ID: I wasn't going to post this, as it is not April 1st, but... rl ------- BUSH ADMINISTRATION: US BROADBAND GOAL NEARLY REACHED [SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: John Dunbar] The National Telecommunications and Information Administration, an agency within the Commerce Department that acts as the president's principal adviser on telecommunications and information policy issues, has released a report, Networked Nation: Broadband in America, that offers an upbeat assessment of the Administration's efforts to spur growth and competition in the high-speed Internet market. Critics said the report's conclusion is too rosy. The report concludes that "a reasonable assessment of the available data indicates" that the objective of affordable access to broadband for all by 2007 has been realized "to a very great degree." The report relies on data from the Federal Communications Commission and other sources. The FCC reported that at least one person in more than 99 percent of all U.S. ZIP codes received broadband service from at least one provider by the end of 2006. The report paints a picture of a broadband environment that is becoming increasingly competitive, for which it credits the president's policies. President Bush has promoted polices that created "an environment in which broadband innovation and competition can flourish," the report states. Among them: a freeze on state and local taxes on Internet access; a policy of clearing airwaves for use by commercial providers of wireless broadband service; and continuing efforts to "clear away regulatory obstacles" that might thwart investment in new technologies. ------------------------------------------------ Richard Lowenberg P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110, 505-603-5200 cell 1st-Mile Institute New Mexico Broadband Initiative www.1st-mile.com ------------------------------------------------ From rl at radlab.com Sun Feb 3 11:41:34 2008 From: rl at radlab.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 11:41:34 -0800 (PST) Subject: [1st-mile-nm] NM Telecom Business News Items Message-ID: Here are two exerpted news briefs on Eastern NM telecom. upgrades and services expansions. rl ------- www.occamnetworks.com/news_and_press/press_releases/pr209.cfm Occam Networks' 6000 BLC Powers Service Upgrade for ENMR-Plateau Telecommunications. New Mexico project will implement SIP VoIP and improved broadband DSL offerings. Santa Barbara, CA (January 31, 2008) - Occam Networks Inc., a leading supplier of innovative Ethernet and IP-based loop carrier equipment to telecommunications companies, has announced that ENMR-Plateau Telecommunications, the largest telephone cooperative in New Mexico, has purchased Occam's Broadband Loop Carrier (BLC) 6000 system as the centerpiece of its voice and DSL services upgrade project at all 25 ENMRoPlateau exchanges over the next 3 years. ENMR-Plateau manages 13,000 lines across 25,000 square miles of New Mexico's eastern high plains. The upgrade features the deployment of more than 200 Occam blades to replace the system's existing local loop and DSLAM solutions with both POTS-only and POTS/ADLS2+ combination blades. ENMR-Plateau has also purchased Occam's new GPON offering to supplement copper services in one of the Cooperative's exchanges. The telco will implement the SIP-enabled VoIP served by a Metaswitch softswitch and high-speed DSL to its members. ENMR-Plateau Telecommunications, the largest telephone cooperative in New Mexico, was formed more than five decades ago by area farmers, ranchers and other citizens to provide telephone services to the rural citizens residing on the high plains of Eastern New Mexico. Today, ENMR-Plateau customers enjoy a variety of modern telecommunications technologies including mobile phones, long distance service, business solutions, dial-up Internet, and high-speed Internet. ----- http://investor.erfwireless.com/ReleaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=289387 ERF Wireless Expands Broadband Footprint in Texas and New Mexico by Acquiring Crosswind Enterprises. LEAGUE CITY, Texas, Jan 24, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- ERF Wireless, a leading provider of enterprise-class wireless and broadband products and services, announced today that the company has completed the acquisition of the assets and operations of Crosswind Enterprises, Inc. The transaction, which closed on January 11, 2008, is the twelfth such acquisition by ERF Wireless of a Texas-based wireless Internet service provider (WISP). The acquisition includes all of the current customers and network infrastructure equipment of Crosswind, including approximately 16 tower locations strategically located in West Texas and extending into eastern New Mexico, and is adjacent to the existing ERF Wireless West Texas network which includes 59 tower locations operated out of Lubbock, Texas. The company also noted that, with the Crosswind acquisition, critical mass has been attained for the rollout of US-BankNet(TM) in West Texas and New Mexico by its Enterprise Network Services subsidiary. ERF Wireless Inc. is a fully reporting public corporation that specializes in providing secure wireless and broadband product and secure service solutions to banking and commercial clients on a national and international basis. Its principals have been in the network integration, triple-play FTTH, IPTV content delivery, and Internet banking and encryption technology businesses for more than 20 years and have constructed encrypted, wireless broadband networks, fiber-to-the-home projects, as well as secure Internet banking solutions for hundreds of banks across America. For more information about ERF Wireless, please visit www.erfwireless.com ------------------------------------------------ Richard Lowenberg P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110, 505-603-5200 cell 1st-Mile Institute New Mexico Broadband Initiative www.1st-mile.com ------------------------------------------------ From pete at ideapete.com Sun Feb 3 17:13:48 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 18:13:48 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Good letter to the journal by TJ Message-ID: <47A666CC.80905@ideapete.com> /Sunday, February 3, 2008 Letters to the Editor Albuquerque Journal , Santa Fe / North / / State Still Lacks In Connectivity Re: the Journal's Jan. 28 story, "New Mexico's New Supercomputer Unveiled": This is, indeed, a positive step for the state, and we are grateful to the team and legislators who took the initiative to make this public investment for New Mexico. That said, simply having the supercomputer is only half a loaf. New Mexico woefully lacks a fully articulated and financed policy to bring digital connectivity to every New Mexican. Until a rancher in Jal, a boutique-food farmer in Dixon or a weaver on Navajo lands is on the same digital highway as Los Alamos National Laboratory, we will continue to fall behind nations such as Korea in terms of innovation, creativity and economic growth. That connectivity should permit the up-and-down exchange of digital data at 1 gigabyte per second over open-access fiber optics, not the phony definition of "broadband" as set by the FCC or commercial interests. We should seek The Three 100s: 100 percent of the people have access to it; 100 percent have the digital data, tools and communications they need; and 100 percent of the time. Tom Johnson Santa Fe/ Tom the only thing I will add to your three 100s is one more 100 megabytes up and down. Several years ago I asked Bill Richardson where is the states blueprint for bandwidth and connectivity for the next 5 / 20 years and how the lack of one would cripple our economy and he referred me to one of his team who immediately wanted to know how we would get broadband connectivity directly to homeless people and he stuck there, go figure and when I mentioned libraries / schools he called me elitist. No short term or long term plan, nada and I bet its not improved to date. Guess they all have pensions, bonuses and payola from Qwest and Comcast. ( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Sun Feb 3 17:13:48 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 18:13:48 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Good letter to the journal by TJ Message-ID: <47A666CC.80905@ideapete.com> /Sunday, February 3, 2008 Letters to the Editor Albuquerque Journal , Santa Fe / North / / State Still Lacks In Connectivity Re: the Journal's Jan. 28 story, "New Mexico's New Supercomputer Unveiled": This is, indeed, a positive step for the state, and we are grateful to the team and legislators who took the initiative to make this public investment for New Mexico. That said, simply having the supercomputer is only half a loaf. New Mexico woefully lacks a fully articulated and financed policy to bring digital connectivity to every New Mexican. Until a rancher in Jal, a boutique-food farmer in Dixon or a weaver on Navajo lands is on the same digital highway as Los Alamos National Laboratory, we will continue to fall behind nations such as Korea in terms of innovation, creativity and economic growth. That connectivity should permit the up-and-down exchange of digital data at 1 gigabyte per second over open-access fiber optics, not the phony definition of "broadband" as set by the FCC or commercial interests. We should seek The Three 100s: 100 percent of the people have access to it; 100 percent have the digital data, tools and communications they need; and 100 percent of the time. Tom Johnson Santa Fe/ Tom the only thing I will add to your three 100s is one more 100 megabytes up and down. Several years ago I asked Bill Richardson where is the states blueprint for bandwidth and connectivity for the next 5 / 20 years and how the lack of one would cripple our economy and he referred me to one of his team who immediately wanted to know how we would get broadband connectivity directly to homeless people and he stuck there, go figure and when I mentioned libraries / schools he called me elitist. No short term or long term plan, nada and I bet its not improved to date. Guess they all have pensions, bonuses and payola from Qwest and Comcast. ( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rl at radlab.com Fri Feb 8 09:26:30 2008 From: rl at radlab.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2008 09:26:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Sandoval County Broadband Project Message-ID: Forwarded message from subscriber Carroll Cagle: ---- Sandoval Revives Broadband Project Albuquerque Journal – West Side edition Friday, February 8, 2008 By Rosalie Rayburn Journal Staff Writer Sandoval County Commission has breathed new life into its problem-plagued countywide broadband project. Commissioners on Thursday unanimously approved a six-month contract with San Diego, Calif.-based Netlogix to provide project management services to establish a backbone Internet link from the Sandoval County Judicial Complex at Idalia and N.M. 528 to Cuba. The county will pay Netlogix $24,000 per month but reserves the right to suspend payments up to two times in the event of an unforeseeable delay, such as a delay in obtaining rights of way or other permits. The total project is estimated to cost $144,000. The money will come from part of the $85 million incentive the county received for backing a $16 billion Intel revenue bond. Netlogix will oversee management of the project. CH2MHill, an international technology company, will be responsible for equipment installation, under a separate contract, said Mike Good, Sandoval County's IT director. County Manager Debbie Hays told the Journal she expects the CH2MHill contract to be approved in about two weeks. Once the backbone project is completed, the next phase will be to build a network to distribute services to customers, Good told the Journal in an interview before the meeting. County staff have spent about two months scrutinizing the terms of the contract with the help of an oversight committee composed of technology experts. Committee member Moira Gerety, director of Computing Services at the University of New Mexico, told the commissioners the time spent on scrutiny will ensure there will be a complete record of the work and invoices associated with the project. "We want to do it right," Gerety said. The Sandoval Broadband project originally began more than three years ago. It was supposed to provide cheap high-speed wireless Internet service to benefit schools, health care services and service providers throughout the county. The county spent about $1.2 million but found the system didn't work. A year ago, the state auditor launched an investigation into the project. The county is suing the company and individuals it initially hired for the project. In May, the county approved a $20,000 contract with Netlogix to conduct a survey to see what would be needed to create a working broadband system. Netlogix, a national wireless consulting firm, has previously estimated it would take about $950,000 to buy and install wireless equipment to complete the network. From pete at ideapete.com Fri Feb 8 20:32:11 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 21:32:11 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Sandoval County Broadband Project In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47AD2CCB.5020205@ideapete.com> This is turning into a wonderful project Lets see, the target audience in Cuba and along 528 ( who's total population is around 600 but only about 150 will get the signal which will be wifi strength and less ) the county threw in $1.5m they will throw in anther $1m more just for the signal ( Ill bet this figure will go up ) , no one talks about the $1m the state put into the pot making $3.5m that equates to spending $22,000 per user for a signal with no applications attached, no email, no security, nada, no network design , no application design, no usability exercise, no service cost comparison, no voip. It certainly is cheap high speed snail speed connectivity and really gives a new definition to the word cheap government wise that is. Netlogix should make a killing on this one Richard Lowenberg wrote: > Forwarded message from subscriber Carroll Cagle: > ---- > > Sandoval Revives Broadband Project > > Albuquerque Journal – West Side edition > Friday, February 8, 2008 > By Rosalie Rayburn > Journal Staff Writer > > Sandoval County Commission has breathed new life into its > problem-plagued countywide broadband project. > Commissioners on Thursday unanimously approved a six-month contract > with San Diego, Calif.-based Netlogix to provide project management > services to establish a backbone Internet link from the Sandoval County > Judicial Complex at Idalia and N.M. 528 to Cuba. > The county will pay Netlogix $24,000 per month but reserves the right > to suspend payments up to two times in the event of an unforeseeable > delay, such as a delay in obtaining rights of way or other permits. > The total project is estimated to cost $144,000. The money will come > from part of the $85 million incentive the county received for backing a > $16 billion Intel revenue bond. > Netlogix will oversee management of the project. CH2MHill, an > international technology company, will be responsible for equipment > installation, under a separate contract, said Mike Good, Sandoval County's > IT director. > County Manager Debbie Hays told the Journal she expects the CH2MHill > contract to be approved in about two weeks. > Once the backbone project is completed, the next phase will be to > build a network to distribute services to customers, Good told the Journal > in an interview before the meeting. > County staff have spent about two months scrutinizing the terms of the > contract with the help of an oversight committee composed of technology > experts. > Committee member Moira Gerety, director of Computing Services at the > University of New Mexico, told the commissioners the time spent on > scrutiny will ensure there will be a complete record of the work and > invoices associated with the project. > "We want to do it right," Gerety said. > The Sandoval Broadband project originally began more than three years > ago. > It was supposed to provide cheap high-speed wireless Internet service > to benefit schools, health care services and service providers throughout > the county. > The county spent about $1.2 million but found the system didn't work. > A year ago, the state auditor launched an investigation into the > project. > The county is suing the company and individuals it initially hired for > the project. > In May, the county approved a $20,000 contract with Netlogix to > conduct a survey to see what would be needed to create a working broadband > system. > Netlogix, a national wireless consulting firm, has previously > estimated it would take about $950,000 to buy and install wireless > equipment to complete the network. > > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Fri Feb 8 20:32:11 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 21:32:11 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Sandoval County Broadband Project In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47AD2CCB.5020205@ideapete.com> This is turning into a wonderful project Lets see, the target audience in Cuba and along 528 ( who's total population is around 600 but only about 150 will get the signal which will be wifi strength and less ) the county threw in $1.5m they will throw in anther $1m more just for the signal ( Ill bet this figure will go up ) , no one talks about the $1m the state put into the pot making $3.5m that equates to spending $22,000 per user for a signal with no applications attached, no email, no security, nada, no network design , no application design, no usability exercise, no service cost comparison, no voip. It certainly is cheap high speed snail speed connectivity and really gives a new definition to the word cheap government wise that is. Netlogix should make a killing on this one Richard Lowenberg wrote: > Forwarded message from subscriber Carroll Cagle: > ---- > > Sandoval Revives Broadband Project > > Albuquerque Journal – West Side edition > Friday, February 8, 2008 > By Rosalie Rayburn > Journal Staff Writer > > Sandoval County Commission has breathed new life into its > problem-plagued countywide broadband project. > Commissioners on Thursday unanimously approved a six-month contract > with San Diego, Calif.-based Netlogix to provide project management > services to establish a backbone Internet link from the Sandoval County > Judicial Complex at Idalia and N.M. 528 to Cuba. > The county will pay Netlogix $24,000 per month but reserves the right > to suspend payments up to two times in the event of an unforeseeable > delay, such as a delay in obtaining rights of way or other permits. > The total project is estimated to cost $144,000. The money will come > from part of the $85 million incentive the county received for backing a > $16 billion Intel revenue bond. > Netlogix will oversee management of the project. CH2MHill, an > international technology company, will be responsible for equipment > installation, under a separate contract, said Mike Good, Sandoval County's > IT director. > County Manager Debbie Hays told the Journal she expects the CH2MHill > contract to be approved in about two weeks. > Once the backbone project is completed, the next phase will be to > build a network to distribute services to customers, Good told the Journal > in an interview before the meeting. > County staff have spent about two months scrutinizing the terms of the > contract with the help of an oversight committee composed of technology > experts. > Committee member Moira Gerety, director of Computing Services at the > University of New Mexico, told the commissioners the time spent on > scrutiny will ensure there will be a complete record of the work and > invoices associated with the project. > "We want to do it right," Gerety said. > The Sandoval Broadband project originally began more than three years > ago. > It was supposed to provide cheap high-speed wireless Internet service > to benefit schools, health care services and service providers throughout > the county. > The county spent about $1.2 million but found the system didn't work. > A year ago, the state auditor launched an investigation into the > project. > The county is suing the company and individuals it initially hired for > the project. > In May, the county approved a $20,000 contract with Netlogix to > conduct a survey to see what would be needed to create a working broadband > system. > Netlogix, a national wireless consulting firm, has previously > estimated it would take about $950,000 to buy and install wireless > equipment to complete the network. > > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Fri Feb 8 21:12:37 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 22:12:37 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Sandoval County Broadband Project In-Reply-To: References: , <47AD2CCB.5020205@ideapete.com> Message-ID: <47AD3645.9090305@ideapete.com> Great point Art being as Lamdarail is huge high speed multi gigabit Internet 2 Fiber which terminates at UNM via 505 Marquet with a million dollar gigapop I went to UNM CIRT who controls Lamdarail and talked to William L Atkins CIO CIRT/UNM / Moira Gerety Director CIRT/UNM / Gary Bauerschmidt Associate Director/ CIRT/UNM, Project Head Lambdarail UNM/CIRT. They all denied point blank there was any possibility of this Sandoval system connecting to Lmdr ( Unless you count AOL eventually talks through a backbone pipe and I am eventually related to Yogi Bear and the Queen of England through 50 iterations) and thought it hilarious that any fool could conceive you could just connect Kilobit 802.11 to multi gigabit fiber. ( yes I have all this in writing ) The true story is that Terry Yates now sadly deceased was offered a $250K donation to UNM by the Sandoval team ( who also floated bogus invoices for non existent services to UNM ) to put out a bogus press release mentioning how Sandoval would benefit from high speed connectivity and slip in the words Internet 2 and Lambdarail ( Knowing it would never happen ). This was to set up the state of NM about this wonderful idea and dully enough Governor Bill cut them another $1m dollar check on the strength of a phone call and a blurb piece in the Journal. As Moira is now feeding from the same trough in Sandoval she should be put on the spot with this hypocrisy, then again the bogus physics that occur in Sandoval is beyond belief. I think the word Broadband in this case describes some of the la femmes involved and I have had several emails listing the true word as Broadbandits ( : ( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ Art St. George wrote: > One of the major reasons given for the network was that it provided > access to National LambdaRail. How can this possible occur if the > signal is WiFi, which itself does not even qualify to be called broadband? > > Art > > > Dr. Art St. George > Chief Technology Officer > 4417 Corrales Road > Corrales, NM 87048 > (505)899-6550 -- Office > (505)918-4011 -- Mobile > www.cerelink.com > Offices in > Corrales, NM Como, Italy Shanghai, China (2008) > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > *From:* 1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org > [1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org] On Behalf Of peter > [pete at ideapete.com] > *Sent:* Friday, February 08, 2008 9:32 PM > *Cc:* 1st-Mile-NM; 1st-mile-nm at crank.dcn.davis.ca.us > *Subject:* Re: [1st-mile-nm] Sandoval County Broadband Project > > This is turning into a wonderful project > > Lets see, the target audience in Cuba and along 528 ( who's total > population is around 600 but only about 150 will get the signal which > will be wifi strength and less ) the county threw in $1.5m they will > throw in anther $1m more just for the signal ( Ill bet this figure > will go up ) , no one talks about the $1m the state put into the pot > making $3.5m that equates to spending $22,000 per user for a signal > with no applications attached, no email, no security, nada, no network > design , no application design, no usability exercise, no service cost > comparison, no voip. It certainly is cheap high speed snail speed > connectivity and really gives a new definition to the word cheap > government wise that is. Netlogix should make a killing on this one > > > > > > Richard Lowenberg wrote: >> Forwarded message from subscriber Carroll Cagle: >> ---- >> >> Sandoval Revives Broadband Project >> >> Albuquerque Journal – West Side edition >> Friday, February 8, 2008 >> By Rosalie Rayburn >> Journal Staff Writer >> >> Sandoval County Commission has breathed new life into its >> problem-plagued countywide broadband project. >> Commissioners on Thursday unanimously approved a six-month contract >> with San Diego, Calif.-based Netlogix to provide project management >> services to establish a backbone Internet link from the Sandoval County >> Judicial Complex at Idalia and N.M. 528 to Cuba. >> The county will pay Netlogix $24,000 per month but reserves the right >> to suspend payments up to two times in the event of an unforeseeable >> delay, such as a delay in obtaining rights of way or other permits. >> The total project is estimated to cost $144,000. The money will come >> from part of the $85 million incentive the county received for backing a >> $16 billion Intel revenue bond. >> Netlogix will oversee management of the project. CH2MHill, an >> international technology company, will be responsible for equipment >> installation, under a separate contract, said Mike Good, Sandoval County's >> IT director. >> County Manager Debbie Hays told the Journal she expects the CH2MHill >> contract to be approved in about two weeks. >> Once the backbone project is completed, the next phase will be to >> build a network to distribute services to customers, Good told the Journal >> in an interview before the meeting. >> County staff have spent about two months scrutinizing the terms of the >> contract with the help of an oversight committee composed of technology >> experts. >> Committee member Moira Gerety, director of Computing Services at the >> University of New Mexico, told the commissioners the time spent on >> scrutiny will ensure there will be a complete record of the work and >> invoices associated with the project. >> "We want to do it right," Gerety said. >> The Sandoval Broadband project originally began more than three years >> ago. >> It was supposed to provide cheap high-speed wireless Internet service >> to benefit schools, health care services and service providers throughout >> the county. >> The county spent about $1.2 million but found the system didn't work. >> A year ago, the state auditor launched an investigation into the >> project. >> The county is suing the company and individuals it initially hired for >> the project. >> In May, the county approved a $20,000 contract with Netlogix to >> conduct a survey to see what would be needed to create a working broadband >> system. >> Netlogix, a national wireless consulting firm, has previously >> estimated it would take about $950,000 to buy and install wireless >> equipment to complete the network. >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 1st-mile-nm mailing list >> 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm >> >> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Fri Feb 8 21:12:37 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 22:12:37 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Sandoval County Broadband Project In-Reply-To: References: , <47AD2CCB.5020205@ideapete.com> Message-ID: <47AD3645.9090305@ideapete.com> Great point Art being as Lamdarail is huge high speed multi gigabit Internet 2 Fiber which terminates at UNM via 505 Marquet with a million dollar gigapop I went to UNM CIRT who controls Lamdarail and talked to William L Atkins CIO CIRT/UNM / Moira Gerety Director CIRT/UNM / Gary Bauerschmidt Associate Director/ CIRT/UNM, Project Head Lambdarail UNM/CIRT. They all denied point blank there was any possibility of this Sandoval system connecting to Lmdr ( Unless you count AOL eventually talks through a backbone pipe and I am eventually related to Yogi Bear and the Queen of England through 50 iterations) and thought it hilarious that any fool could conceive you could just connect Kilobit 802.11 to multi gigabit fiber. ( yes I have all this in writing ) The true story is that Terry Yates now sadly deceased was offered a $250K donation to UNM by the Sandoval team ( who also floated bogus invoices for non existent services to UNM ) to put out a bogus press release mentioning how Sandoval would benefit from high speed connectivity and slip in the words Internet 2 and Lambdarail ( Knowing it would never happen ). This was to set up the state of NM about this wonderful idea and dully enough Governor Bill cut them another $1m dollar check on the strength of a phone call and a blurb piece in the Journal. As Moira is now feeding from the same trough in Sandoval she should be put on the spot with this hypocrisy, then again the bogus physics that occur in Sandoval is beyond belief. I think the word Broadband in this case describes some of the la femmes involved and I have had several emails listing the true word as Broadbandits ( : ( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ Art St. George wrote: > One of the major reasons given for the network was that it provided > access to National LambdaRail. How can this possible occur if the > signal is WiFi, which itself does not even qualify to be called broadband? > > Art > > > Dr. Art St. George > Chief Technology Officer > 4417 Corrales Road > Corrales, NM 87048 > (505)899-6550 -- Office > (505)918-4011 -- Mobile > www.cerelink.com > Offices in > Corrales, NM Como, Italy Shanghai, China (2008) > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > *From:* 1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org > [1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org] On Behalf Of peter > [pete at ideapete.com] > *Sent:* Friday, February 08, 2008 9:32 PM > *Cc:* 1st-Mile-NM; 1st-mile-nm at crank.dcn.davis.ca.us > *Subject:* Re: [1st-mile-nm] Sandoval County Broadband Project > > This is turning into a wonderful project > > Lets see, the target audience in Cuba and along 528 ( who's total > population is around 600 but only about 150 will get the signal which > will be wifi strength and less ) the county threw in $1.5m they will > throw in anther $1m more just for the signal ( Ill bet this figure > will go up ) , no one talks about the $1m the state put into the pot > making $3.5m that equates to spending $22,000 per user for a signal > with no applications attached, no email, no security, nada, no network > design , no application design, no usability exercise, no service cost > comparison, no voip. It certainly is cheap high speed snail speed > connectivity and really gives a new definition to the word cheap > government wise that is. Netlogix should make a killing on this one > > > > > > Richard Lowenberg wrote: >> Forwarded message from subscriber Carroll Cagle: >> ---- >> >> Sandoval Revives Broadband Project >> >> Albuquerque Journal – West Side edition >> Friday, February 8, 2008 >> By Rosalie Rayburn >> Journal Staff Writer >> >> Sandoval County Commission has breathed new life into its >> problem-plagued countywide broadband project. >> Commissioners on Thursday unanimously approved a six-month contract >> with San Diego, Calif.-based Netlogix to provide project management >> services to establish a backbone Internet link from the Sandoval County >> Judicial Complex at Idalia and N.M. 528 to Cuba. >> The county will pay Netlogix $24,000 per month but reserves the right >> to suspend payments up to two times in the event of an unforeseeable >> delay, such as a delay in obtaining rights of way or other permits. >> The total project is estimated to cost $144,000. The money will come >> from part of the $85 million incentive the county received for backing a >> $16 billion Intel revenue bond. >> Netlogix will oversee management of the project. CH2MHill, an >> international technology company, will be responsible for equipment >> installation, under a separate contract, said Mike Good, Sandoval County's >> IT director. >> County Manager Debbie Hays told the Journal she expects the CH2MHill >> contract to be approved in about two weeks. >> Once the backbone project is completed, the next phase will be to >> build a network to distribute services to customers, Good told the Journal >> in an interview before the meeting. >> County staff have spent about two months scrutinizing the terms of the >> contract with the help of an oversight committee composed of technology >> experts. >> Committee member Moira Gerety, director of Computing Services at the >> University of New Mexico, told the commissioners the time spent on >> scrutiny will ensure there will be a complete record of the work and >> invoices associated with the project. >> "We want to do it right," Gerety said. >> The Sandoval Broadband project originally began more than three years >> ago. >> It was supposed to provide cheap high-speed wireless Internet service >> to benefit schools, health care services and service providers throughout >> the county. >> The county spent about $1.2 million but found the system didn't work. >> A year ago, the state auditor launched an investigation into the >> project. >> The county is suing the company and individuals it initially hired for >> the project. >> In May, the county approved a $20,000 contract with Netlogix to >> conduct a survey to see what would be needed to create a working broadband >> system. >> Netlogix, a national wireless consulting firm, has previously >> estimated it would take about $950,000 to buy and install wireless >> equipment to complete the network. >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 1st-mile-nm mailing list >> 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm >> >> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Sat Feb 9 11:37:12 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Sat, 09 Feb 2008 12:37:12 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Mea Culpa and Comment Message-ID: <47AE00E8.9070708@ideapete.com> First, a mea culpa: last night I mixed up some off-line with on-line comment. I think it's important to realize that to succeed this list needs to focus on positive direction, engaging a full spectrum of people including, but not limited to, technical and non-political and even non-normal and non-other things. Our common focus is, and always should be, "Improving the quality of life with technology" by promoting REAL connectivity for the first mile. Many thanks to all who contacted me off-line and I truly did not realize what a hot button many of these issues are for many of you. Thanks for the praise, but in this case I will decline credit. The postings did however raise an interesting point: We are dealing with highly intelligent networks and the systems connected to them, but it seems that simple issues like "How will this improve people's economic level and quality of life" are not visible, and the most widely read sources of information that we have locally are the New Mexican and the Journal, with their "if it bleeds, it leads" approach, which is scary. It is also apparent that the plans, designs and even operational systems infrastructure is incapable of answering these simple questions or even transparently showing them for open comment and true evaluation for logic or purpose. Its readily apparent that, even at our level, there is no clear source of reliable information as to status and objectives of some large initiatives that will affect the quality of life of New Mexicans for years to come. The coincidence that a large number of these projects seem to fail and are poorly planned, and that most are contracted with out-of-state vendors who are paid a lot of money to fail when we have such hugely talented in-state companies is also worth looking at. Here is my challenge to the political and governing bodies of Lamdarail, Sandoval Broadband, The Rio Rancho Intel Supercomputer and other state and government funded technology initiatives (of which I know many members are on this list): Show us clearly within 30 - 60 days -- by means of current, active web mash up technologies that display graphical easily-understandable dynamic models: 1. Exactly how was your project designed and funded? 2. Who did the economic feasibility analysis and when and where was it done? 3. What are its short- and long-term goals in terms of economic well being and improvement? 4. How did you calculate the economic benefits and how will they be monitored and evaluated? Last point: No massive position text papers, no PR Video, voice fluff, no pdfs, no sql reports, just a simple concise API mashup model that operates in real time and is web posted for all to see and understand and evaluate. Simply " Use your technology to DEMONSTRATE your technology " Yes, I have been to all the websites for the projects mentioned and this information is not contained anywhere within them. And, no, I do not buy the "Homeland Security! We cannot show you!" argument: all of these projects are publicly funded and subject to FOIA, and I am not suggesting that engineering specs be posted for public access, but that the social, political, tax/private funding and economic motivations and, above all, the social ROI should be open to scrutiny by any member of the public. ( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Sat Feb 9 11:37:12 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Sat, 09 Feb 2008 12:37:12 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Mea Culpa and Comment Message-ID: <47AE00E8.9070708@ideapete.com> First, a mea culpa: last night I mixed up some off-line with on-line comment. I think it's important to realize that to succeed this list needs to focus on positive direction, engaging a full spectrum of people including, but not limited to, technical and non-political and even non-normal and non-other things. Our common focus is, and always should be, "Improving the quality of life with technology" by promoting REAL connectivity for the first mile. Many thanks to all who contacted me off-line and I truly did not realize what a hot button many of these issues are for many of you. Thanks for the praise, but in this case I will decline credit. The postings did however raise an interesting point: We are dealing with highly intelligent networks and the systems connected to them, but it seems that simple issues like "How will this improve people's economic level and quality of life" are not visible, and the most widely read sources of information that we have locally are the New Mexican and the Journal, with their "if it bleeds, it leads" approach, which is scary. It is also apparent that the plans, designs and even operational systems infrastructure is incapable of answering these simple questions or even transparently showing them for open comment and true evaluation for logic or purpose. Its readily apparent that, even at our level, there is no clear source of reliable information as to status and objectives of some large initiatives that will affect the quality of life of New Mexicans for years to come. The coincidence that a large number of these projects seem to fail and are poorly planned, and that most are contracted with out-of-state vendors who are paid a lot of money to fail when we have such hugely talented in-state companies is also worth looking at. Here is my challenge to the political and governing bodies of Lamdarail, Sandoval Broadband, The Rio Rancho Intel Supercomputer and other state and government funded technology initiatives (of which I know many members are on this list): Show us clearly within 30 - 60 days -- by means of current, active web mash up technologies that display graphical easily-understandable dynamic models: 1. Exactly how was your project designed and funded? 2. Who did the economic feasibility analysis and when and where was it done? 3. What are its short- and long-term goals in terms of economic well being and improvement? 4. How did you calculate the economic benefits and how will they be monitored and evaluated? Last point: No massive position text papers, no PR Video, voice fluff, no pdfs, no sql reports, just a simple concise API mashup model that operates in real time and is web posted for all to see and understand and evaluate. Simply " Use your technology to DEMONSTRATE your technology " Yes, I have been to all the websites for the projects mentioned and this information is not contained anywhere within them. And, no, I do not buy the "Homeland Security! We cannot show you!" argument: all of these projects are publicly funded and subject to FOIA, and I am not suggesting that engineering specs be posted for public access, but that the social, political, tax/private funding and economic motivations and, above all, the social ROI should be open to scrutiny by any member of the public. ( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rl at radlab.com Sat Feb 9 13:23:07 2008 From: rl at radlab.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 13:23:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: [1st-mile-nm] 1st-Mile list comment Message-ID: 1st-Milers, I have been provoked to respond to recent postings, on and off-list, as well as with follow-up phone conversations. There is a lot going on with regard to broadband deployment and services in New Mexico, and there is much that is not, but can and should be. The 1st-Mile web site and email list is currently the only source of 'open' public information and exchange on broadband-specific matters in this state. Most of what appears on this email list are re-posted news articles and news items. The list has yet to fulfill its intended purpose, of being a place for public discussion and productive exchange about ways to move this state forward as a leader in network society development, with life and livelihood enhancing applications and affordable access for all. I am pleased that in the first year of its existence, this list has many interested subscribers, many of whom, though reticent to post publicly, are actively involved in shaping our broadband future, in government, in the business sector, in public institutions, in communities and individually. Many of us have information and involvements that are not being publicly shared. Even I, have not been too forthcoming about early stage efforts of the newly forming 1st-Mile Institute. I hope to do so soon. More strategically pragmatic exchanges take place off-list, and one-on-one, naturally. This 1st-Mile 'community' helps make some of that possible, however. I'd like to suggest that we refrain from creating adversity in our postings, and try to move our deeply felt concerns and aspirations forward productively. Let's have greater 'signal to noise ratio' in our exchanges, please. There is much difficult work to be done; together. Your comments and suggestions are appreciated. Thanks. See you online. Richard ------------------------------------------------ Richard Lowenberg P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110, 505-603-5200 cell 1st-Mile Institute New Mexico Broadband Initiative www.1st-mile.com ------------------------------------------------ From pete at ideapete.com Sat Feb 9 20:34:36 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Sat, 09 Feb 2008 21:34:36 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Why U.S. Telecom Is Losing Juice Message-ID: <47AE7EDC.1010700@ideapete.com> http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_06/b4070029759794.htm At last telcom ( and soon cable ) discover the only way to bring REAL HIGH speed service to the home is with FIBER ( see buried in this article ) ( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tom at jtjohnson.com Sun Feb 10 17:59:57 2008 From: tom at jtjohnson.com (Tom Johnson) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 18:59:57 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Get 100Mb fiber connection today for under $100/month | Computerworld Blogs In-Reply-To: <670A81A5-8092-40DB-A4CE-4CA9D22DD271@backspaces.net> References: <670A81A5-8092-40DB-A4CE-4CA9D22DD271@backspaces.net> Message-ID: Damn! Maybe I need to move to France! http://blogs.computerworld.com/get_100mb_fiber_connection_today -- ========================================== J. T. Johnson Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA www.analyticjournalism.com 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) http://www.jtjohnson.com tom at jtjohnson.com "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." -- Buckminster Fuller ========================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From editorsteve at gmail.com Sun Feb 10 18:21:52 2008 From: editorsteve at gmail.com (Steve Ross) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 21:21:52 -0500 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Get 100Mb fiber connection today for under $100/month | Computerworld Blogs In-Reply-To: References: <670A81A5-8092-40DB-A4CE-4CA9D22DD271@backspaces.net> Message-ID: <47AFB140.8080301@gmail.com> Well, Paris. Almost nowhere else in France has FTTH. But Paris has multiple competing providers. Or, Tom, move back to SF. Paxio there will sell you a GB/sec connection. It has several customers at that speed. Steven S. Ross Editor-in-Chief Broadband Properties steve at broadbandproperties.com www.bbpmag.com SKYPE: editorsteve +1 781-284-8810 +1 646-216-8030 fax +1 201-456-5933 mobile Tom Johnson wrote: > > Damn! Maybe I need to move to France! > http://blogs.computerworld.com/get_100mb_fiber_connection_today > > > > > > -- > ========================================== > J. T. Johnson > Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA > www.analyticjournalism.com > 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) > http://www.jtjohnson.com tom at jtjohnson.com > > > "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. > To change something, build a new model that makes the > existing model obsolete." > -- Buckminster Fuller > ========================================== > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm From maccabe at unm.edu Tue Feb 12 07:34:45 2008 From: maccabe at unm.edu (Arthur Maccabe) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 08:34:45 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Mea Culpa and Comment In-Reply-To: <47AE00E8.9070708@ideapete.com> References: <47AE00E8.9070708@ideapete.com> Message-ID: Looks like it's time for me to chime in -- when it comes to wide area networking, I'm the new kid on the block. My background is HPC operating systems and I've done some work in networking protocols for HPC systems, but I hadn't thought too much about wide area networking until recently. While I've subscribed to this list for a while, I must admit that I tend to file the messages for future reading and rarely get to the reading part. A little bird suggest that I read this thread. My apologies if I drag everyone over well understood ground. I'm of two minds when it come to venting on lists like this. On the one hand, it's hard to respond to a criticism that is unspoken, so I appreciate it when people take the time to complain. On the other hand, many criticism quickly degenerate into attacks on the personalities involved, this is rarely productive. My first observation is that a network is more than the physical infrastructure used to connect the points. Networks provide services and are governed by policies. Different groups may see different benefits from the physical infrastructure, the services provided, or the governance model. National Lambda Rail (NLR) tends to be defined by it's physical infrastructure -- this is natural given that the "lambda" in NLR comes from the symbol used to denote wavelength. One of the unique services that NLR provides is the ability to allocate a wavelength between two endpoints without any packetization or framing. This is critical for high end networking research and may be important for applications with very high bandwidth requirements. As far as I can tell, the physical infrastructure for I2 (the only significant alternative to NLR) makes it impossible to provide this service in I2. That said, there are few points in the NLR network who will actually take advantage of this service. In particular, you can only take advantage of this service if you have full fiber access which would rule out things like Sandoval County and the Internet to the Hogans (ITH) project. The fact that a site doesn't take advantage of a service is not a reason to be on another network. At the time Sandoval County and ITH committed to NLR, I2 had specific policies prohibiting commercial traffic while NLR embraced commercial traffic -- this alone may have been an appropriate incentive for joining NLR. I2 is in the process of changing its acceptable use policies, but this is a very recent development. Another important difference between I2 and NLR is that NLR owns the physical infrastructure that provides the foundation for the network (long term leases on fiber and the routers). This means that NLR is far more independent, but requires far more up front investment by its members. I2 relies on long term contract with infrastructure providers, like Level 3. I2 will tell you that the relationship with Level 3 is a huge benefit -- in the case of I2, Level 3 actually provides a layer 1 service, upper layers are provided and managed by I2. On the other hand, the fact that NLR owns its infrastructure means that NLR can never be in conflict with one of its service providers, this means that NLR can really do what ever it wants to do (within the constraints imposed by federal and state regulations). A third distinction between NLR and I2 is the size of the governing organization. I2 has thousands of members and New Mexico has a total of 3 or 4 votes in the membership, with a potential of being elected to a position of governance on one of four or five governance boards consisting of about 25 people on each board. NLR has about 17 members, one of which is the New Mexico Lambda Rail Board. Clearly, New Mexico is in a much better position to affect the direction of NLR than we are to affect the direction of I2. Whether the differences between NLR and I2 are important to the individual subscribers or the state of New Mexico, remains to be seen. While I don't know all of the individuals involved in the New Mexico NLR saga, I believe that most of these people were motivated by their perceptions of the importance of the differences between NLR and the alternative. I continue to believe that these differences are important. The NSF panel that is reviewing a Track-2 proposal that I led singled out the Intel facility in Rio Rancho and our connection to NLR as critical parts of the proposal. (If funded, this proposal will bring about $31 million in NSF money to New Mexico.) In the end, it's critical that New Mexico move forward in building adequate communication infrastructure. This is far more important in New Mexico than in our neighboring states like Arizona or Utah where population is much more centralized and they tend to ignore the rural parts of the state. I like to think of our challenge as the need to push (network) services to the edge. As we go through this process, there will be false starts. We can spend our time complaining about the problems that we have run into, or we can try to learn from failures and move on -- there's clearly a lot more to do. On Feb 9, 2008, at 12:37 PM, peter wrote: > First, a mea culpa: last night I mixed up some off-line with on-line > comment. > > I think it's important to realize that to succeed this list needs to > focus on positive direction, engaging a full spectrum of people > including, but not limited to, technical and non-political and even > non-normal and non-other things. Our common focus is, and always > should be, "Improving the quality of life with technology" by > promoting REAL connectivity for the first mile. > > Many thanks to all who contacted me off-line and I truly did not > realize what a hot button many of these issues are for many of you. > Thanks for the praise, but in this case I will decline credit. > > The postings did however raise an interesting point: We are dealing > with highly intelligent networks and the systems connected to them, > but it seems that simple issues like "How will this improve people's > economic level and quality of life" are not visible, and the most > widely read sources of information that we have locally are the New > Mexican and the Journal, with their "if it bleeds, it leads" > approach, which is scary. It is also apparent that the plans, > designs and even operational systems infrastructure is incapable of > answering these simple questions or even transparently showing them > for open comment and true evaluation for logic or purpose. > > Its readily apparent that, even at our level, there is no clear > source of reliable information as to status and objectives of some > large initiatives that will affect the quality of life of New > Mexicans for years to come. The coincidence that a large number of > these projects seem to fail and are poorly planned, and that most > are contracted with out-of-state vendors who are paid a lot of money > to fail when we have such hugely talented in-state companies is also > worth looking at. > > Here is my challenge to the political and governing bodies of > Lamdarail, Sandoval Broadband, The Rio Rancho Intel Supercomputer > and other state and government funded technology initiatives (of > which I know many members are on this list): Show us clearly within > 30 - 60 days -- by means of current, active web mash up technologies > that display graphical easily-understandable dynamic models: > > 1. Exactly how was your project designed and funded? > > 2. Who did the economic feasibility analysis and when and where was > it done? > > 3. What are its short- and long-term goals in terms of economic well > being and improvement? > > 4. How did you calculate the economic benefits and how will they be > monitored and evaluated? > > Last point: No massive position text papers, no PR Video, voice > fluff, no pdfs, no sql reports, just a simple concise API mashup > model that operates in real time and is web posted for all to see > and understand and evaluate. Simply " Use your technology to > DEMONSTRATE your technology " > > Yes, I have been to all the websites for the projects mentioned and > this information is not contained anywhere within them. And, no, I > do not buy the "Homeland Security! We cannot show you!" argument: > all of these projects are publicly funded and subject to FOIA, and I > am not suggesting that engineering specs be posted for public > access, but that the social, political, tax/private funding and > economic motivations and, above all, the social ROI should be open > to scrutiny by any member of the public. > > ( : ( : pete > -- > Peter Baston > IDEAS > www.ideapete.com > > > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm -- Barney Maccabe Chief Information Officer (Interim) Professor, Computer Science Department University of New Mexico (505) 277-8125 maccabe at unm.edu From granoff at zianet.com Tue Feb 12 09:45:29 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 09:45:29 -0800 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Mea Culpa and Comment In-Reply-To: References: <47AE00E8.9070708@ideapete.com> Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20080212091707.01c47ec0@zianet.com> I agree with almost everything that you have said about NLR and I2, but I have to take exception to this last paragraph. A great many of the rural areas of our state have more than adequate fiber deployment because the rural phone providers in this state have invested in fiber deployment for over 20 years. For the most part, these rural LECs put their customers first. On the other hand, some phone companies with dense population centers in NM put their money in 1) other states, 2) paying attorneys to fight regulation, 3) paying SEC fines for past bad behavior, 4) paying their high-priced executives' defense attorneys in criminal lawsuits, 5) paying for expensive media advertising saying how much better they are, 6) paying lobbyists to overturn consumer-oriented regulation at the State and Federal level, and 7) paying attorneys to fight with their customers. The challenge is not to "push" network services to the edge. The challenge is to understand that the same services can be had in rural areas of NM today, but that such services will cost much more because the cost per person is more in rural areas. I would offer that the solutions can be found by inviting the rural LECs to partner in some innovative ways instead of paying out-of-state consultants mega-bucks to find out what exists. I have never had a rural LEC in NM tell me I could not order a T1/DS1 or a T3/DS3 (usually provisioned on fiber). Our urban phone company has responded that they cannot provide even a DS1 on more than one occasion, unless I want to pay "construction costs". My two cents. Marianne Granoff NM Internet Professionals Association At 08:34 AM 2/12/2008 -0700, Arthur Maccabe wrote: >In the end, it's critical that New Mexico move forward in building >adequate communication infrastructure. This is far more important in >New Mexico than in our neighboring states like Arizona or Utah where >population is much more centralized and they tend to ignore the rural >parts of the state. I like to think of our challenge as the need to >push (network) services to the edge. As we go through this process, >there will be false starts. We can spend our time complaining about >the problems that we have run into, or we can try to learn from >failures and move on -- there's clearly a lot more to do. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Tue Feb 12 10:46:06 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 11:46:06 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Mea Culpa and Comment In-Reply-To: <6.1.2.0.2.20080212091707.01c47ec0@zianet.com> References: <47AE00E8.9070708@ideapete.com> <6.1.2.0.2.20080212091707.01c47ec0@zianet.com> Message-ID: <47B1E96E.10205@ideapete.com> Good points both and Marianne very well said, especially the last point regarding " Mega bucks to out of state consultants " I asked several of the governors staff in my usual diplomatic vernacular " Why do Government Departments, and their affiliates, at all levels in NM contract with out of state and sometimes out of country companies and as a result get abysmal results when this state has some of the top IT talents in the world " The response was enlightening " Local sources and talents are too pragmatic whereas out of state and country companies come without local perspectives and as a result a better vision plan " So thats all right then us poor locals do not want to mess up our neighborhood and KNOW we have to live with what we build whereas the OOS genius don't. Last point in the set again to Marianne, The primary telco she talks about gets its directives from Colorado " isn't that a shrewed form of economic warfare ? " Last last point: At last weeks Friam meeting, when I explained to the group the issues and challenges raised in the mea culpa post, regarding project clarity and visualization relating to economic development with I2 / LMDR / SBB and more. Most agreed that the chances of any of the major entities involved responding to such a logical request was unlikely and so a group of us are going to wait the 30 days and then respond in kind and SHOW how it can be done. ( : ( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ Marianne Granoff wrote: > I agree with almost everything that you have said about NLR and I2, > but I have to take exception to this last paragraph. A great many > of the rural areas of our state have more than adequate fiber > deployment because the rural phone providers in this state have > invested in fiber deployment for over 20 years. For the most part, > these rural LECs put their customers first. On the other hand, some > phone companies with dense population centers in NM put their money > in 1) other states, 2) paying attorneys to fight regulation, 3) > paying SEC fines for past bad behavior, 4) paying their high-priced > executives' defense attorneys in criminal lawsuits, 5) paying for > expensive media advertising saying how much better they are, 6) paying > lobbyists to overturn consumer-oriented regulation at the State and > Federal level, and 7) paying attorneys to fight with their customers. > > The challenge is not to "push" network services to the edge. The > challenge is to understand that the same services can be had in rural > areas of NM today, but that such services will cost much more because > the cost per person is more in rural areas. I would offer that the > solutions can be found by inviting the rural LECs to partner in some > innovative ways instead of paying out-of-state consultants mega-bucks > to find out what exists. > > I have never had a rural LEC in NM tell me I could not order a T1/DS1 > or a T3/DS3 (usually provisioned on fiber). Our urban phone company > has responded that they cannot provide even a DS1 on more than one > occasion, unless I want to pay "construction costs". > > My two cents. > > Marianne Granoff > NM Internet Professionals Association > > > > At 08:34 AM 2/12/2008 -0700, Arthur Maccabe wrote: > >> In the end, it's critical that New Mexico move forward in building >> adequate communication infrastructure. This is far more important in >> New Mexico than in our neighboring states like Arizona or Utah where >> population is much more centralized and they tend to ignore the rural >> parts of the state. I like to think of our challenge as the need to >> push (network) services to the edge. As we go through this process, >> there will be false starts. We can spend our time complaining about >> the problems that we have run into, or we can try to learn from >> failures and move on -- there's clearly a lot more to do. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maccabe at unm.edu Tue Feb 12 12:40:17 2008 From: maccabe at unm.edu (Arthur Maccabe) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 13:40:17 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Mea Culpa and Comment In-Reply-To: <6.1.2.0.2.20080212091707.01c47ec0@zianet.com> References: <47AE00E8.9070708@ideapete.com> <6.1.2.0.2.20080212091707.01c47ec0@zianet.com> Message-ID: <4FF4C8C8-C37F-4874-A623-B7D010BA8FF7@unm.edu> Actually, I expect that we are closer to agreement than disagreement. My statement starts by focusing on infrastructure and transitions to providing services -- I really meant to emphasize services. As you point out, the existence of physical infrastructure does not imply the existence of services. I can't say that I am well versed in the specifics of the issues that you identify (shame on me since I've lived in the state for 25+ years). However, when I suggest that our challenge is to push service to the edge, I intend to include pushing through all obstacles that interfere with the delivery of services. As you suggest, many of the obstacles will be financial and political only a precious few will be technical. In case you're not fond of "pushing services to the edge," I have another way of expressing the sentiment :) :) Making place irrelevant so that place can matter. One of the things that defines New Mexico is that people tend to have a strong (social) connection to place. However, economic considerations frequently make it difficult to maintain this connection (economies of scale tend to favor metropolitan areas). The goal of connectivity is to reduce the negative economic impact for rural -- making place irrelevant. Flattening the cost of connectivity is the first step. If you don't like that one, I have another :) :) IT extension services This one is from Dan Reed when he was in North Carolina. NC turns out to be a very rural state with an economy based on tobacco, furniture and textiles (i.e., really bad things for their economic future). Dan's notion was to build a service infrastructure, based on the agricultural extension services model, that could support IT as an economic engine in the rural parts of NC. The ag extension service model was successful because the service was pushed out to the edge, where everyone could take advantage of the service. Now, we need to articulate the economies that will be enabled by the presence of IT extension services. I think this is Peter's point. In retrospect, it seems that it would have been easy to articulate the economies that would be enabled by ag extension services -- I doubt it was. I expect that a review of the times would show that the development of ag extension services was very controversial step and that many of the initial attempts failed. As long as I'm on the topic of economics, it's worth remembering that two of our most successful networks, the interstate highway system and the Internet, were not motivated by the economies that they enabled. On Feb 12, 2008, at 10:45 AM, Marianne Granoff wrote: > I agree with almost everything that you have said about NLR and I2, > but I have to take exception to this last paragraph. A great many > of the rural areas of our state have more than adequate fiber > deployment because the rural phone providers in this state have > invested in fiber deployment for over 20 years. For the most part, > these rural LECs put their customers first. On the other hand, some > phone companies with dense population centers in NM put their money > in 1) other states, 2) paying attorneys to fight regulation, 3) > paying SEC fines for past bad behavior, 4) paying their high-priced > executives' defense attorneys in criminal lawsuits, 5) paying for > expensive media advertising saying how much better they are, 6) paying > lobbyists to overturn consumer-oriented regulation at the State and > Federal level, and 7) paying attorneys to fight with their customers. > > The challenge is not to "push" network services to the edge. The > challenge is to understand that the same services can be had in rural > areas of NM today, but that such services will cost much more because > the cost per person is more in rural areas. I would offer that the > solutions can be found by inviting the rural LECs to partner in some > innovative ways instead of paying out-of-state consultants mega-bucks > to find out what exists. > > I have never had a rural LEC in NM tell me I could not order a T1/DS1 > or a T3/DS3 (usually provisioned on fiber). Our urban phone company > has responded that they cannot provide even a DS1 on more than one > occasion, unless I want to pay "construction costs". > > My two cents. > > Marianne Granoff > NM Internet Professionals Association > > > > At 08:34 AM 2/12/2008 -0700, Arthur Maccabe wrote: > >> In the end, it's critical that New Mexico move forward in building >> adequate communication infrastructure. This is far more important in >> New Mexico than in our neighboring states like Arizona or Utah where >> population is much more centralized and they tend to ignore the rural >> parts of the state. I like to think of our challenge as the need to >> push (network) services to the edge. As we go through this process, >> there will be false starts. We can spend our time complaining about >> the problems that we have run into, or we can try to learn from >> failures and move on -- there's clearly a lot more to do. -- Barney Maccabe Chief Information Officer (Interim) Professor, Computer Science Department University of New Mexico (505) 277-8125 maccabe at unm.edu From pete at ideapete.com Tue Feb 12 13:00:35 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 14:00:35 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Nicely Said by "Institute for Policy Innovation " Re quoted by Forbes Message-ID: <47B208F3.3080208@ideapete.com> *http://www.forbes.com/business/forbes/2008/0225/018.html* *Off the Radar * The technology industry and the public policy issues most important to it have thus far been all but neglected in the presidential primaries. This is odd because our economy increasingly relies on the technology industries for growth. How about a plan to get the broadband revolution rolled out to every American citizen by harnessing market forces instead of government subsidies? A model exists--it's called Connect America. Are the candidates in favor of it? Have they ever heard of it? And should the FCC be slowing the rollout of broadband with new, threatened regulations? Speaking of regulation, does a new resident in the White House mean much more regulation in the area of content, ownership concentration, network management and "net neutrality," wireless regulation, age verification on social networking sites, etc.? Shouldn't we at least be asking? No, technology is not a real part of any of the campaigns or the debates, for either those who believe in pervasive government regulation, or for those who trust the marketplace. Who would have thought that the "knowledge economy" would not even be on the radar screens of the presidential candidates? --Institute for Policy Innovation ( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Tue Feb 12 13:26:45 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 14:26:45 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Mea Culpa and Comment In-Reply-To: <4FF4C8C8-C37F-4874-A623-B7D010BA8FF7@unm.edu> References: <47AE00E8.9070708@ideapete.com> <6.1.2.0.2.20080212091707.01c47ec0@zianet.com> <4FF4C8C8-C37F-4874-A623-B7D010BA8FF7@unm.edu> Message-ID: <47B20F15.6040501@ideapete.com> Very good points Arthur Yes I realize that the FULL economic targets are never known but with logical thought process ( mapping - modeling - monitoring ) we should at least have some direction and reasons Many moons ago there was a tech conference in Santa Fe called Leapfrog ( How could we jump start NM Connectivity technology ) http://www.ideapete.com/leapfrog.html at which there where some very quite Germanic types floating around. Some months after the conference I was in Vienna doing work with the IAEA on security installations and in the hotel where I stayed there was a conference hosted by Deutsche Tel* */ Siemens at which I recognized some of the same guys and naturally we gravitated to the bar for more discussion. Turns out that as we all now know DT was making a run at U S West ( Now Qwest ) and several other telecoms. The thing that sticks in my mind is the computerized maps and models they shared about economic growth layered onto the network and possibilities and how they felt it was essential that part of their companies mission was to facilitate this. I well remember going up to my room thinking " How in the hell did a bunch of Germans come up with such a clear potential possible road map for our state and why don't we locally have even snippet of these possibilities " That vision and our lack of still gives me nightmares ( : ( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ Arthur Maccabe wrote: > > Actually, I expect that we are closer to agreement than disagreement. > My statement starts by focusing on infrastructure and transitions to > providing services -- I really meant to emphasize services. As you > point out, the existence of physical infrastructure does not imply the > existence of services. > > I can't say that I am well versed in the specifics of the issues that > you identify (shame on me since I've lived in the state for 25+ > years). However, when I suggest that our challenge is to push service > to the edge, I intend to include pushing through all obstacles that > interfere with the delivery of services. As you suggest, many of the > obstacles will be financial and political only a precious few will be > technical. > > In case you're not fond of "pushing services to the edge," I have > another way of expressing the sentiment :) :) > Making place irrelevant so that place can matter. > One of the things that defines New Mexico is that people tend to have > a strong (social) connection to place. However, economic > considerations frequently make it difficult to maintain this > connection (economies of scale tend to favor metropolitan areas). The > goal of connectivity is to reduce the negative economic impact for > rural -- making place irrelevant. Flattening the cost of connectivity > is the first step. > > If you don't like that one, I have another :) :) > IT extension services > This one is from Dan Reed when he was in North Carolina. NC turns out > to be a very rural state with an economy based on tobacco, furniture > and textiles (i.e., really bad things for their economic future). > Dan's notion was to build a service infrastructure, based on the > agricultural extension services model, that could support IT as an > economic engine in the rural parts of NC. The ag extension service > model was successful because the service was pushed out to the edge, > where everyone could take advantage of the service. > > Now, we need to articulate the economies that will be enabled by the > presence of IT extension services. I think this is Peter's point. In > retrospect, it seems that it would have been easy to articulate the > economies that would be enabled by ag extension services -- I doubt it > was. I expect that a review of the times would show that the > development of ag extension services was very controversial step and > that many of the initial attempts failed. As long as I'm on the topic > of economics, it's worth remembering that two of our most successful > networks, the interstate highway system and the Internet, were not > motivated by the economies that they enabled. > > > > > On Feb 12, 2008, at 10:45 AM, Marianne Granoff wrote: > >> I agree with almost everything that you have said about NLR and I2, >> but I have to take exception to this last paragraph. A great many >> of the rural areas of our state have more than adequate fiber >> deployment because the rural phone providers in this state have >> invested in fiber deployment for over 20 years. For the most part, >> these rural LECs put their customers first. On the other hand, some >> phone companies with dense population centers in NM put their money >> in 1) other states, 2) paying attorneys to fight regulation, 3) >> paying SEC fines for past bad behavior, 4) paying their high-priced >> executives' defense attorneys in criminal lawsuits, 5) paying for >> expensive media advertising saying how much better they are, 6) paying >> lobbyists to overturn consumer-oriented regulation at the State and >> Federal level, and 7) paying attorneys to fight with their customers. >> >> The challenge is not to "push" network services to the edge. The >> challenge is to understand that the same services can be had in rural >> areas of NM today, but that such services will cost much more because >> the cost per person is more in rural areas. I would offer that the >> solutions can be found by inviting the rural LECs to partner in some >> innovative ways instead of paying out-of-state consultants mega-bucks >> to find out what exists. >> >> I have never had a rural LEC in NM tell me I could not order a T1/DS1 >> or a T3/DS3 (usually provisioned on fiber). Our urban phone company >> has responded that they cannot provide even a DS1 on more than one >> occasion, unless I want to pay "construction costs". >> >> My two cents. >> >> Marianne Granoff >> NM Internet Professionals Association >> >> >> >> At 08:34 AM 2/12/2008 -0700, Arthur Maccabe wrote: >> >>> In the end, it's critical that New Mexico move forward in building >>> adequate communication infrastructure. This is far more important in >>> New Mexico than in our neighboring states like Arizona or Utah where >>> population is much more centralized and they tend to ignore the rural >>> parts of the state. I like to think of our challenge as the need to >>> push (network) services to the edge. As we go through this process, >>> there will be false starts. We can spend our time complaining about >>> the problems that we have run into, or we can try to learn from >>> failures and move on -- there's clearly a lot more to do. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maccabe at unm.edu Tue Feb 12 14:50:23 2008 From: maccabe at unm.edu (Arthur Maccabe) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 15:50:23 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Mea Culpa and Comment In-Reply-To: <47B20F15.6040501@ideapete.com> References: <47AE00E8.9070708@ideapete.com> <6.1.2.0.2.20080212091707.01c47ec0@zianet.com> <4FF4C8C8-C37F-4874-A623-B7D010BA8FF7@unm.edu> <47B20F15.6040501@ideapete.com> Message-ID: On Feb 12, 2008, at 2:26 PM, peter wrote: > Very good points Arthur > > Yes I realize that the FULL economic targets are never known but > with logical thought process ( mapping - modeling - monitoring ) we > should at least have some direction and reasons > > > Many moons ago there was a tech conference in Santa Fe called > Leapfrog ( How could we jump start NM Connectivity technology )http://www.ideapete.com/leapfrog.html > at which there where some very quite Germanic types floating around. > > Some months after the conference I was in Vienna doing work with the > IAEA on security installations and in the hotel where I stayed there > was a conference hosted by Deutsche Tel / Siemens at which I > recognized some of the same guys and naturally we gravitated to the > bar for more discussion. Turns out that as we all now know DT was > making a run at U S West ( Now Qwest ) and several other telecoms. > The thing that sticks in my mind is the computerized maps and models > they shared about economic growth layered onto the network and > possibilities and how they felt it was essential that part of their > companies mission was to facilitate this. I well remember going up > to my room thinking " How in the hell did a bunch of Germans come up > with such a clear potential possible road map for our state and why > don't we locally have even snippet of these possibilities " That > vision and our lack of still gives me nightmares Two observations: 1) DT is a company, they live and die by their ability to build accurate business projections. My guess is that our local companies don't have particularly good models of the state, but that's just a guess, because if I were them, I'd treat what ever modeling I had as highly confidential (didn't you feel like you were seeing something special). 2) My model is likely to emphasize very different things than the model that others might build. Working for UNM, I'm going to focus on students who might be better prepared and/ or motivated to go on to college (specifically at UNM, but more generally in NM), and I'll include the students who attend virtually because they have sufficient connectivity to work from where they choose to be..... I expect that others have very different models for supporting first mile connectivity. BTW, I didn't mean to imply that we should embrace serendipity (unexpected, pleasant surprises) as our economic model (it probably sounded like that), we just need to be wide ranging in our exploration of the space. > > > ( : ( : pete > > Peter Baston > IDEAS > www.ideapete.com > > > > > > Arthur Maccabe wrote: >> >> >> Actually, I expect that we are closer to agreement than >> disagreement. My statement starts by focusing on infrastructure >> and transitions to providing services -- I really meant to >> emphasize services. As you point out, the existence of physical >> infrastructure does not imply the existence of services. >> >> I can't say that I am well versed in the specifics of the issues >> that you identify (shame on me since I've lived in the state for >> 25+ years). However, when I suggest that our challenge is to push >> service to the edge, I intend to include pushing through all >> obstacles that interfere with the delivery of services. As you >> suggest, many of the obstacles will be financial and political only >> a precious few will be technical. >> >> In case you're not fond of "pushing services to the edge," I have >> another way of expressing the sentiment :) :) >> Making place irrelevant so that place can matter. >> One of the things that defines New Mexico is that people tend to >> have a strong (social) connection to place. However, economic >> considerations frequently make it difficult to maintain this >> connection (economies of scale tend to favor metropolitan areas). >> The goal of connectivity is to reduce the negative economic impact >> for rural -- making place irrelevant. Flattening the cost of >> connectivity is the first step. >> >> If you don't like that one, I have another :) :) >> IT extension services >> This one is from Dan Reed when he was in North Carolina. NC turns >> out to be a very rural state with an economy based on tobacco, >> furniture and textiles (i.e., really bad things for their economic >> future). Dan's notion was to build a service infrastructure, based >> on the agricultural extension services model, that could support IT >> as an economic engine in the rural parts of NC. The ag extension >> service model was successful because the service was pushed out to >> the edge, where everyone could take advantage of the service. >> >> Now, we need to articulate the economies that will be enabled by >> the presence of IT extension services. I think this is Peter's >> point. In retrospect, it seems that it would have been easy to >> articulate the economies that would be enabled by ag extension >> services -- I doubt it was. I expect that a review of the times >> would show that the development of ag extension services was very >> controversial step and that many of the initial attempts failed. >> As long as I'm on the topic of economics, it's worth remembering >> that two of our most successful networks, the interstate highway >> system and the Internet, were not motivated by the economies that >> they enabled. >> >> >> >> >> On Feb 12, 2008, at 10:45 AM, Marianne Granoff wrote: >> >>> I agree with almost everything that you have said about NLR and I2, >>> but I have to take exception to this last paragraph. A great many >>> of the rural areas of our state have more than adequate fiber >>> deployment because the rural phone providers in this state have >>> invested in fiber deployment for over 20 years. For the most part, >>> these rural LECs put their customers first. On the other hand, some >>> phone companies with dense population centers in NM put their money >>> in 1) other states, 2) paying attorneys to fight regulation, 3) >>> paying SEC fines for past bad behavior, 4) paying their high-priced >>> executives' defense attorneys in criminal lawsuits, 5) paying for >>> expensive media advertising saying how much better they are, 6) >>> paying >>> lobbyists to overturn consumer-oriented regulation at the State and >>> Federal level, and 7) paying attorneys to fight with their >>> customers. >>> >>> The challenge is not to "push" network services to the edge. The >>> challenge is to understand that the same services can be had in >>> rural >>> areas of NM today, but that such services will cost much more >>> because >>> the cost per person is more in rural areas. I would offer that the >>> solutions can be found by inviting the rural LECs to partner in some >>> innovative ways instead of paying out-of-state consultants mega- >>> bucks >>> to find out what exists. >>> >>> I have never had a rural LEC in NM tell me I could not order a T1/ >>> DS1 >>> or a T3/DS3 (usually provisioned on fiber). Our urban phone company >>> has responded that they cannot provide even a DS1 on more than one >>> occasion, unless I want to pay "construction costs". >>> >>> My two cents. >>> >>> Marianne Granoff >>> NM Internet Professionals Association >>> >>> >>> >>> At 08:34 AM 2/12/2008 -0700, Arthur Maccabe wrote: >>> >>>> In the end, it's critical that New Mexico move forward in building >>>> adequate communication infrastructure. This is far more >>>> important in >>>> New Mexico than in our neighboring states like Arizona or Utah >>>> where >>>> population is much more centralized and they tend to ignore the >>>> rural >>>> parts of the state. I like to think of our challenge as the >>>> need to >>>> push (network) services to the edge. As we go through this >>>> process, >>>> there will be false starts. We can spend our time complaining >>>> about >>>> the problems that we have run into, or we can try to learn from >>>> failures and move on -- there's clearly a lot more to do. >> > -- Barney Maccabe Chief Information Officer (Interim) Professor, Computer Science Department University of New Mexico (505) 277-8125 maccabe at unm.edu From pete at ideapete.com Tue Feb 12 15:12:15 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 16:12:15 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Mea Culpa and Comment In-Reply-To: References: <47AE00E8.9070708@ideapete.com> <6.1.2.0.2.20080212091707.01c47ec0@zianet.com> <4FF4C8C8-C37F-4874-A623-B7D010BA8FF7@unm.edu> <47B20F15.6040501@ideapete.com> Message-ID: <47B227CF.90902@ideapete.com> Agree again but as our company sees in many of the complex data models it builds even your University centric viewpoint will still be a layer of the master economic model just from a different usability perspective similar to job creation and type - where the students will go eventually to investment directives for new business, creates research and jobs etc etc ( : ( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ Arthur Maccabe wrote: > > On Feb 12, 2008, at 2:26 PM, peter wrote: > >> Very good points Arthur >> >> Yes I realize that the FULL economic targets are never known but with >> logical thought process ( mapping - modeling - monitoring ) we should >> at least have some direction and reasons >> >> >> Many moons ago there was a tech conference in Santa Fe called >> Leapfrog ( How could we jump start NM Connectivity technology >> )http://www.ideapete.com/leapfrog.html at which there where some very >> quite Germanic types floating around. >> >> Some months after the conference I was in Vienna doing work with the >> IAEA on security installations and in the hotel where I stayed there >> was a conference hosted by Deutsche Tel / Siemens at which I >> recognized some of the same guys and naturally we gravitated to the >> bar for more discussion. Turns out that as we all now know DT was >> making a run at U S West ( Now Qwest ) and several other telecoms. >> The thing that sticks in my mind is the computerized maps and models >> they shared about economic growth layered onto the network and >> possibilities and how they felt it was essential that part of their >> companies mission was to facilitate this. I well remember going up >> to my room thinking " How in the hell did a bunch of Germans come up >> with such a clear potential possible road map for our state and why >> don't we locally have even snippet of these possibilities " That >> vision and our lack of still gives me nightmares > > Two observations: 1) DT is a company, they live and die by their > ability to build accurate business projections. My guess is that our > local companies don't have particularly good models of the state, but > that's just a guess, because if I were them, I'd treat what ever > modeling I had as highly confidential (didn't you feel like you were > seeing something special). 2) My model is likely to emphasize very > different things than the model that others might build. Working for > UNM, I'm going to focus on students who might be better prepared > and/or motivated to go on to college (specifically at UNM, but more > generally in NM), and I'll include the students who attend virtually > because they have sufficient connectivity to work from where they > choose to be..... I expect that others have very different models for > supporting first mile connectivity. > > BTW, I didn't mean to imply that we should embrace serendipity > (unexpected, pleasant surprises) as our economic model (it probably > sounded like that), we just need to be wide ranging in our exploration > of the space. > >> >> >> ( : ( : pete >> >> Peter Baston >> IDEAS >> www.ideapete.com >> >> >> >> >> >> Arthur Maccabe wrote: >>> >>> >>> Actually, I expect that we are closer to agreement than >>> disagreement. My statement starts by focusing on infrastructure and >>> transitions to providing services -- I really meant to emphasize >>> services. As you point out, the existence of physical >>> infrastructure does not imply the existence of services. >>> >>> I can't say that I am well versed in the specifics of the issues >>> that you identify (shame on me since I've lived in the state for 25+ >>> years). However, when I suggest that our challenge is to push >>> service to the edge, I intend to include pushing through all >>> obstacles that interfere with the delivery of services. As you >>> suggest, many of the obstacles will be financial and political only >>> a precious few will be technical. >>> >>> In case you're not fond of "pushing services to the edge," I have >>> another way of expressing the sentiment :) :) >>> Making place irrelevant so that place can matter. >>> One of the things that defines New Mexico is that people tend to >>> have a strong (social) connection to place. However, economic >>> considerations frequently make it difficult to maintain this >>> connection (economies of scale tend to favor metropolitan areas). >>> The goal of connectivity is to reduce the negative economic impact >>> for rural -- making place irrelevant. Flattening the cost of >>> connectivity is the first step. >>> >>> If you don't like that one, I have another :) :) >>> IT extension services >>> This one is from Dan Reed when he was in North Carolina. NC turns >>> out to be a very rural state with an economy based on tobacco, >>> furniture and textiles (i.e., really bad things for their economic >>> future). Dan's notion was to build a service infrastructure, based >>> on the agricultural extension services model, that could support IT >>> as an economic engine in the rural parts of NC. The ag extension >>> service model was successful because the service was pushed out to >>> the edge, where everyone could take advantage of the service. >>> >>> Now, we need to articulate the economies that will be enabled by the >>> presence of IT extension services. I think this is Peter's point. >>> In retrospect, it seems that it would have been easy to articulate >>> the economies that would be enabled by ag extension services -- I >>> doubt it was. I expect that a review of the times would show that >>> the development of ag extension services was very controversial step >>> and that many of the initial attempts failed. As long as I'm on the >>> topic of economics, it's worth remembering that two of our most >>> successful networks, the interstate highway system and the Internet, >>> were not motivated by the economies that they enabled. >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> On Feb 12, 2008, at 10:45 AM, Marianne Granoff wrote: >>> >>>> I agree with almost everything that you have said about NLR and I2, >>>> but I have to take exception to this last paragraph. A great many >>>> of the rural areas of our state have more than adequate fiber >>>> deployment because the rural phone providers in this state have >>>> invested in fiber deployment for over 20 years. For the most part, >>>> these rural LECs put their customers first. On the other hand, some >>>> phone companies with dense population centers in NM put their money >>>> in 1) other states, 2) paying attorneys to fight regulation, 3) >>>> paying SEC fines for past bad behavior, 4) paying their high-priced >>>> executives' defense attorneys in criminal lawsuits, 5) paying for >>>> expensive media advertising saying how much better they are, 6) paying >>>> lobbyists to overturn consumer-oriented regulation at the State and >>>> Federal level, and 7) paying attorneys to fight with their customers. >>>> >>>> The challenge is not to "push" network services to the edge. The >>>> challenge is to understand that the same services can be had in rural >>>> areas of NM today, but that such services will cost much more because >>>> the cost per person is more in rural areas. I would offer that the >>>> solutions can be found by inviting the rural LECs to partner in some >>>> innovative ways instead of paying out-of-state consultants mega-bucks >>>> to find out what exists. >>>> >>>> I have never had a rural LEC in NM tell me I could not order a T1/DS1 >>>> or a T3/DS3 (usually provisioned on fiber). Our urban phone company >>>> has responded that they cannot provide even a DS1 on more than one >>>> occasion, unless I want to pay "construction costs". >>>> >>>> My two cents. >>>> >>>> Marianne Granoff >>>> NM Internet Professionals Association >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> At 08:34 AM 2/12/2008 -0700, Arthur Maccabe wrote: >>>> >>>>> In the end, it's critical that New Mexico move forward in building >>>>> adequate communication infrastructure. This is far more important in >>>>> New Mexico than in our neighboring states like Arizona or Utah where >>>>> population is much more centralized and they tend to ignore the rural >>>>> parts of the state. I like to think of our challenge as the need to >>>>> push (network) services to the edge. As we go through this process, >>>>> there will be false starts. We can spend our time complaining about >>>>> the problems that we have run into, or we can try to learn from >>>>> failures and move on -- there's clearly a lot more to do. >>> >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From carroll at cagleandassociates.com Tue Feb 12 15:55:46 2008 From: carroll at cagleandassociates.com (Carroll Cagle) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 16:55:46 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Mea Culpa and Comment In-Reply-To: <6.1.2.0.2.20080212091707.01c47ec0@zianet.com> References: <47AE00E8.9070708@ideapete.com> <6.1.2.0.2.20080212091707.01c47ec0@zianet.com> Message-ID: <04d501c86dd2$c9ca3090$6401a8c0@yourfsyly0jtwn> Folks, I have found the dialogue interesting and helpful, and I appreciate the time and thought given. For now, I would like to add only one observation -- and that has to do with Marianne's note below. As far as I understand it, I do believe the so-called ILECs (independent rural companies) deploy a lot more fiber than the much-bigger Qwest -- but what is missing in both cases is fiber-to-the-premise (or darned little, in any event). That huge omission is particularly relevant to this list-serve -- 1st-mile - because, indeed, the "first mile" (from a customer's point of view) is sadly lacking. This "weakest link" feature renders, if not null and void, at least far less important, the fiber elsewhere. What I am ardently working on - along with others on this list -- are ways to help enable that problem to be addressed, so that many New Mexicans (both at their residences and places of employment - including schools and health-care facilities, etc) are able to reap the huge advantages of optical fiber as a transmission mode. Certainly, having fiber-to-the-premise (FTTP), alone, does not cut it! Obviously even "first mile" fiber has to then link with neighborhood fiber and city fiber rings, and thence to inter-city fiber etc. But if this state were to be "lighted up" with fiber, then many other beneficial results would be lighted up as well -- the right kind of quality-oriented economic development, distance learning, telemedicine, etc. I particularly liked and resonate with this partial posting earlier today from Mr. MacCabe: "Making place irrelevant so that place can matter. One of the things that defines New Mexico is that people tend to have a strong (social) connection to place. However, economic considerations frequently make it difficult to maintain this connection (economies of scale tend to favor metropolitan areas). The goal of connectivity is to reduce the negative economic impact for rural -- making place irrelevant. Flattening the cost of connectivity is the first step." Well stated. Last point (for now) -- achieving the virtuous outcome that Mr. MacCabe refers to can be helped by a comprehensive strategy of tax incentives, direct appropriations into backbone infrastructure, and enabling cost-effective "open" (multi-service provider) infrastructures in local communities (FTTP). Regards, Carroll Cagle _____ From: 1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org [mailto:1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org] On Behalf Of Marianne Granoff Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2008 10:45 AM To: Arthur Maccabe; peter Cc: 1st-Mile-NM Subject: Re: [1st-mile-nm] Mea Culpa and Comment I agree with almost everything that you have said about NLR and I2, but I have to take exception to this last paragraph. A great many of the rural areas of our state have more than adequate fiber deployment because the rural phone providers in this state have invested in fiber deployment for over 20 years. For the most part, these rural LECs put their customers first. On the other hand, some phone companies with dense population centers in NM put their money in 1) other states, 2) paying attorneys to fight regulation, 3) paying SEC fines for past bad behavior, 4) paying their high-priced executives' defense attorneys in criminal lawsuits, 5) paying for expensive media advertising saying how much better they are, 6) paying lobbyists to overturn consumer-oriented regulation at the State and Federal level, and 7) paying attorneys to fight with their customers. The challenge is not to "push" network services to the edge. The challenge is to understand that the same services can be had in rural areas of NM today, but that such services will cost much more because the cost per person is more in rural areas. I would offer that the solutions can be found by inviting the rural LECs to partner in some innovative ways instead of paying out-of-state consultants mega-bucks to find out what exists. I have never had a rural LEC in NM tell me I could not order a T1/DS1 or a T3/DS3 (usually provisioned on fiber). Our urban phone company has responded that they cannot provide even a DS1 on more than one occasion, unless I want to pay "construction costs". My two cents. Marianne Granoff NM Internet Professionals Association At 08:34 AM 2/12/2008 -0700, Arthur Maccabe wrote: In the end, it's critical that New Mexico move forward in building adequate communication infrastructure. This is far more important in New Mexico than in our neighboring states like Arizona or Utah where population is much more centralized and they tend to ignore the rural parts of the state. I like to think of our challenge as the need to push (network) services to the edge. As we go through this process, there will be false starts. We can spend our time complaining about the problems that we have run into, or we can try to learn from failures and move on -- there's clearly a lot more to do. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Tue Feb 12 16:57:52 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 17:57:52 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Do we need a vision statement and ? Message-ID: <47B24090.2080807@ideapete.com> Its been a fascinating range of correspondences both on and off board re the mea culpa postings. After Carols highlighting of Arthur's piece /One of the things that defines New Mexico is that people tend to have a strong (social) connection to place. However, economic considerations frequently make it difficult to maintain this connection / Maybe we should establish a vision statement for First Mile like: The members of the first mile group agree to promote the unique cultural heritage of our state (s) by promoting technology driven economic development for all its citizens in an understandable and user friendly way. OK its rough and need a serious editor but ? Then we could establish an award called the ???????? and use a similar image to famous man and god hands nearly touching which would signify the first mile as the connection of life for our people and heritage and well being Then award it each year to the person or project that clearly accomplishes the most / best for the vision , maybe we could rope in NMIPA and other groups and I know some sponsors we could pitch. Ill give this to my designer and see what they come up with Just a thought ( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: images.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 2164 bytes Desc: not available URL: From jjmart1 at msn.com Tue Feb 12 20:26:08 2008 From: jjmart1 at msn.com (John J Martinez) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 21:26:08 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Do we need a vision statement and ? Message-ID: All, As my first posting I need to ask a question, can we publish to the group the recipients on the distribution list? As a career telecom professional I have many opinions I would like to share but I need to cautious that my personal opinions are not viewed as official positions of the the current administration. I would like to know who is recieving the message. Thanks, John J. Martinez Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 17:57:52 -0700From: pete at ideapete.comTo: 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.orgSubject: [1st-mile-nm] Do we need a vision statement and ? Its been a fascinating range of correspondences both on and off board re the mea culpa postings.After Carols highlighting of Arthur's pieceOne of the things that defines New Mexico is that people tend to have a strong (social) connection to place. However, economic considerations frequently make it difficult to maintain this connection Maybe we should establish a vision statement for First Milelike:The members of the first mile group agree to promote the unique cultural heritage of our state (s) by promoting technology driven economic development for all its citizens in an understandable and user friendly way.OK its rough and need a serious editor but ?Then we could establish an award called the ???????? and use a similar image to famous man and god hands nearly touching which would signify the first mile as the connection of life for our people and heritage and well beingThen award it each year to the person or project that clearly accomplishes the most / best for the vision , maybe we could rope in NMIPA and other groups and I know some sponsors we could pitch.Ill give this to my designer and see what they come up withJust a thought( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston IDEAS www.ideapete.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: images.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 2164 bytes Desc: not available URL: From Gary.Harris at state.nm.us Wed Feb 13 06:51:41 2008 From: Gary.Harris at state.nm.us (Harris, Gary, DCA) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 07:51:41 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] First Post In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <95CD77FAE304084CAF9896D889D536A005E46A1F@CEXMB5.nmes.lcl> Greetings- I am always anxious to read the commentary and thoughtful postings on this list. I am a librarian and technologist who wants to see to it that New Mexicans have access to a statewide broadband network that runs on a statewide backbone. Whether the circuits are leased, owned or otherwise made available through local arrangements, I believe the infrastructure needs to be managed from a central, non-telco, entity. I am relatively new to the state. I lived and worked in New Mexico in the late 70s. I attended UNM briefly during the same period. Since that time, I have visited the state many times, usual on an annual basis. For the past decade, I was employed by the University of Missouri System. While there, I was part of a team that helped to build a statewide resource sharing network for virtually every academic library in the state. While the project had a positive outcome, it could not have been undertaken or accomplished without the assistance of an organization called MOREnet (and the financial support of the state). MOREnet is, for lack of a better term, a super ISP, affiliated with the UM System. The organization works with telcos and others to supply broadband connectivity to institutions of higher education (public and private), schools (K-12), and libraries throughout the state. The result of this effort is a high speed in-state backbone that is managed by MOREnet staff up to the hundreds of routers that terminate at the various participating institutions. Institutions pay for this advanced connectivity, but at a price that is usually less than they could afford to pay on their own. The state also contributes significant dollars to the enterprise. Sorry for the long note, but I cannot help but wonder why we cannot do something similar in New Mexico. I know it works, and with a few tweaks here and there, I think the concept described above could be expanded to go the 1st Mile in NM. I am not a telecommunications expert or a networking guru, so please forgive my ignorance, but I know success when I see it. For those of you out there who may already know this story, I apologize for retelling here. My intent (as a newbie) is to find out more about what all of you think we can do to help the people of NM. For more information on what I am writing about, see the following sites: http://www.more.net/about/index.html http://mobius.missouri.edu Gary L. Harris Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail, including all attachments is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited unless specifically provided under the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender and destroy all copies of this message. -- This email has been scanned by the Sybari - Antigen Email System. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jjmart1 at msn.com Wed Feb 13 10:08:15 2008 From: jjmart1 at msn.com (John J Martinez) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 11:08:15 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Mea Culpa and Comment Message-ID: My paranoia has been resolved so I want to add to Carroll's masterfully written posting. Qwest and the independent telecoms are placing fiber...not enough and not enough to resolve the 1st mile problem of connectivity. They are replacing core infrastructure that has been failing for decades with a better solution (fiber) but that really doesn't get the end user any closer to having the kind of affordable high speed connection they desire. So when we hear the telecoms preach about the amount of fiber miles they have placed, remember the half truths. They are correct, many schools, libraries, fire & police departments have fiber. Many sub divisions across the country have FTTH. The real problem is that they need speeds greater than DSL. With the current price schedules the telecom's have in place, only the wealthiest of US companies can afford the gig plus type connection many "third world" countries already enjoy. Having said that, here's my disclaimer. The phone companies are doing what they have to do to stay competitive. There are many things that need to change. One is the business model the companies operate under. Unless that changes we will not be able to afford to utilize FTTH even if we convince the ILEC's to build it. My two cents for now.John J. Martinez Recovering Telecom Professional From: carroll at cagleandassociates.comTo: 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.orgDate: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 16:55:46 -0700Subject: Re: [1st-mile-nm] Mea Culpa and Comment Folks, I have found the dialogue interesting and helpful, and I appreciate the time and thought given. For now, I would like to add only one observation -- and that has to do with Marianne?s note below. As far as I understand it, I do believe the so-called ILECs (independent rural companies) deploy a lot more fiber than the much-bigger Qwest -- but what is missing in both cases is fiber-to-the-premise (or darned little, in any event). That huge omission is particularly relevant to this list-serve -- 1st-mile ? because, indeed, the ?first mile? (from a customer?s point of view) is sadly lacking. This ?weakest link? feature renders, if not null and void, at least far less important, the fiber elsewhere. What I am ardently working on ? along with others on this list -- are ways to help enable that problem to be addressed, so that many New Mexicans (both at their residences and places of employment ? including schools and health-care facilities, etc) are able to reap the huge advantages of optical fiber as a transmission mode. Certainly, having fiber-to-the-premise (FTTP), alone, does not cut it! Obviously even ?first mile? fiber has to then link with neighborhood fiber and city fiber rings, and thence to inter-city fiber etc. But if this state were to be ?lighted up? with fiber, then many other beneficial results would be lighted up as well -- the right kind of quality-oriented economic development, distance learning, telemedicine, etc. I particularly liked and resonate with this partial posting earlier today from Mr. MacCabe: ?Making place irrelevant so that place can matter. One of the things that defines New Mexico is that people tend to have a strong (social) connection to place. However, economic considerations frequently make it difficult to maintain this connection (economies of scale tend to favor metropolitan areas). The goal of connectivity is to reduce the negative economic impact for rural -- making place irrelevant. Flattening the cost of connectivity is the first step.? Well stated. Last point (for now) -- achieving the virtuous outcome that Mr. MacCabe refers to can be helped by a comprehensive strategy of tax incentives, direct appropriations into backbone infrastructure, and enabling cost-effective ?open? (multi-service provider) infrastructures in local communities (FTTP). Regards, Carroll Cagle From: 1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org [mailto:1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org] On Behalf Of Marianne GranoffSent: Tuesday, February 12, 2008 10:45 AMTo: Arthur Maccabe; peterCc: 1st-Mile-NMSubject: Re: [1st-mile-nm] Mea Culpa and Comment I agree with almost everything that you have said about NLR and I2,but I have to take exception to this last paragraph. A great many of the rural areas of our state have more than adequate fiberdeployment because the rural phone providers in this state have invested in fiber deployment for over 20 years. For the most part, these rural LECs put their customers first. On the other hand, some phone companies with dense population centers in NM put their money in 1) other states, 2) paying attorneys to fight regulation, 3) paying SEC fines for past bad behavior, 4) paying their high-priced executives' defense attorneys in criminal lawsuits, 5) paying for expensive media advertising saying how much better they are, 6) paying lobbyists to overturn consumer-oriented regulation at the State and Federal level, and 7) paying attorneys to fight with their customers.The challenge is not to "push" network services to the edge. The challenge is to understand that the same services can be had in rural areas of NM today, but that such services will cost much more because the cost per person is more in rural areas. I would offer that the solutions can be found by inviting the rural LECs to partner in some innovative ways instead of paying out-of-state consultants mega-bucks to find out what exists. I have never had a rural LEC in NM tell me I could not order a T1/DS1or a T3/DS3 (usually provisioned on fiber). Our urban phone company has responded that they cannot provide even a DS1 on more than one occasion, unless I want to pay "construction costs". My two cents.Marianne GranoffNM Internet Professionals Association At 08:34 AM 2/12/2008 -0700, Arthur Maccabe wrote: In the end, it's critical that New Mexico move forward in building adequate communication infrastructure. This is far more important in New Mexico than in our neighboring states like Arizona or Utah where population is much more centralized and they tend to ignore the rural parts of the state. I like to think of our challenge as the need to push (network) services to the edge. As we go through this process, there will be false starts. We can spend our time complaining about the problems that we have run into, or we can try to learn from failures and move on -- there's clearly a lot more to do. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From crgr at aol.com Wed Feb 13 15:02:08 2008 From: crgr at aol.com (crgr at aol.com) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:02:08 -0500 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Do we need a vision statement and ? In-Reply-To: <47B24090.2080807@ideapete.com> References: <47B24090.2080807@ideapete.com> Message-ID: <8CA3CAB98354EC7-10D4-18C8@webmail-dd17.sysops.aol.com> SUGGEST: "...by promoting technology driven economic development for all its citizens in an understandable, user friendly?and health conscious?way" -----Original Message----- From: peter To: 1st-Mile-NM <1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org> Sent: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 5:57 pm Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Do we need a vision statement and ? Its been a fascinating range of correspondences both on and off board re the mea culpa postings. After Carols highlighting of Arthur's piece One of the things that defines New Mexico is that people tend to have a strong (social) connection to place.? However, economic considerations frequently make it difficult to maintain this connection Maybe we should establish a vision statement for First Mile like: The members of the first mile group agree to promote the unique cultural heritage of our state (s) by promoting technology driven economic development for all its citizens in an understandable and user friendly way. OK its rough and need a serious editor but ? Then we could establish an award called the ???????? and use a similar image to famous man and god hands nearly touching which would signify the first mile as the connection of life for our people and heritage and well being Then award it each year to the person or project that clearly accomplishes the most / best for the vision , maybe we could rope in NMIPA and other groups and I know some sponsors we could pitch. Ill give this to my designer and see what they come up with Just a thought ( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston IDEAS www.ideapete.com ? ? _______________________________________________ 1st-mile-nm mailing list 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm ________________________________________________________________________ More new features than ever. Check out the new AOL Mail ! - http://webmail.aol.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: images.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 2164 bytes Desc: not available URL: From pete at ideapete.com Wed Feb 13 17:00:29 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:00:29 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] So you think that you are entitled to the bandwidth you pay for Message-ID: <47B392AD.2030505@ideapete.com> NOT according to Comcast Read this fascinating article _ Comcast FCC filing shows gap between hype, bandwidth reality_ http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080213-comcast-discloses-network-management-practices.html -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Wed Feb 13 21:49:57 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 22:49:57 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Broadband CENSUS ----what it really is with FEEDBACK Message-ID: <47B3D685.8030007@ideapete.com> Lets support both of these and post links prominently http://www.broadbandcensus.com/ http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071012-broadband-data-reform-bill-advances-in-house.html Although the speed threshold should by 20 x 20 , but at least the first site will at least give us true data ( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rl at radlab.com Wed Feb 20 14:29:49 2008 From: rl at radlab.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 14:29:49 -0800 (PST) Subject: [1st-mile-nm] SSTI: NM Budget Items Message-ID: If anyone on this list has corrections or additional information, related to this posting, please let us know. I've exerpted the items that relate directly or indirectly to this list topic. rl -------- >From the SSTI Weekly Digest A Publication of the State Science and Technology Institute http://www.ssti.org New Mexico Governor Signs Budget Bills, Vetoes Capital Package New Mexico's 2008 legislative session wrapped up last week, resulting in no final action on several TBED-related bills and leading Gov. Bill Richardson to call a special legislative session to address his health care reform agenda. Gov. Richardson signed the General Appropriations Act of 2009 and the Junior Budget Bill with minimal vetoes but vetoed a Capital Outlay package, which included $2 million to the board of regents of Northern New Mexico for a proposed solar energy research park ($1 million less than requested) and $3.5 million for clean energy grants to public entities for innovative energy projects within the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department. The legislature passed the capital bill again, giving the governor until March 5 to approve it with individual line-item vetoes, if he deems necessary. Lawmakers approved $14 million last year for the state's new Supercomputer - $11 million to purchase the computer and $3 million to set up gateways at the state's research universities. This year, $2.5 million was appropriated for staffing and operating expenses for the New Mexico Computing Applications Center, the operating force for the supercomputer, with an additional $300,000 in the junior budget earmarked for the center. The legislature stalled, however, on a measure designed to provide an economic development tool for the state relating to the supercomputer. HB 262, the Research Applications Act, would have set up operations of the supercomputer as a nonprofit entity, able to accept public and private investment so that businesses and organizations could pay the state to use the system. A proposal to replace the Technology Research Collaborative with a Technology Development Authority and establish a $10 million technology development fund also died in session. The fiscal year 2009 main budget bill signed by the governor includes $1.2 million for the Renewable Energy Efficiency program, $663,600 for the Spaceport Authority, and $276,500 for the Technology Commercialization program. The junior budget bill provides funding for several projects at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, including $150,000 for the Small Business Innovation Research outreach program, $50,000 for student outreach in science and engineering, and $28,000 for a statewide initiative to provide training on the supercomputer for middle and high school students. Gov. Richardson also signed the General Obligation Bond Act, which requires voter approval for several university capital projects, including $17 million to the UNM Health Sciences Center cancer research and treatment center and $4.5 million for the UNM Health Science Center neurosciences research building. ------------------------------------------------ Richard Lowenberg P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110, 505-603-5200 cell 1st-Mile Institute New Mexico Broadband Initiative www.1st-mile.com ------------------------------------------------ From Susan.Oberlander at state.nm.us Wed Feb 20 14:45:58 2008 From: Susan.Oberlander at state.nm.us (Oberlander, Susan, DCA) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 15:45:58 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] SSTI: NM Budget Items In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1ACBC54813C0A34195711085D2DE3CF00571F34E@CEXMB2.nmes.lcl> February 15, 2008 Oops, again. We reported on the last day of the session that the Governor had signed Senate Bill 333, the package of General Obligation Bonds that will go to voters in November for approval. Well, the Governor had the bill on his desk, ready to sign - until we found out that Lt. Governor Diane Denish forgot to sign the official version as it left the Senate. The Lt. Governor is the presiding officer in the Senate, and must sign all bills that go to the Governor for his action. In any case, the Senate Chief Clerk asked the Governor's Office to return the bill for the Lt. Governor's signature. We did so, and the delay changed the deadline for the bill. Governor Richardson now has until March 5 to take action on the funding bill, which pays for senior centers, libraries and higher education projects - if voters approve. http://www.governor.state.nm.us/blog.php Susan 505 476-9762 -----Original Message----- From: 1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org [mailto:1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org] On Behalf Of Richard Lowenberg Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 3:30 PM To: 1st-mile-nm at crank.dcn.davis.ca.us Subject: [1st-mile-nm] SSTI: NM Budget Items If anyone on this list has corrections or additional information, related to this posting, please let us know. I've exerpted the items that relate directly or indirectly to this list topic. rl -------- >From the SSTI Weekly Digest A Publication of the State Science and Technology Institute http://www.ssti.org New Mexico Governor Signs Budget Bills, Vetoes Capital Package New Mexico's 2008 legislative session wrapped up last week, resulting in no final action on several TBED-related bills and leading Gov. Bill Richardson to call a special legislative session to address his health care reform agenda. Gov. Richardson signed the General Appropriations Act of 2009 and the Junior Budget Bill with minimal vetoes but vetoed a Capital Outlay package, which included $2 million to the board of regents of Northern New Mexico for a proposed solar energy research park ($1 million less than requested) and $3.5 million for clean energy grants to public entities for innovative energy projects within the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department. The legislature passed the capital bill again, giving the governor until March 5 to approve it with individual line-item vetoes, if he deems necessary. Lawmakers approved $14 million last year for the state's new Supercomputer - $11 million to purchase the computer and $3 million to set up gateways at the state's research universities. This year, $2.5 million was appropriated for staffing and operating expenses for the New Mexico Computing Applications Center, the operating force for the supercomputer, with an additional $300,000 in the junior budget earmarked for the center. The legislature stalled, however, on a measure designed to provide an economic development tool for the state relating to the supercomputer. HB 262, the Research Applications Act, would have set up operations of the supercomputer as a nonprofit entity, able to accept public and private investment so that businesses and organizations could pay the state to use the system. A proposal to replace the Technology Research Collaborative with a Technology Development Authority and establish a $10 million technology development fund also died in session. The fiscal year 2009 main budget bill signed by the governor includes $1.2 million for the Renewable Energy Efficiency program, $663,600 for the Spaceport Authority, and $276,500 for the Technology Commercialization program. The junior budget bill provides funding for several projects at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, including $150,000 for the Small Business Innovation Research outreach program, $50,000 for student outreach in science and engineering, and $28,000 for a statewide initiative to provide training on the supercomputer for middle and high school students. Gov. Richardson also signed the General Obligation Bond Act, which requires voter approval for several university capital projects, including $17 million to the UNM Health Sciences Center cancer research and treatment center and $4.5 million for the UNM Health Science Center neurosciences research building. ------------------------------------------------ Richard Lowenberg P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110, 505-603-5200 cell 1st-Mile Institute New Mexico Broadband Initiative www.1st-mile.com ------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ 1st-mile-nm mailing list 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm ______________________________________________________________________ This inbound email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. ______________________________________________________________________ Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail, including all attachments is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited unless specifically provided under the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender and destroy all copies of this message. -- This email has been scanned by the Sybari - Antigen Email System. From pete at ideapete.com Sat Feb 23 11:57:22 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 12:57:22 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] FOXNews.com - Japan Launches High-Speed Communications Satellite Atop Rocket - International News | News of the World | Middle East News | Europe News Message-ID: <47C07AA2.3040200@ideapete.com> http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,332047,00.html OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH we can but dream ( 1.2gig per second ) ( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Mon Feb 25 02:56:42 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 03:56:42 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] FCC Hits The Road To Hear Evidence On Web Network Management Message-ID: <47C29EEA.3070809@ideapete.com> http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200802241813DOWJONESDJONLINE000310_FORTUNE5.htm -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rl at radlab.com Wed Feb 27 10:07:03 2008 From: rl at radlab.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:07:03 -0800 (PST) Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Qwest CEO on Fiber Services Message-ID: Here's an exerpt from a new CNET story and interview with Qwest's CEO. (FiOS refers to Verizon's fiber to the premises offering.) http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Qwest-Doesnt-See-The-Point-In-FiOS-92195?nocomment=1 Qwest Doesn't See The Point In FiOS CEO: 'It's too expensive. We don't see the return.' 09:17AM Wednesday Feb 27 2008 by Karl We're not sure how you turn "we lack the resources, will or vision to do anything particularly interesting or bold in our uncompetitive service areas" into a presentation that gets Wall Street excited, but as we mentioned Monday, Qwest has been trying to do that all week. New CEO Edward Mueller has been meeting with analysts and the media since Monday, but judging from this CNET interview, the baby bell boss isn't actually telling them anything new or particularly interesting. Here's one edge-of-your-seat excerpt: CNET:Why doesn't Qwest follow Verizon's lead and just take fiber to the home? Mueller: It's too expensive. We don't see the return. CNET:But Wall Street seems to have looked favorably on Verizon's strategy, and it's starting to pay off. They seem to have a long-term vision. Mueller: We don't have the resources. CNET: Aren't you worried about commoditizing your network by not offering services like TV? Mueller: No, that is what we have DirecTV for. CNET:Yes, but you are relying on another company to offer a service to your customers. And you are just providing the transport. Mueller: We like them. How could anyone not be excited from that exchange? A rehash of the company's very limited 20Mbps VDSL plans, a vague mention of wireless broadband aspirations, and the announcement that Qwest would be offering a "Geek Squad" style tech support service were about as exciting as it got this week for analysts. In fact the only real news of the week (that Qwest will likely dump Sprint for Verizon) came from Verizon's CEO, not Qwest's. We're hearing that Qwest should have some additional FTTH/VDSL deployment news in the next month or two (specific launch markets, most likely). Still, one gets the feeling the company is sort of drifting in neutral, making the minimum effort required and paying off debt until someone comes along to buy them out. The complete CNET story is at: http://www.news.com/A-Qwest-for-survival/2008-1034_3-6232125.html?tag=st.num ------------------------------------------------ Richard Lowenberg P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110, 505-603-5200 cell 1st-Mile Institute New Mexico Broadband Initiative www.1st-mile.com ------------------------------------------------ From rl at radlab.com Wed Feb 27 10:18:18 2008 From: rl at radlab.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:18:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: [1st-mile-nm] We Need A Broadband Competition Act, Not A Net Neutrality Act Message-ID: >From the Techdirt Blog by Mike Masnick Tue, Feb 26th 2008 http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080225/135642351.shtml We Need A Broadband Competition Act, Not A Net Neutrality Act Andy Kessler has put together a fantastic editorial for the Wall Street Journal explaining why Markey's attempt at legislating Net Neutrality won't do any good. As we pointed out when Markey first announced it, this plan seems to be focused on the symptoms, not the real problem (and, no, just having the FCC step in to slap the wrists of neutrality violators doesn't help either). The real problem, of course, is the lack of real competition in the broadband market. Kessler suggests that we shouldn't be focused on Net Neutrality, but should wipe out the bogus regulations that are currently restricting competition in the broadband market. That means not going through a painful localized franchising process or making it a pain to get the rights of way necessary to install equipment necessary for next generation broadband. It means actually opening up the market to competition, not creating subsidies and regulations that mean only the incumbents can play. Not that politicians are about to do anything like this, but it sure would be nice. Here's the link to Andy Kessler's WSJ Editorial. It is based on this week's hearings on Comcast's 'restrictive content management practices' being held at Harvard. His views on open broadband competition, rather than net neutrality legislation, is right; his understanding of how to get there is limited. rl http://www.andykessler.com/andy_kessler/2008/02/wsj-internet-wr.html ------------------------------------------------ Richard Lowenberg P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110, 505-603-5200 cell 1st-Mile Institute New Mexico Broadband Initiative www.1st-mile.com ------------------------------------------------ From rl at radlab.com Wed Mar 5 12:34:36 2008 From: rl at radlab.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 12:34:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Santa Fe Schools' Wireless Network Message-ID: The following article appeared online today. I understood that John Phaklides is no longer in his District IT position. If anyone on this list has any additional info. about this news, please post to the list. Clear facts, only. Richard ------------- The Santa Fe public school system is deploying wireless networks over the next two years to serve some 14,500 students, faculty and staff in 35 buildings. The project, expected to cost $500,000 to $750,000, uses wireless equipment from Meru Networks to support streaming video educational applications. ------- From: Broadband Wireless Exchange Magazine March 4th www.bbwexchange.com/pubs/2008/03/04/page1423-1594215.asp Sante Fe Builds Broadband Wireless Network to Provide High-Speed Internet Access to 14,500 Students and Faculty across 19 Campuses 3/4/08 - The public school system in Santa Fe, New Mexico, has begun deploying wireless local-area networks (WLANs) from Meru Networks that will provide wireless coverage for 35 buildings and some 14,500 students, faculty and staff over the next two years. Santa Fe Public Schools will invest $500,000-750,000 over the term of the project to extend wireless coverage district-wide to its three high schools, four middle schools, 19 elementary schools and various administration buildings. Meru WLANs are already in use at three schools. The Meru deployment is part of an ongoing infrastructure upgrade needed partly to ensure that the district can take advantage of an array of "streaming video"-based learning materials - from firms such as Education 2020, CompassLearning Odyssey and Discovery Education - that are increasingly being incorporated into school curricula. Streaming video, which sends live or prerecorded images to users' computers in a continuous stream, depends on high- quality, uninterrupted network connections. John Phaklides, director of technology for Santa Fe Public Schools, said that the highly mobile nature of school populations, along with the inherent limitations of wired networks, are driving the move to district-wide wireless. "The schools are typically older buildings that have only one or two drops [wired connections] per room," Phaklides said. "Not only do dozens of students need to be online in a computer lab at any given time, but there's a community of teachers with laptop computers who should be able to get onto the network no matter where they are in the district. In addition, schools have a habit of moving things around every year as their population is reconfigured. It's much easier and cheaper to move the lab down the hall if we don't have wires and cables to worry about. We expect our initial investment in wireless to be more than offset by what we save in making these frequent moves and changes." After Installing Meru, "All the problems went away" Before deciding on Meru, Phaklides's technology team had evaluated numerous wireless LAN products and deployed pilot networks from some of the industry's biggest names without success. "They were having tremendous interference issues in trying to use their web-based learning software with more than a few students at a time," recalled Jack Vigil, CEO of Albuquerque-based Harmonix Technologies, a Meru reseller partner. "One or two computers in the room might be able to connect, but the rest were losing their connections and dropping off the network in the middle of course sessions. They told us if we could get one school to work properly, we could deploy Meru in others." After the first Meru network was installed in November 2006, Phaklides said, "all the problems went away just like that. At our largest school, Santa Fe High School, up to 45 people are online in the lab at the same time, supported by only two wireless access points. Meru has provided us with the consistent classroom experience we've been looking for." He attributes the success to Meru's unique "virtual cell" wireless technology, which automatically selects a single channel for campus- or enterprise-wide use, eliminating interference and the costly, tedious channel planning that plague legacy networks. In contrast, the "micro cell" approach used by most legacy WLANs assigns different channels to adjacent cells of the network, raising the potential for co-channel interference. "With our earlier wireless networks, balancing the user traffic load was a manual process," Phaklides said. "Now we put two access points in a room and the load balances itself, which makes the deployment process much easier. And the Meru controller units can be managed easily through the Extreme Networks switches we've recently installed." The initial WLAN deployment uses Meru products based on the IEEE 802.11a/b/g wireless standards, supporting client data rates of 54 megabits per second. Phaklides said the school district soon plans to begin adding Meru units that incorporate the new IEEE 802.11n standard, which boosts performance as high as 300 Mbps. Meru's 802.11n products, the AP300 Access Point family and MC5000 Controller, are fully backward-compatible with the company's 802.11a/b/g products. Keywords: broadband wireless, high-speed Internet access, compasslearning odyssey, local area networks, santa fe new mexico, wireless local area networks, discovery education, school populations, school curricula, meru networks, frequent moves, administration buildings, wireless coverage, continuous stream By Robert Hoskins ------------------------------------------------ Richard Lowenberg P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110, 505-603-5200 cell 1st-Mile Institute New Mexico Broadband Initiative www.1st-mile.com ------------------------------------------------ From pete at ideapete.com Wed Mar 5 14:24:21 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Wed, 05 Mar 2008 15:24:21 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Santa Fe Schools' Wireless Network In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47CF1D95.9050105@ideapete.com> OK Richard CLEAR Facts only ( Although we might want to link to the current Friam group about what is a FACT ( : ( : ) The system was NEVER largely deployed ( Small test set ups were tried just like field demos, set up take done in 10 minutes) into the district and the release was a " this could have been " that got out of hand with an aggressive vendor and has now cost JP his job. The state auditor has launched a full investigation into MIS/IT and also its construction project cousins who have similar problems. The major issue is that wireless is totally unneeded in the district as it has a well developed but sadly underutilized fiber deployment courtesy of Qwest with State funding. Although that has its own design, operational and cost problems at least the right of way and most of the designs approval and multiple installation albeit in many schools not yet fully built out its there and more is being installed every month with many of its students doing the installation. To be fair when I talked to JP on many of the projects he saw the need to jump start connectivity with wireless to fill in holes in his fiber network. I, as is most unusual am a contrairian " Go for the fiber end to end period " I also sat on the school board CRC and also multiple building committees and have been emphatic all the way not to repeat the first mile hurdle and go for full WAN / LAN fiber with the maximum strands possible not only for the schools network but also to assist neighborhoods around the school. I still see our schools as ready built fortresses in the telcom snail networks area of occupation that can really kick start true broadband 100 megabytes and up in both ways. As this investigation progresses I have offered our companies services to REALLY design and build out a network based around total fiber for educational excellence that the district and its neighbors can be proud of and I will regularly post progress on this list. Potential participants can chime in and I will connect you ( Excuse the terrible pun I could not resist ) . Although it looks bad up here its really a unique opportunity for improvement ( : ( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ Richard Lowenberg wrote: > The following article appeared online today. > I understood that John Phaklides is no longer in his District IT position. > If anyone on this list has any additional info. about this news, please > post to the list. Clear facts, only. > Richard > ------------- > > The Santa Fe public school system is deploying wireless networks over the > next two years to serve some 14,500 students, faculty and staff in 35 > buildings. > The project, expected to cost $500,000 to $750,000, uses wireless > equipment from Meru Networks to support streaming video educational > applications. > > ------- > > From: Broadband Wireless Exchange Magazine > March 4th > www.bbwexchange.com/pubs/2008/03/04/page1423-1594215.asp > > Sante Fe Builds Broadband Wireless Network to Provide High-Speed Internet > Access to 14,500 Students and Faculty across 19 Campuses > > 3/4/08 - The public school system in Santa Fe, New Mexico, has begun > deploying wireless local-area networks (WLANs) from Meru Networks that > will provide wireless coverage for 35 buildings and some 14,500 students, > faculty and staff over the next two years. > > Santa Fe Public Schools will invest $500,000-750,000 over the term of the > project to extend wireless coverage district-wide to its three high > schools, four middle schools, 19 elementary schools and various > administration buildings. Meru WLANs are already in use at three schools. > > The Meru deployment is part of an ongoing infrastructure upgrade needed > partly to ensure that the district can take advantage of an array of > "streaming video"-based learning materials - from firms such as Education > 2020, CompassLearning Odyssey and Discovery Education - that are > increasingly being incorporated into school curricula. Streaming video, > which sends live or prerecorded images to users' computers in a continuous > stream, depends on high- quality, uninterrupted network connections. > > John Phaklides, director of technology for Santa Fe Public Schools, said > that the highly mobile nature of school populations, along with the > inherent limitations of wired networks, are driving the move to > district-wide wireless. > > "The schools are typically older buildings that have only one or two drops > [wired connections] per room," Phaklides said. "Not only do dozens of > students need to be online in a computer lab at any given time, but > there's a community of teachers with laptop computers who should be able > to get onto the network no matter where they are in the district. In > addition, schools have a habit of moving things around every year as their > population is reconfigured. It's much easier and cheaper to move the lab > down the hall if we don't have wires and cables to worry about. We expect > our initial investment in wireless to be more than offset by what we save > in making these frequent moves and changes." > > After Installing Meru, "All the problems went away" > > Before deciding on Meru, Phaklides's technology team had evaluated > numerous wireless LAN products and deployed pilot networks from some of > the industry's biggest names without success. > > "They were having tremendous interference issues in trying to use their > web-based learning software with more than a few students at a time," > recalled Jack Vigil, CEO of Albuquerque-based Harmonix Technologies, a > Meru reseller partner. "One or two computers in the room might be able to > connect, but the rest were losing their connections and dropping off the > network in the middle of course sessions. They told us if we could get one > school to work properly, we could deploy Meru in others." > > After the first Meru network was installed in November 2006, Phaklides > said, "all the problems went away just like that. At our largest school, > Santa Fe High School, up to 45 people are online in the lab at the same > time, supported by only two wireless access points. Meru has provided us > with the consistent classroom experience we've been looking for." > > He attributes the success to Meru's unique "virtual cell" wireless > technology, which automatically selects a single channel for campus- or > enterprise-wide use, eliminating interference and the costly, tedious > channel planning that plague legacy networks. In contrast, the "micro > cell" approach used by most legacy WLANs assigns different channels to > adjacent cells of the network, raising the potential for co-channel > interference. > > "With our earlier wireless networks, balancing the user traffic load was a > manual process," Phaklides said. "Now we put two access points in a room > and the load balances itself, which makes the deployment process much > easier. And the Meru controller units can be managed easily through the > Extreme Networks switches we've recently installed." > > The initial WLAN deployment uses Meru products based on the IEEE > 802.11a/b/g wireless standards, supporting client data rates of 54 > megabits per second. Phaklides said the school district soon plans to > begin adding Meru units that incorporate the new IEEE 802.11n standard, > which boosts performance as high as 300 Mbps. Meru's 802.11n products, the > AP300 Access Point family and MC5000 Controller, are fully > backward-compatible with the company's 802.11a/b/g products. > > Keywords: broadband wireless, high-speed Internet access, compasslearning > odyssey, local area networks, santa fe new mexico, wireless local area > networks, discovery education, school populations, school curricula, meru > networks, frequent moves, administration buildings, wireless coverage, > continuous stream > > By Robert Hoskins > > ------------------------------------------------ > Richard Lowenberg > P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 > 505-989-9110, 505-603-5200 cell > > 1st-Mile Institute > New Mexico Broadband Initiative > www.1st-mile.com > ------------------------------------------------ > > > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rl at radlab.com Wed Mar 5 14:44:05 2008 From: rl at radlab.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 14:44:05 -0800 (PST) Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Santa Fe schools wireless info. Message-ID: A few list subscribers responded to me personally, with the following links and articles. Thanks. rl ------ http://sfe.live.mediaspanonline.com/Local%20News/SANTA-FE-SCHOOLS-Former-worker-under-investigation for-laptop-s http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Local%20News/santa-fe-public-schools-District--Software-company-s- laims-bei http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2008/02/15/3273127.htm --------- Friday, February 15, 2008 Schools Face Audit Over Announced Deal By Polly Summar Journal Staff Writer The Santa Fe school district is facing a state audit and a police investigation, apparently all touched off by a bogus press release. The district's technology director, John Phaklides, has resigned. Phaklides was quoted in a recent corporate press release announcing a $750,000 deal between the district and a Silicon Valley cellular wireless technology developer that school district officials say never took place. Allegations, including whether equipment or technology was purchased without school board approval, have been turned over to state police and state auditors. Superintendent Leslie Carpenter said Thursday the district delivered a formal letter to the State Auditor's Office on Thursday regarding allegations of improprieties in procurement procedures and contracts and "allegations regarding theft and the sale of district property by an individual in the technology department." Carpenter would not confirm that the individual was Phaklides. He could not be reached for comment. "I can only confirm that the allegations have been made and are being investigated," Carpenter said. "We have turned over lots of our internal investigations to state police and are cooperating fully with the state auditors and state police." On Jan. 30, both Carpenter and associate superintendent Mel Morgan told the Journal they knew nothing about a $500,000-to-$750,000 deal with California's Meru Networks after local news organizations received a Meru press release announcing the transaction. Phaklides did not return phone calls or e-mails from the Journal, beginning that day. On Feb. 10, the district acknowledged that he had resigned, "to pursue other interests." The upcoming special audit by the State Auditor's Office will be broad and not be focused on any one individual. "We haven't narrowed our list of people," said State Auditor Hector H. Balderas. The audit could take a couple of months to complete, he said. It's a process very different from a simple financial audit. "A financial audit is about balancing the books," said Balderas, an ex-prosecutor and former state legislator. "A special audit asks the how and why. Our obligation as auditors is to eliminate areas of suspicion, so we always start broad." Balderas said state law requires the school district to inform his office "immediately when they suspect malfeasance or mismanagement of state funds." The state police part of the investigation, Balderas said, would focus on allegations of theft of district property. His office put the district's special audit as a top priority because "an institution's integrity is affected" and because of the amount of money involved. Balderas is taking auditors off other projects to begin work on the district's situation. It was under Balderas' direction last year that a special audit discovered "mismanagement, waste and abuse," he said, in Sandoval County's handling of its broadband network project to deliver cheap, high-speed wireless Internet access to service providers across the county. Sandoval County lost about $1.3 million in taxpayer dollars when two contractors allegedly breached their project contracts, without delivering a working broadband network. Beyond looking at possible malfeasance, there is an added benefit to taxpayers in having a special audit of the school district, Balderas said. "We really will find out if they're using money well," said Balderas. The audit will include document requests, interviews, extensive analysis and evaluation of policies and procedures. Press release News of the purported $750,000 deal between the district and Meru was first circulated to local media on Jan. 30. Janis Ulevich, a public relations representative for Meru- based in Sunnyvale, Calif.- issued a press release about the Santa Fe school district's "adoption of wireless networking technology." Carpenter said at the time she wasn't aware of contract specifics. "Probably, it would not be unheard of us to use some of our capital funds to advance technology," she said. The same day, associate superintendent Mel Morgan said, "I have not signed off on a contract for this. Whenever we do a contract of over $30,000, I have to go to (the school board)." The press release was published by at least one New Mexico business newspaper. The district said Thursday it has not found any district contracts with Meru or Harmonix Technologies- Meru's vendor in New Mexico- for the reputed $500,000 to $750,000 project. However, district staff hadn't previously been aware that Harmonix's sister company in Santa Fe is called IT Connect. District officials said they would look into contracts under that name also. In a Jan. 30 interview, Harmonix president Jack Vigil described an elaborate network system being set up for the school district, some of which is already used in Santa Fe High, Capital High and Agua Fria Elementary. "We set up a Meru wireless single cell technology wireless lab for the Education 2020 (program of computer-based classes)," said Vigil. "This enabled 20 to 25 student computers to simultaneously get on the Internet all at once without any hard wires connected to them." Vigil said Harmonix also works with schools in Portales, Las Vegas, N.M., Questa, Albuquerque and in Arizona. The company has the endorsement of Cooperative Education Services, an agency of all the state's school districts. That endorsement means districts can use pre-approved companies like Harmonix for amounts under $30,000 without the time-consuming process of requesting bids. Balderas said it gives approved companies a kind of "presumed pricing control." The January press release issued by Ulevich said that, before deciding on Meru, "Phaklides' technology team had evaluated numerous wireless LAN (local-area networks) products and deployed pilot networks from some of the industry's biggest names without success." Phaklides is quoted in the news release as saying that, after the first Meru network was installed in November 2006, "All the problems went away just like that," referring to issues Santa Fe High was having in trying to use its Web-based learning software with more than a few students at a time. "We were all well aware that we were moving forward with setting up E2020 labs," said Carpenter on Thursday. "The question is not whether they were legitimate purchases, but whether the proper procurement policies were followed." From editorsteve at gmail.com Wed Mar 5 14:57:55 2008 From: editorsteve at gmail.com (Steve Ross) Date: Wed, 05 Mar 2008 17:57:55 -0500 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Vermont In-Reply-To: <47CF1D95.9050105@ideapete.com> References: <47CF1D95.9050105@ideapete.com> Message-ID: <47CF2573.6080004@gmail.com> Article published Mar 5, 2008 An urgent call: Give us broadband, Vermont towns say By Daniel Barlow Vermont Press Bureau MONTPELIER ? Vermont voters sent a clear message to the world of high-speed Internet Tuesday: We want in. Voters in at least 19 towns approved nonbinding resolutions to join in a regional effort to bring high-speed Internet via fiber-optic to their homes during town meetings held early this week and over the weekend. In all on Tuesday, at least 13 towns approved the resolution to join the East Central Vermont Community Fiber Network and organizers of the effort anticipate a full sweep of the more than 20 towns that had the item on their agenda once all the results were in. Stan Williams, the chair of ValleyNet's Board of Directors, a non-profit ISP company from White River Junction that is assisting the effort, said he wasn't surprised at the number of towns supporting the effort, including some that didn't even have the issue on their agenda this week. "What did surprise me was the number of towns that voted for this unanimously in voice votes," Williams said. "It's clear why towns would be interested in this, but we saw 100 percent support in several towns." According to a town meeting results on the Fiber Network's Web site, at least nine of the towns approved the resolution via voice votes from the floor with no dissent. In Norwich, it was approved on the ballot in a vote of 1315-128. In the town of Bethel, voters easily and quickly approved the measure in a voice vote from the floor shortly at about 1 p.m. Tuesday, before the meeting ended and residents went home from lunch. The question was the 23rd that morning on the ballot, second-to-last and right before the perennial final question inquiring if there is any other business to come before the time, which is always seen as being the ringing bell that ends sessions. "So far we have heard of about four people in all the towns who voted nay," said Tim Nulty, the founder of Burlington Telecom, who left that position last year to lead this grassroots effort for ValleyNet. "We seem to be getting a lot of unanimous voice votes." The effort, led by Internet-starved residents from more than 20 towns and ValleyNet, would set up a subscriber-funded system that offers Internet, telephone and cable television opportunities in central and southern Vermont. "I'm convinced this is the only way we in Vermont are going to get access to this high-speed stuff," said Jerry Drugonis of Pittsfield, one of the "surprise" towns that took up the issue Tuesday. "We've been at the tail end of the dog for a long time." ValleyNet officials hope to use pre-registered households in those communities to leverage investors to fund the infrastructure of the system, which they say will be faster and cheaper than the offerings by the major telecommunication companies here in the state. The financial plan of the system calls for it to become sustainable through memberships after several years. Outside of Montpelier, (results for that city ? the largest among the towns voting on the issue Tuesday ? were not available Tuesday night), voters said access to high-speed Internet has become a necessity in this age. Liisa Bradley of Calais, which did not vote on the issue Tuesday, said she is stuck with only dial-up at her home. Holding a sign for Sen. Barack Obama, her pick for president, she said she would like to watch some videos of him speaking at campaign rallies, but the videos load too slowly. "I don't have that kind of patience," she said. Joan Stander of Montpelier supported the fiber-optic question when she voted Tuesday. Access to high-speed Internet has become essential for economic and social reasons. She warned that Vermont was behind the curve in using and viewing all the material available on the Web. "We really need access for all people," she said. In the town of Tunbridge, voters approved the measure from the floor with only a single nay vote, according to Janet Zug, who serves on an committee organizing outreach for the network. She began working with a local committee investigating wireless Internet opportunities which recently folded into the fiber-optic network organization. "We were looking at wireless before we heard about this fiber to the home option," she said. "That's the pot of gold." High-speed Internet is only available in a few spots in Tunbridge ? but not anywhere near Zug's home, where she runs a glass-blowing business. Her 26k dial-up Internet makes it a hassle to update her Web site and conduct other vital business, she said. "I do a lot of shipping and it takes about four minutes to load an item I need on the UPS Web site," she said. "It's outrageous." Organizers of the effort will probably meet tonight to take a look at which towns expressed interest in the network and where to go from here, Williams said. With the already large amount of towns coming on board, he said some of the project may need to occur over several phases. He encouraged residents in interested towns to begin pre-registering, which increases the chances their community is seen as a viable to launch the project. "The more towns that pre-register, the easier it will be raise the money," Williams said. Towns that voted for the network are Randolph, Sharon, Strafford, Vershire, Pittsfield, Brookfield, Pomfret, Stockbridge, Barnard, Bethel, Norwich, Royalton, Tunbridge, Hartford, Rochester, Thetford, West Fairlee, Woodstock and Reading. Contact Daniel Barlow at Daniel.Barlow at rutlandherald.com. ----- And now Tim Nulty's only trick will be to raise the money -- He's going for leases (investors own the network and leas eit back for, say, 15 years) to raise something like $80 million. That's already a big number for that kind of financing, and more towns jumped in without prodding. Tim is something of a genius, though -- PhD in finance, highly positioned in Clinton Administration, etc. So he'll probably figure something out. Steven S. Ross Editor-in-Chief Broadband Properties steve at broadbandproperties.com www.bbpmag.com SKYPE: editorsteve +1 781-284-8810 +1 646-216-8030 fax +1 201-456-5933 mobile From rl at radlab.com Fri Mar 7 08:54:23 2008 From: rl at radlab.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 08:54:23 -0800 (PST) Subject: [1st-mile-nm] NMHU: CyberInfrastructure Conference Message-ID: Of interest to many on this list, is the upcoming NM CyberInfrastructure Conference, this Monday and Tuesday, March 10-11, 2007 at New Mexico Highlands University Sala De Madrid Building Las Vegas, NM "The goal of this conference is to bring together users and suppliers of cyber infrastructure to find solutions for both national and local needs that support New Mexico." The program, with a number of key New Mexico and national expert presenters (including some subscribed to this list), will address high bandwidth networking, including Internet 2, applications for education as well as emerging economic development, media arts, supercomputing, visualization and modelling, and more. The Conference web page is at www.nmhu.edu/about/nmcidays/ Conference Agenda (PDF) is at the bottom of the web page. The national CyberInfrastructure "work in progress" web site is at www.cidays.org See some of you there. rl ------------------------------------------------ Richard Lowenberg P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110, 505-603-5200 cell 1st-Mile Institute New Mexico Broadband Initiative www.1st-mile.com ------------------------------------------------ From rl at radlab.com Fri Mar 7 08:59:49 2008 From: rl at radlab.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 08:59:49 -0800 (PST) Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Santa Fe Complex Barcamp Santa Fe (fwd) Message-ID: Another event of interest to some of you, is the Barcamp at the new Santa Fe Complex, today and tomorrow. Log on to the event wiki web site, noted below. The site includes links to more information about barcamps, and the event program and contact info. rl ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 23:12:38 -0700 From: Stephen Guerin To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' Subject: [FRIAM] ** reminder ** Santa Fe Complex Barcamp Santa Fe Just a reminder that Santa Fe Complex will be hosting Barcamp Santa Fe tomorrow (Friday) and Saturday. There's still time to register to attend -- go to http://barcamp.org/BarCampSantaFe. Talks will be from 1-5p tomorrow and Dinner at the Cowgirl from 5:30p - 8. Saturday will go from 10a-5p. FRIAM will meet at its usual place and time at St. Johns. Folks are invited to come down to Santa Fe Complex after FRIAM to check out the venue and have some snacks before Barcamp begins. -Stephen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org From rl at radlab.com Sat Mar 8 09:19:29 2008 From: rl at radlab.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 09:19:29 -0800 (PST) Subject: [1st-mile-nm] NM Telehealth Message-ID: I was hoping to post a link to yesterday's article in the Santa Fe New Mexican, titled "Telehealth grid expands for better rural care", noting the FCC grant, previously reported about on this list, and of the work of Dr. Dale Alverson, with UNM's Telehealth Center, and others. I have not been able to find the link, though. Here, however, is a late Feb. article from the Business Journal, on the same topic. rl ----- New Mexico Business Weekly - February 29, 2008 http://albuquerque.bizjournals.com/albuquerque/stories/2008/02/25/daily31.html UNM Health Sciences plans $15.5 million telehealth grid The University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center's Center for Telehealth and Cybermedicine Research has been awarded $15.5 million from the Federal Communications Commission for the design, construction, operation and evaluation of a Southwest Telehealth Access Grid. Telehealth and telemedicine services can provide patients in rural areas access to medical specialties in areas like oncology, cardiology, pediatrics and radiology -- in some instances without leaving their homes or communities. It will allow patients to heal and recover in a more familiar environment. The system also could be transitioned for emergency use in the event of a natural or other disaster. The grid will be developed as part of the federal commission's Rural Health Care Pilot Program, a three-year, $417 million nationwide project that will build an infrastructure for a network of 69 statewide or regional broadband telehealth sites. The program will use broadband capabilities for sharing telemedicine clinical services across sites and will provide education and training programs to rural health care professionals. More than 500 health-related facilities in New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California, Texas and Utah, including Indian Health Services, ultimately will be served by the Southwest Telehealth Access Grid. The grid is a partnership between the University of New Mexico, the Arizona Telemedicine Program and the Southwest Indian Health Service Telehealth Consortium and associated tribes. The consortium comprises the Center for High Performance Computing, the university's Electrical & Computer Engineering Department, the New Mexico Institute of Mining & Technology, New Mexico State University, the state Department of Health, the Arizona Telemedicine Program, Holy Cross Hospital, Presbyterian Medical Services, Sangre de Cristo Community Health Partnership and the Southwest Indian Health Service. American City Business Journals Inc. All rights reserved. ------------------------------------------------ Richard Lowenberg P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110, 505-603-5200 cell 1st-Mile Institute New Mexico Broadband Initiative www.1st-mile.com ------------------------------------------------ From pete at ideapete.com Sat Mar 8 09:37:35 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Sat, 08 Mar 2008 10:37:35 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] NM Telehealth In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47D2CEDF.6030808@ideapete.com> http://www.santafenewmexican.com/HealthandScience/Telehealth-grid-expands-for-better-rural-care Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ Richard Lowenberg wrote: > I was hoping to post a link to yesterday's article in the Santa Fe New > Mexican, titled "Telehealth grid expands for better rural care", noting > the FCC grant, previously reported about on this list, and of the work of > Dr. Dale Alverson, with UNM's Telehealth Center, and others. I have not > been able to find the link, though. > > Here, however, is a late Feb. article from the Business Journal, on the > same topic. > rl > ----- > > New Mexico Business Weekly - February 29, 2008 > http://albuquerque.bizjournals.com/albuquerque/stories/2008/02/25/daily31.html > > UNM Health Sciences plans $15.5 million telehealth grid > > The University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center's Center for > Telehealth and Cybermedicine Research has been awarded $15.5 million from > the Federal Communications Commission for the design, construction, > operation and evaluation of a Southwest Telehealth Access Grid. > > Telehealth and telemedicine services can provide patients in rural areas > access to medical specialties in areas like oncology, cardiology, > pediatrics and radiology -- in some instances without leaving their homes > or communities. It will allow patients to heal and recover in a more > familiar environment. The system also could be transitioned for emergency > use in the event of a natural or other disaster. > > The grid will be developed as part of the federal commission's Rural > Health Care Pilot Program, a three-year, $417 million nationwide project > that will build an infrastructure for a network of 69 statewide or > regional broadband telehealth sites. The program will use broadband > capabilities for sharing telemedicine clinical services across sites and > will provide education and training programs to rural health care > professionals. > > More than 500 health-related facilities in New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, > California, Texas and Utah, including Indian Health Services, ultimately > will be served by the Southwest Telehealth Access Grid. > > The grid is a partnership between the University of New Mexico, the > Arizona Telemedicine Program and the Southwest Indian Health Service > Telehealth Consortium and associated tribes. > > The consortium comprises the Center for High Performance Computing, the > university's Electrical & Computer Engineering Department, the New Mexico > Institute of Mining & Technology, New Mexico State University, the state > Department of Health, the Arizona Telemedicine Program, Holy Cross > Hospital, Presbyterian Medical Services, Sangre de Cristo Community Health > Partnership and the Southwest Indian Health Service. > > American City Business Journals Inc. All rights reserved. > > > ------------------------------------------------ > Richard Lowenberg > P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 > 505-989-9110, 505-603-5200 cell > > 1st-Mile Institute > New Mexico Broadband Initiative > www.1st-mile.com > ------------------------------------------------ > > > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Sat Mar 8 09:41:50 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Sat, 08 Mar 2008 10:41:50 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] NM Telehealth In-Reply-To: <47D2CEDF.6030808@ideapete.com> References: <47D2CEDF.6030808@ideapete.com> Message-ID: <47D2CFDE.9030008@ideapete.com> http://hsc.unm.edu/som/telehealth/research.shtml Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ peter wrote: > http://www.santafenewmexican.com/HealthandScience/Telehealth-grid-expands-for-better-rural-care > > > Peter Baston > > *IDEAS* > > /www.ideapete.com/ > > > > > > > > > Richard Lowenberg wrote: >> I was hoping to post a link to yesterday's article in the Santa Fe New >> Mexican, titled "Telehealth grid expands for better rural care", noting >> the FCC grant, previously reported about on this list, and of the work of >> Dr. Dale Alverson, with UNM's Telehealth Center, and others. I have not >> been able to find the link, though. >> >> Here, however, is a late Feb. article from the Business Journal, on the >> same topic. >> rl >> ----- >> >> New Mexico Business Weekly - February 29, 2008 >> http://albuquerque.bizjournals.com/albuquerque/stories/2008/02/25/daily31.html >> >> UNM Health Sciences plans $15.5 million telehealth grid >> >> The University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center's Center for >> Telehealth and Cybermedicine Research has been awarded $15.5 million from >> the Federal Communications Commission for the design, construction, >> operation and evaluation of a Southwest Telehealth Access Grid. >> >> Telehealth and telemedicine services can provide patients in rural areas >> access to medical specialties in areas like oncology, cardiology, >> pediatrics and radiology -- in some instances without leaving their homes >> or communities. It will allow patients to heal and recover in a more >> familiar environment. The system also could be transitioned for emergency >> use in the event of a natural or other disaster. >> >> The grid will be developed as part of the federal commission's Rural >> Health Care Pilot Program, a three-year, $417 million nationwide project >> that will build an infrastructure for a network of 69 statewide or >> regional broadband telehealth sites. The program will use broadband >> capabilities for sharing telemedicine clinical services across sites and >> will provide education and training programs to rural health care >> professionals. >> >> More than 500 health-related facilities in New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, >> California, Texas and Utah, including Indian Health Services, ultimately >> will be served by the Southwest Telehealth Access Grid. >> >> The grid is a partnership between the University of New Mexico, the >> Arizona Telemedicine Program and the Southwest Indian Health Service >> Telehealth Consortium and associated tribes. >> >> The consortium comprises the Center for High Performance Computing, the >> university's Electrical & Computer Engineering Department, the New Mexico >> Institute of Mining & Technology, New Mexico State University, the state >> Department of Health, the Arizona Telemedicine Program, Holy Cross >> Hospital, Presbyterian Medical Services, Sangre de Cristo Community Health >> Partnership and the Southwest Indian Health Service. >> >> American City Business Journals Inc. All rights reserved. >> >> >> ------------------------------------------------ >> Richard Lowenberg >> P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 >> 505-989-9110, 505-603-5200 cell >> >> 1st-Mile Institute >> New Mexico Broadband Initiative >> www.1st-mile.com >> ------------------------------------------------ >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 1st-mile-nm mailing list >> 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm >> >> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Sun Mar 9 20:45:53 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Sun, 09 Mar 2008 21:45:53 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] =?windows-1252?q?Free_Municipal_Wi-Fi_Has_Hit_the_S?= =?windows-1252?q?treets_=97_Mostly_in_Places_You=27ve_Never_Heard_Of?= Message-ID: <47D4AEF1.8060800@ideapete.com> http://www.wired.com/special_multimedia/2008/st_atlas_1603 -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Tue Mar 11 14:22:44 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 14:22:44 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Environmental Impact of Fiber to the Home Message-ID: <20080311142244.f744x5yzk08ksw0c@www2.dcn.org> Following is a forwarded posting from Bill St.Arnaud, of the CANARIE project in Canada. Bill's has a blog dedicated to the environmental impacts and issues regarding broadband networking development, that some of you may find of interest. Here he cites a new EU report, for which there is a .pdf link, below. rl -----Original Message----- From: news-bounces at canarie.ca On Behalf Of Bill St.Arnaud Sent: March 11, 2008 11:11 AM To: news at canarie.ca Subject: [CAnet - news] Environmental Impact of Fiber to the Home For more information on this item please visit my blog at http://green-broadband.blogspot.com/ or http://billstarnaud.blogspot.com ------------------------------------------- [Here is an excellent study by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the European Fiber To The Home Council of the environmental benefits of FTTH, taking into account all the CO2 emissions that are produced in the construction and deployment of the fiber, measured against the savings of only two potential applications - tele-commuting and tele-medicine. No surprise, that the greatest amount of CO2 emissions is digging up the ground to bury the fiber. All the more reason to have shared conduit (or poles where available). I suspect the CO2 savings will be significantly greater if they looked at wider range of applications, especially those that promoted the trading of "bits and bandwidth for carbon". The reality is that carbon offsets of tele-commuting and tele-medicine are relatively quite small in the great scheme of things. Since consumers are directly responsible or influence 60% of all CO2 emissions, network applications that enable or encourage consumers to reduce their carbon footprint in these other walks of life will pay much bigger dividends. Thanks to Joeri Van Bogaert for this pointer -- BSA] http://www.ftthcouncil.eu/documents/Blog%20documents/Christian%20Ollivry%20and%20Philippe%20Osset.pdf -As a main quantitative finding, the environmental impact of the deployment of a typical FTTH network will be positive in less than 14 years considering only the three selected services . Additional either existing or developing applications will further emphasize these results . Beyond its environmental-friendly aspects, FTTH solutions offer additional social and economical benefits -If further physical barriers are reduced (ducts access in particular), and full range of services are developing, contributions will be far bigger ------------------------------------- To subscribe or unsubscribe send e-mail to bill.st.arnaud at canarie.ca These news items and comments are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect those of the CANARIE board or management. ----------- Bill.St.Arnaud at canarie.ca Bill.St.Arnaud at gmail.com web: www.canarie.ca/~bstarn skype: pocketpro blog: http://billstarnaud.blogspot.com/ _____________________________________________ news mailing list news at canarie.ca http://lists.canarie.ca/mailman/listinfo/news ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From pete at ideapete.com Wed Mar 12 10:18:30 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 11:18:30 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Subject: Don't believe everything you think category Message-ID: <47D81066.1050004@ideapete.com> This is just a human reminder about how far off tangent we get when trying to describe normal in this world and is especially pertinent in designing communications systems and how for large groups s of people they are quite frankly "Life changing " http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-03/ff_autism WOW well done I stand in awe is all I will say I found it especially interesting to note the high utilization of 3D and other multi dimensional concept visualization among so called autistics as opposed to so called normals - ( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tom at jtjohnson.com Thu Mar 13 15:18:50 2008 From: tom at jtjohnson.com (Tom Johnson) Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2008 15:18:50 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] FW: Delayed and or blocked emails In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: FYI. -Tom Johnson ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Roger Helbig Date: Wed, Mar 12, 2008 at 11:26 PM Subject: [IRE-L] FW: Delayed and or blocked emails To: IRE-L at po.missouri.edu The following is really disturbing. I have made a number of complaints because mail to my Comcast friends is undeliverable. I did not realize that it has been a deliberate Comcast strategy to extort payment from competiting ISPs. I just want to let all of you who are not Comcast subscribers and even those of you who may be that Comcast needs to be stopped and I intend to spread this as far as possible. Roger Helbig -----Original Message----- From: CaliforniaCom Staff [mailto:info at california.com] Sent: Wednesday, March 12, 2008 3:15 PM To: alldomains at california.com Subject: Delayed and or blocked emails CaliforniaCom / SFO.COM Members: We have been in contact with Comcast for months now trying to resolve the delaying and blocking of emails. We have also sent out several mass emails explaining what the problem is. Here is a past link sent with some info. http://www.comcastblacklist.com Or you can do a google search for " Net Neutrality" Below email is the latest we received on the FCC / Comcast hearings. We will continue to follow up each week to try and get this resolved. It appears unless the FCC or courts force Comcast to be regulated like other Internet companies, They will be putting other ISP's out of business or force them to pay to let others email their clients. Google won a suit already and forced Comcast to unblock their emails coming in. So you can setup a free email acct. through gmail.com and be able to get emails through to Comcast members. A large number of emails and or too large size of emails will still get you personally blocked though. Wish we had betters news. Below is an email from an Organization trying to help stop The Internet being taken over by Comcast, Verizon and AT&T. A new bill has been introduced in U.S. House that would stop Comcast, Verizon and AT&T from controlling what you do, and where you go online. Inorder to stop Internet blocking and censorship once and for all. Please take the time to fill out the information below and push submit, this will automatically send it to your members of Congress. http://free.convio.net/site/Advocacy?pagename=homepage&id=241 Thanks for your continued support. CaliforniaCom Inc. / SFO.com Staff Email From: http://freepress.net/ SavetheInternet.com Just when you thought they couldn't stoop any lower, Comcast stole your seat! Now we need your help to fight back. As you know, at an FCC hearing in Cambridge last Monday designed to get to the bottom of Comcast's Internet blocking, Comcast had the audacity to flood the meeting room with paid seat-fillers -- shutting out more than 100 people who took time off from work and school to be there. Why would Comcast stack the room? To prevent real people -- like you and me -- from attending the hearing and raising our voices about Comcast's outrageous actions. This is just one more reason why we must restore Net Neutrality as the law of the land. And why SavetheInternet.com (the coalition organized by Free Press to fight for an open Internet) Support the SavetheInternet.com Coalition Comcast is the nation's largest cable TV operator and second-largest Internet service provider. They're one of a small handful of would-be Internet "gatekeepers" who have the potential to radically redefine what the Internet means. They want to transform the Internet from a free and open frontier into a tightly restricted corporate profit stream. We can't let them succeed. But we need your help to fight for the public interest at the FCC and in Congress against the mega-companies like Comcast who are already spending millions of dollars on lobbyists and fake grassroots groups to defeat us. SavetheInternet.com won't stoop to pay "seat fillers" to stack the deck at FCC hearings. But with your contribution we can organize Internet users into a powerful, vocal force; provide expert research and testimony to Congress and the FCC; expose the bad acts of companies like Comcast; and make sure the public hears about what these companies are doing. We Need Your Help. Support SavetheInternet.com Today. Comcast has billions. We have you. The Internet won't stay open for long if people like us don't take action to defend it. Sincerely, Josh Silver Executive Director Free Press http://freepress.net/ SavetheInternet.com P.S. Watch this video of the Comcast seat-fillers on Monday. They didn't know why they were occupying seats at an FCC hearing. They just knew that a big company was paying them to do it. Now that you know the truth, help SavetheInternet.com fight back. Take action on this important campaign at: http://free.convio.net/site/Advocacy?pagename=homepage&id=241 Tell your friends about this campaign at: http://free.convio.net/site/Ecard?ecard_id=1161 =================================================================== To unsubscribe from IRE-L, please send "unsubscribe IRE-L" in the body of an e-mail message to "listserv at lists.missouri.edu". Please e-mail listmaster at ire.org if you need help or have questions. =================================================================== -- ========================================== J. T. Johnson Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA www.analyticjournalism.com 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) http://www.jtjohnson.com tom at jtjohnson.com "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." -- Buckminster Fuller ========================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Thu Mar 13 16:24:45 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2008 17:24:45 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] FW: Delayed and or blocked emails / Its not only Comcast playing games read below In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47D9B7BD.70305@ideapete.com> Does yahoo allow and sell to spammers the ability to see your email. Does yahoo deliberately mess with spam filters to force users to go to its website to falsely boost usage Is Comcast a willing participant Consider the following Several months ago we started to get complaints from our users that our spam filters were failing, more junk was getting through, regular outbound mail addresses and the resultant return email was getting trashed mixed in with the spam and more. One persistent person also spotted this fascinating detail. If you sent out a genuine email addressed say to Dr Art Winhauser within 24 hours you were getting porn and trash email directed back at the same addressee with several derivations of that name such as Dr Art Winehouse / Dr Art Whinehas and many more. Our websites are hosted by yahoo and so yahoo email client is used with either Thunderbird or Outlook on the desktop or directly through the browser at Yahoo but with our Cable host ISP Comcast. We looked at this weird phenomena and sure enough testing as many contacts we had with very unusual names found a definite pattern. So how are spammers getting this information ? Is Someone is letting spammers have access to email patterns on the main email servers but who, if its not Yahoo then a massive security breach must be happening. When we raised this with Yahoo support, on several occasions, they chose to deliberately misunderstand the question and continually blame users security, spam and junk settings, acts of god , Microsoft the Cable ISP and more.. Most of the calls which ended up in India apparently reached great heights in the support tree and it was obvious that Yahoo knows something they are not disclosing. Trying to get any feedback from Comcast was a lesson in futility Then like deja-vu, from someone who knows what was going on in Yahoo we find out this. 1. Yahoo is selling email addresses to spammers and are also selling pattern name links 2. The filters are being deliberately scrambled to push users to log on to the Yahoo site and drive up traffic, the point is that you will only see a good email message in your trash once and like a doubting Thomas you will continually be mindful of carefully sorting though the spam folder constantly opening spam with a similar name to one of your genuine contacts, all the time creating hits for the spammers and driving up revenue for both the spammers and Yahoo. 3. Comcast also is doing this and is a willing partner Any questions regarding the above are referred to as technical customer errors Don't think this is happening " Run your own tests you will see the responses quick enough " Somewhere in the line of communication either Comcast and or Yahoo are playing games with your email and web access and violating every tenant of web security and your usage rights ( : ( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ Tom Johnson wrote: > FYI. > > -Tom Johnson > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: *Roger Helbig* > > Date: Wed, Mar 12, 2008 at 11:26 PM > Subject: [IRE-L] FW: Delayed and or blocked emails > To: IRE-L at po.missouri.edu > > > The following is really disturbing. I have made a number of complaints > because mail to my Comcast friends is undeliverable. I did not > realize that > it has been a deliberate Comcast strategy to extort payment from > competiting > ISPs. I just want to let all of you who are not Comcast subscribers and > even those of you who may be that Comcast needs to be stopped and I intend > to spread this as far as possible. > > Roger Helbig > > -----Original Message----- > From: CaliforniaCom Staff [mailto:info at california.com > ] > Sent: Wednesday, March 12, 2008 3:15 PM > To: alldomains at california.com > Subject: Delayed and or blocked emails > > > CaliforniaCom / SFO.COM Members: > > We have been in contact with Comcast for months now trying > to resolve the delaying and blocking of emails. We > have also sent out several mass emails explaining what the > problem is. Here is a past link sent with some info. > http://www.comcastblacklist.com > Or you can do a google search for " Net Neutrality" > > Below email is the latest we received on the FCC / Comcast > hearings. > > We will continue to follow up each week to try and get this > resolved. It appears unless the FCC or courts force Comcast > to be regulated like other Internet companies, They will be > putting other ISP's out of business or force them to pay to > let others email their clients. > > Google won a suit already and forced Comcast to unblock > their emails coming in. So you can setup a free email acct. > through gmail.com and be able to get emails through to > Comcast members. A large number of emails and or too large > size of emails will still get you personally blocked > though. > > Wish we had betters news. Below is an email from an > Organization trying to help stop The Internet being taken > over by Comcast, Verizon and AT&T. > > A new bill has been introduced in U.S. House that would > stop Comcast, Verizon and AT&T from controlling what you > do, and where you go online. > > Inorder to stop Internet blocking and censorship once and > for all. Please take the time to fill out the information > below and push submit, this will automatically send it to > your members of Congress. > http://free.convio.net/site/Advocacy?pagename=homepage&id=241 > > > Thanks for your continued support. > CaliforniaCom Inc. / SFO.com Staff > > Email From: > http://freepress.net/ > SavetheInternet.com Just > when you thought they couldn't > stoop any lower, > Comcast stole your seat! Now we need your help to fight > back. > > As you know, at an FCC hearing in Cambridge last Monday > designed to get to the bottom of Comcast's Internet > blocking, Comcast had the audacity to flood the meeting > room with paid seat-fillers -- shutting out more than 100 > people who took time off from work and school to be there. > > Why would Comcast stack the room? To prevent real people -- > like you and me -- from attending the hearing and raising > our voices about Comcast's outrageous actions. > > This is just one more reason why we must restore Net > Neutrality as the law of the land. And why > SavetheInternet.com (the coalition organized by Free Press > to fight for an open Internet) > > Support the SavetheInternet.com Coalition > > Comcast is the nation's largest cable TV operator and > second-largest Internet service provider. They're one of a > small handful of would-be Internet "gatekeepers" who have > the potential to radically redefine what the Internet > means. > > They want to transform the Internet from a free and open > frontier into a tightly restricted corporate profit stream. > We can't let them succeed. > > But we need your help to fight for the public interest at > the FCC and in Congress against the mega-companies like > Comcast who are already spending millions of dollars on > lobbyists and fake grassroots groups to defeat us. > > SavetheInternet.com won't stoop to pay "seat fillers" to > stack the deck at FCC hearings. > > But with your contribution we can organize Internet users > into a powerful, vocal force; provide expert research and > testimony to Congress and the FCC; expose the bad acts of > companies like Comcast; and make sure the public hears > about what these companies are doing. > > We Need Your Help. Support SavetheInternet.com Today. > > Comcast has billions. We have you. The Internet won't stay > open for long if people like us don't take action to defend > it. > > Sincerely, > > Josh Silver > Executive Director > Free Press > http://freepress.net/ > SavetheInternet.com > > P.S. Watch this video of the Comcast seat-fillers on > Monday. They didn't know why they were occupying seats at > an FCC hearing. They just knew that a big company was > paying them to do it. Now that you know the truth, help > SavetheInternet.com fight back. > > > Take action on this important campaign at: > http://free.convio.net/site/Advocacy?pagename=homepage&id=241 > > > Tell your friends about this campaign at: > http://free.convio.net/site/Ecard?ecard_id=1161 > > =================================================================== > To unsubscribe from IRE-L, please send "unsubscribe IRE-L" in the > body of an e-mail message to "listserv at lists.missouri.edu > ". Please > e-mail listmaster at ire.org if you need help > or have questions. > =================================================================== > > > > > > -- > ========================================== > J. T. Johnson > Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA > www.analyticjournalism.com > 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) > http://www.jtjohnson.com tom at jtjohnson.com > > "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. > To change something, build a new model that makes the > existing model obsolete." > -- Buckminster Fuller > ========================================== > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tom at jtjohnson.com Thu Mar 13 19:46:41 2008 From: tom at jtjohnson.com (Tom Johnson) Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2008 19:46:41 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Video Road Hogs Stir Fear of Internet Traffic Jam - New York Times Message-ID: Hard times a'comin' folks. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/13/technology/13net.html?_r=1&st=cse&sq=internet+speed&scp=1&oref=slogin--- A couple afternoons back I came home to my house a mile south of Santa Fe's plaza. It's a pretty densely populated neighborhood, with fairly tech savvy neighbors. There were four or five Qwest trucks in the street out front, a guy up the pole nearest my place, and four or five others standing in the street "supervising." So what's up? I asked. "We're replacing the phone lines into your house," said one. With what? "We're putting in new twisted-pair copper," he said. Oh? What's the difference between this and the twisted pair I have now? "This will give you a better DSL connection," he said. (I don't have DSL, but.....) So how far away is the nearest fiber optic line, I asked? "Don't know," he said. "We're not from around here." Oh. --tj ========================================== J. T. Johnson Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA www.analyticjournalism.com 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) http://www.jtjohnson.com tom at jtjohnson.com "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." -- Buckminster Fuller ========================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Fri Mar 14 11:34:13 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2008 11:34:13 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: McCain's telecom associations Message-ID: <20080314113413.v29pm6z9pz4w4040@www2.dcn.org> A forwarded message from subscriber, Carroll Cagle >From the Washington Post Weekly (March 3-9 edition). The article notes that John McCain's "chief political adviser, Charles R. Black Jr., is chairman of one of Washington's lobbying powerhouses, BKSH and Associates, which has represented AT&T (among others)." Here is another excerpt: "McCain's top fundraising official is former Republican congressman Tom Loeffler of Texas, who heads a lobbying firm called the Loeffler Group. He has counseled the Saudis as well as Southwest Airlines, AT&T, Toyota and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America." Another: "Even before McCain finished his Feb. 21 news conference, uber-lobbyist Black made the rounds of television networks to defend charges that he has been tainted by this relationship with a lobbyist. Black's current clients include General Motors, United Technologies, JPMorgan and AT&T." Having lobbyist/campaign advisers who work for the biggest, most anti-competitive telecom incumbent would not seem to bode well for open networks, net neutrality or any other such notions, if there were to be a McCain Administration. Carroll ----- End forwarded message ----- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. -------------- next part -------------- This message is in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_01AC_01C885C7.72158C20 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----=_NextPart_001_01AD_01C885C7.72158C20" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This message is in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_001_01AD_01C885C7.72158C20 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Richard, I don't know if you want to post this to 1-st mile or not but feel free. Otherwise, I thought you might like to know what I saw in The Washington Post Weekly (March 3-9 edition). The article notes that John McCain's "chief political adviser, Charles R. Black Jr., is chairman of one of Washington's lobbying powerhouses, BKSH and Associates, which has represented AT&T (among others)." Here is another excerpt: "McCain's top fundraising official is former Republican congressman Tom Loeffler of Texas, who heads a lobbying firm called the Loeffler Group. He has counseled the Saudis as well as Southwest Airlines, AT&T, Toyota and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America." Another: "Even before McCain finished his Feb. 21 news conference, uber-lobbyist Black made the rounds of television networks to defend charges that he has been tainted by this relationship with a lobbyist. Black's current clients include General Motors, United Technologies, JPMorgan and AT&T." Having lobbyist/campaign advisers who work for the biggest, most anti-competitive telecom incumbent would not seem to bode well for open networks, net neutrality or any other such notions, if there were to be a McCain Administration. Carroll ------=_NextPart_001_01AD_01C885C7.72158C20 Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

  Richard,

 

           = ; I don’t know if you want to post this to 1-st mile or not but feel free.  Otherwise, I thought you might like to know = what I saw in The Washington Post Weekly (March = 3-9 edition).

 

 

           = ; The article notes that John McCain’s “chief political adviser, Charles R. Black Jr., is chairman of one of = Washington’s lobbying powerhouses, BKSH and Associates, which has represented = AT&T (among = others).”   

           = ;

           = ; Here is another excerpt:

 

           = ; “McCain’s top fundraising official is former Republican congressman Tom Loeffler of Texas, who heads a lobbying firm called the Loeffler Group.  He has = counseled the Saudis as well as Southwest Airlines, AT&T, Toyota and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of = America.”

 

           = ; Another:

 

           = ; “Even before McCain finished his Feb. 21 news conference, uber-lobbyist Black made the rounds of television networks = to defend charges that he has been tainted by this relationship with a = lobbyist.  Black’s current clients include General Motors, United = Technologies, JPMorgan and AT&T.”<= /font>

 

           = ; Having lobbyist/campaign advisers who work for the biggest, most anti-competitive telecom incumbent would not seem to bode well for = open networks, net neutrality or any other such notions, if there were to be = a McCain Administration.

 

 

Carroll

           = ;

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URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.gif Type: image/gif Size: 862 bytes Desc: not available URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Sun Mar 16 11:00:29 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2008 11:00:29 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Los Alamos Fiber Blog Message-ID: <20080316110029.ocukfz2vkcsccc44@www2.dcn.org> The City and County of Los Alamos have been in need of improved networking connectivity and services for some time. A few years ago, a fiber initiative was begun, but stalled for a number of reasons. The needs and calls for action continue. Dale Carstensen recently initiated a blog, advocating for fiber to homes and businesses in the greater Los Alamos area. http://fiberlanm.blogspot.com/ postings and responses are just getting started. Take a look. rl -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From john at citylinkfiber.com Sun Mar 16 12:55:06 2008 From: john at citylinkfiber.com (John Brown) Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2008 13:55:06 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Los Alamos Fiber Blog In-Reply-To: <20080316110029.ocukfz2vkcsccc44@www2.dcn.org> References: <20080316110029.ocukfz2vkcsccc44@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: <47DD7B1A.1080609@citylinkfiber.com> These issues are SIMPLE to resolve for those that understand the process. For those that are new to the process (like I was 3 years ago) it can be a very high mountain to climb. In reality its not that high, but takes a measured and unswerving commitment to get it done. Its amazing how many people attempt to "force" the muni to go and build it on the backs of the tax payers. Didn't we do that once already????? I think it was called Ma Bell :) Not sure that is what we want these days. Anyone wanting to seriously engage and create such network can contact me off list. We understand the practical economics and costs to design, build and maintain a fiber network. Its not cheap, but if your ROI time frame is properly adjusted, it can be a home run. By the by, my existence proof of my statements above is in the ground in ABQ. I *OWN* a metro fiber network and have nearly tripled its reach in the 3 years I've owned it. John Brown, President CityLink Fiber Holdings, Inc. Building Neutral Open Access Metro Fiber Networks. Richard Lowenberg wrote: > The City and County of Los Alamos have been in need of improved networking > connectivity and services for some time. A few years ago, a fiber initiative > was begun, but stalled for a number of reasons. The needs and calls for > action continue. > > Dale Carstensen recently initiated a blog, advocating for fiber to homes and > businesses in the greater Los Alamos area. http://fiberlanm.blogspot.com/ > postings and responses are just getting started. Take a look. > > rl > From rl at 1st-mile.com Mon Mar 17 13:23:44 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2008 13:23:44 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] FTTH: Coming From a Government Near You Message-ID: <20080317132344.59eci8ek0oskw44g@www2.dcn.org> We are seeing more and more articles about fiber to the home/premises. Here's one of the most recent, advocating one financing strategy. rl -------- www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=561&doc_id=148317 FTTH: Coming From a Government Near You Written by Tom Nolle 3/14/2008 The future of the Internet depends on its ability to deliver experiences. Things like ?stamping out traffic management? or ?promoting Net neutrality? are abstract issues that just poke at symptoms of the real problem, which is a lack of access bandwidth and quality of service (QOS). The only solution to that real problem is to get fiber to the home (FTTH) in every industrial nation on the planet. And the best way for that to happen is to get the governments involved. Japan and Korea have far better Internet service than the U.S. The reason is because a mile of fiber passes a lot more demand dollars there. Korea and Japan have nine and twelve times the U.S. average of ?demand density.? Some parts of the U.S. are nine to twelve times as dense as other parts. (Verizon has the best demand density, so it?s no surprise that it?s the only Regional Bell operating company [RBOC] committing to FTTH.) You can?t change demand density; no corporation with a profit motive (that?s every public company by definition) will deploy FTTH at a loss; and no abstract Net neutrality legislation is going to fix the problem. What will fix it? Make the telcos into public utilities again? Aside from the fact that deregulation has never been successfully rolled back anywhere, there?s no assurance the ?utility? will even deploy fiber, or that it will be affordable. Use the Universal Service Fund (USF) or its equivalent in other countries to subsidize FTTH? A USF subsidy hurts the middle class and poor because everyone pays USF charges. So, what?s left? The only way to get universal FTTH is to make the bold decision to offer a 100 percent investment tax credit to all those who are willing to deploy FTTH. A tax credit of 100 percent means that any FTTH deployment cost could be simply written off against federal tax, dollar-for-dollar. In effect, the government would be paying for the deployment of FTTH out of tax revenues, which means we?re paying for it out of our income taxes. Income tax is a progressive tax where the burden falls most on the wealthier taxpayers. And that?s where you?ll find high-tech employment -- the group that?s benefiting most from the boom the Internet has already created. State and local governments can also get into the action by permitting FTTH infrastructure to be financed with tax-free bonds. All of this would turn FTTH from a huge cost to a huge benefit to businesses that deployed it, and FTTH would expand radically. In fact, the issue might be keeping FTTH deployment from becoming too good a business. Therefore, we would need fast and objective standards to be set for minimum deployment features. That should be done through an independent industry group with representatives from the Internet community and the access providers, charged with quickly setting the standards for the FTTH infrastructure to be deployed. The second step is to require that all FTTH deployed under the tax credits be perpetually open to competitive access under technically viable requirements, and at a fair and present rate. Access providers already deploying fiber benefit by having their costs reduced. For providers such as Comcast Corp. (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK) that say they must manage traffic to ensure the user experience, this offers a way of expanding the user experience instead. Public utilities that have been looking at low-capacity broadband over power lines could exploit their poles and rights of way with fiber to the home. Any of these choices will expand the capacity and power of the Internet, all without destroying the business models of public companies like the RBOCs that have already invested in infrastructure. It would also help the economy by restoring the innovative drive that became a casualty of the tech bubble, but also gave us the best decade in modern history. There is no question that the Internet is already a powerful public service, and one we can?t assume will be optimized if the disjointed forces of the free market have to somehow carve out profitable niches for all of the players involved. Access is the key to everything, but it?s hard to make it truly flexible and expandable enough to meet present and future needs. A tax-credit subsidy has worked for R&D in general, so let?s expand it to create the Internet of the future. ? Tom Nolle, software engineer and founder of CIMI Corp. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Mon Mar 17 13:45:14 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2008 13:45:14 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Broadband Properties' Articles Message-ID: <20080317134514.lnfphdesxwkg8gww@www2.dcn.org> The latest issue of Broadband Properties Magazine includes some excellent articles. They get better with each issue, as do the publication?s other information resources. Of special interest to this list is the cover story by Christopher Mitchell, Dir. of the Telecommunications, New Rules Project, at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. ?Municipal Broadband: Demystifying Wireless and Fiber Optic Options?, makes a good case for municipalities to consider public broadband ? fiber, and wireless, and not opposing private solutions, either. A .pdf of the entire article is available at: www.broadbandproperties.com For those of us considering a possible New Mexico state broadband initiative, it is worth reading and considering parts of the Special Report: ?California?s Comprehensive Broadband Plan Proposes Public-Private Partnerships?, which includes summarized advice other states and localities might use for their broadband policies, and that the FCC and Congress should take note of, as well. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From Robert.Forman at state.nm.us Wed Mar 19 08:48:03 2008 From: Robert.Forman at state.nm.us (Forman, Robert, DCA) Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2008 09:48:03 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Wireless Spectrum Auction Raises $19 Billion In-Reply-To: <20080317134514.lnfphdesxwkg8gww@www2.dcn.org> References: <20080317134514.lnfphdesxwkg8gww@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: I came across the following in today's NY Times. I thought you all might be interested. "Wireless Spectrum Auction Raises $19 Billion" http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/technology/19fcc.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&o ref=slogin Robert Forman New Mexico State Library Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail, including all attachments is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited unless specifically provided under the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender and destroy all copies of this message. -- This email has been scanned by the Sybari - Antigen Email System. From rl at 1st-mile.com Wed Mar 19 09:01:21 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2008 09:01:21 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] New Wireless Proposal for Rio Rancho Message-ID: <20080319090121.spbrvw3lwgksgccs@www2.dcn.org> From: "Carroll Cagle" Date: March 19, 2008 9:49:45 AM MDT Subject: Azulstar tries, once again, in Rio Rancho Wireless Firm Proposes New Technology For Rio Rancho Albuquerque Journal West Side edition Wednesday, March 19, 2008 By Rosalie Rayburn Journal Staff Writer City staffers are considering a proposal from Azulstar to use new technology to improve its problem-plagued wireless Internet service. The proposal Azulstar founder Tyler van Houwelingen submitted to city staff in late February would use WiMAX technology to overcome problems with intermittent service and slow data transmission. Azulstar's wireless network currently uses Wi-Fi technology. WiMAX, which stands for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, is a newer technology designed to broadcast high-speed signals much greater distances, with fewer problems than Wi-Fi. City spokesman Peter Wells said City Manager Jim Payne received the proposal Feb. 28 and city staff are reviewing it. "It is under consideration and as soon as the appropriate city staff have had a chance to discuss it with Mr. Payne, a decision will be made and we will be in touch with Azulstar," Wells said. But the proposal looks set to affect only a small number of Azulstar customers. Upgrading to the new technology would require customers to purchase additional equipment, which currently costs between $400 and $600, van Houwelingen told the Journal on Tuesday. Azulstar initially plans to offer the new technology to business customers who typically need higher data transfer speeds. Residential customers would continue with the existing service. Azulstar has 15 to 20 business customers and fewer than 1,000 residential subscribers. The company signed a 25-year contract with the city in 2004, which allowed it to locate equipment for its wireless network on city property. City officials terminated that contract in September, citing about $40,000 in unpaid electricity bills and complaints of poor service. The city gave Azulstar until Dec. 31 to remove its equipment, but extended that deadline to allow the company more time to show how it would resolve its problems. Under its now terminated contract, Azulstar was supposed to reimburse the city for electricity used by equipment located on city property. Van Houwelingen said Azulstar is ready to pay the electricity charges. "We basically said, 'If you guys allow us to continue in your city, we'll cut a check,' '' van Houwelingen said. When WiMAX technology emerged a few years ago, industry experts predicted it would greatly enhance Wi-Fi capabilities. ButSanta Fetechnology expert Peter Baston, who is familiar with the RioRancho market, cautioned that WiMax has not always lived up to its promise. "The U.S. Army, after testing all types of systems, including WiMAX, has now gone with fiber and laser (technology)," Baston said, in an e-mail to the Journal on Tuesday. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From ggomes at soundviewnet.com Wed Mar 19 12:34:01 2008 From: ggomes at soundviewnet.com (Gary Gomes) Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2008 13:34:01 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Azulstar Message-ID: <00c501c889f8$2fc51900$0201a8c0@GARY> It appears that Azulstar's WiMax initiative is not limited to Rio Rancho. Azulstar to upgrade its existing municipal WiFi networks with WiMAX Economics, performance and reliability driving upgrades to WiMAX Enterprise connections up to 20Mbps symmetric to be offered, residential connections to 10Mbps Grand Haven, MI - March 17, 2008 - Azulstar today announced that it is enhancing all of its existing municipal Wi-Fi networks with WiMAX technology, using equipment from Airspan Networks and Redline Communications. The networks being upgraded include Grand Haven, MI - America's first municipal Wi-Fi network, which recently entered its 5th year of operation, and are part of larger regional WiMAX rollouts by Azulstar across 15 cities in the mid- and southwest USA including Grand Rapids, MI and Albuquerque, NM. The highly advanced, licensed spectrum WiMAX network is in final stages of testing in Grand Haven and first customers are being connected. The expanded service delivers faster speeds, broader coverage and higher service levels targeted at the enterprise, municipal and high-end residential markets. The network will overlay the existing unlicensed Wi-Fi mesh networks, which will continue to operate supporting visitors and residential customers as long as there is demand. Legacy Wi-Fi customers wanting to move to WiMAX will receive a discount towards their adaptor. Grand Haven Mayor, Roger Bergman said, "We are very excited to bring Grand Haven back to the forefront of municipal wireless by adding WiMAX to our existing citywide Wi-Fi network. We believe this is a technology platform that directly benefits our community's future and immediately reduces our internal IT costs." Tyler van Houwelingen, Azulstar founder and CEO added, "WiMAX dramatically improves the economics, performance and reliability of municipal wireless and is one of the most significant technologies of our time. We applaud the FCC for making more WiMAX spectrum available in the USA. Our customers will be delighted with the service." According to Kevin Suitor, Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at Redline, "We are confident that Azulstar can achieve its objective of bringing better broadband services to more customers in Grand Haven and across their networks with our proven WiMAX solutions. With more than 150 deployments of our RedMAX(tm) products around the world, and the world's first complete WiMAX Forum Certified(r) system, Redline delivers the most advanced and highest capacity WiMAX network available today." Highlights of the planned WiMAX network now being tested include: * Up to 20Mbps symmetric speeds for business and 10Mbps for residential and mobile connections. * IEEE 802.16e-2005 mobile WiMAX technology which incorporates several advances such as MIMO/beam-forming antennas and Scalable-OFDMA. * Licensed-spectrum operation providing service with up to 99.999% reliability. * Direct support for VoIP telephony, IP-Television and municipal applications such as automated meter reading, intelligent transportation and public safety/homeland security access. Azulstar will continue its strategy of owning and operating municipal wireless networks in regions where it can also deploy licensed-spectrum WiMAX. In existing Azulstar projects where Wi-Fi technology is the only viable option due to spectrum limitations, Azulstar has migrated to a subcontractor role, assisting the municipalities and partners achieve their goals, but no longer acting as the network owner. About Azulstar Azulstar Inc., based in Grand Haven, Mich., was formed to enable the rapid rollout of mobile Wi-Fi/WiMAX networks and services and is recognized as a leader in municipal wireless and intelligent transportation. Azulstar leverages a combination of licensed and unlicensed wireless technologies to serve the needs of an entire community. Azulstar teams with governmental agencies, leading companies and private investors to offer mobile broadband voice, data & video services. WiMAX is a registered trademark of the WiMAX Forum. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Media Contact: Ken Gaebler Walker Sands Communications (312) 543-0654 Email: ken at walkersands.com Gary C. Gomes Managing Member SoundView Networks, LLC 5085 Copper Bar Road Las Cruces, NM 88011 575-521-1606 Mobile: 575-202-6383 -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: winmail.dat Type: application/ms-tnef Size: 9694 bytes Desc: not available URL: From pete at ideapete.com Wed Mar 19 13:18:02 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2008 14:18:02 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Azulstar In-Reply-To: <00c501c889f8$2fc51900$0201a8c0@GARY> References: <00c501c889f8$2fc51900$0201a8c0@GARY> Message-ID: <47E174FA.2010503@ideapete.com> Actually its a rehashed press release from about three years ago http://www.walkersands.com/Information-Week-April-18-2005.htm even the same PR firm Personally I don't think much of Azulstar --- to much hype and not enough action The reason they failed in CORR previously was a very very poor business plan and upgrading from 802.11 to 802.16 is not going to change that Read the first press release from 2005 and look at the hype and promises they made for CORR then and failed to deliver anything why should anyone believe what they are saying now especially the bit about " intelligent transportation " what is that a new Volvo or ? ( : ( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ Gary Gomes wrote: > It appears that Azulstar's WiMax initiative is not limited to Rio Rancho. > > Azulstar to upgrade its existing municipal WiFi networks with WiMAX > Economics, performance and reliability driving upgrades to WiMAX > Enterprise connections up to 20Mbps symmetric to be offered, residential > connections to 10Mbps > Grand Haven, MI - March 17, 2008 - Azulstar today announced that it is > enhancing all of its existing municipal Wi-Fi networks with WiMAX > technology, using equipment from Airspan Networks and Redline > Communications. The networks being upgraded include Grand Haven, MI - > America's first municipal Wi-Fi network, which recently entered its 5th year > of operation, and are part of larger regional WiMAX rollouts by Azulstar > across 15 cities in the mid- and southwest USA including Grand Rapids, MI > and Albuquerque, NM. > The highly advanced, licensed spectrum WiMAX network is in final stages of > testing in Grand Haven and first customers are being connected. The expanded > service delivers faster speeds, broader coverage and higher service levels > targeted at the enterprise, municipal and high-end residential markets. The > network will overlay the existing unlicensed Wi-Fi mesh networks, which will > continue to operate supporting visitors and residential customers as long as > there is demand. Legacy Wi-Fi customers wanting to move to WiMAX will > receive a discount towards their adaptor. > Grand Haven Mayor, Roger Bergman said, "We are very excited to bring Grand > Haven back to the forefront of municipal wireless by adding WiMAX to our > existing citywide Wi-Fi network. We believe this is a technology platform > that directly benefits our community's future and immediately reduces our > internal IT costs." > Tyler van Houwelingen, Azulstar founder and CEO added, "WiMAX dramatically > improves the economics, performance and reliability of municipal wireless > and is one of the most significant technologies of our time. We applaud the > FCC for making more WiMAX spectrum available in the USA. Our customers will > be delighted with the service." > According to Kevin Suitor, Vice President of Marketing and Business > Development at Redline, "We are confident that Azulstar can achieve its > objective of bringing better broadband services to more customers in Grand > Haven and across their networks with our proven WiMAX solutions. With more > than 150 deployments of our RedMAX(tm) products around the world, and the > world's first complete WiMAX Forum Certified(r) system, Redline delivers the > most advanced and highest capacity WiMAX network available today." > Highlights of the planned WiMAX network now being tested include: > * Up to 20Mbps symmetric speeds for business and 10Mbps for > residential and mobile connections. > * IEEE 802.16e-2005 mobile WiMAX technology which incorporates several > advances such as MIMO/beam-forming antennas and Scalable-OFDMA. > * Licensed-spectrum operation providing service with up to 99.999% > reliability. > * Direct support for VoIP telephony, IP-Television and municipal > applications such as automated meter reading, intelligent transportation and > public safety/homeland security access. > Azulstar will continue its strategy of owning and operating municipal > wireless networks in regions where it can also deploy licensed-spectrum > WiMAX. In existing Azulstar projects where Wi-Fi technology is the only > viable option due to spectrum limitations, Azulstar has migrated to a > subcontractor role, assisting the municipalities and partners achieve their > goals, but no longer acting as the network owner. > About Azulstar > Azulstar Inc., based in Grand Haven, Mich., was formed to enable the rapid > rollout of mobile Wi-Fi/WiMAX networks and services and is recognized as a > leader in municipal wireless and intelligent transportation. Azulstar > leverages a combination of licensed and unlicensed wireless technologies to > serve the needs of an entire community. Azulstar teams with governmental > agencies, leading companies and private investors to offer mobile broadband > voice, data & video services. > WiMAX is a registered trademark of the WiMAX Forum. All other trademarks are > the property of their respective owners. > Media Contact: > Ken Gaebler > Walker Sands Communications > (312) 543-0654 > Email: ken at walkersands.com > > Gary C. Gomes > Managing Member > SoundView Networks, LLC > 5085 Copper Bar Road > Las Cruces, NM 88011 > 575-521-1606 > Mobile: 575-202-6383 > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Wed Mar 19 15:55:28 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2008 15:55:28 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Southwest Telehealth Project Article Message-ID: <20080319155528.a09m7bucgk4o0gsg@www2.dcn.org> >From the International Herald Tribune FCC grant to create broadband network to help expand telemedicine in the rural West The Associated Press Published: March 19, 2008 ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.: In rural areas, where accessing health care is often a challenge, the doctors and patients of the future will increasingly be linked by virtual interstates. That's the vision of Dr. Dale Alverson, who predicts clinics, hospitals and private doctors' offices will routinely be hooked into a computerized network for telemedicine, allowing specialists to review records of faraway patients, analyze tests remotely and consult doctors elsewhere. "I believe, in the end, telehealth will be part of doing business in the health field, just like we use the telephone," said Alverson, medical director of the Center for Telehealth at the University of New Mexico's Health Sciences Center. "It won't be looked at as something unique or special; it's just what we do. ... Just as for many of us now it's second nature to use the Internet and the Web for health information." A $15.5 million grant from the Federal Communications Commission to the Center for Telehealth and Cybermedicine Research at the Health Sciences Center will be used to design, build, operate and evaluate a Southwest Telehealth Access Grid, a broadband network largely serving rural areas that typically lack such technology. The grant to increase the bandwidth will be a boon to New Mexico, said Gary Bauerschmidt, UNM's director for information technology services and co-chairman of the network design and modeling committee. "There's a lot of sites that have no connectivity or very poor connectivity," he said. "Telehealth is such an advantage here. Doctors just can't travel around our state, and when you get to the reservations, it's even more challenging." The grid of telehealth networks will support rural systems and connections to more than 500 sites, primarily in New Mexico and Arizona, along with several Indian Health Service sites in Colorado, California, Nevada, Texas and Utah. "What this really means is a network of networks, a virtual electronic highway that allows you as a patient to access health care at a distance," Alverson said. Eventually, telemedicine could make virtual house calls, he said. With an aging population and a related increase in chronic disease, "the shift is more to getting the care to the patient where they live," Alverson said. Telemedicine isn't new. The Health Sciences Center has had programs for a dozen years and already connects to nearly 100 sites in 50 communities. It offers telemedicine services in behavioral health, substance abuse and developmental disabilities, among others. But the grid offers a chance to expand. "The idea with the FCC is not only to support our region, but eventually to connect these regions for a national telehealth network," Alverson said. The Southwest initiative was one of 69 nationwide the FCC funded. A grid would not only improve the network for patient care and training health professionals, it would also allow people to switch into emergency mode for disasters or emergencies such as a flu pandemic, he said. Leonard Thomas, chief medical officer for the Albuquerque area Indian Health Service ? which serves 86,000 largely rural residents from southern Colorado to El Paso, Texas ? said the IHS is maxing out its current infrastructure for telemedicine. A grid would let the Albuquerque area IHS offer more than the teleradiology, teleopthlamology and telepsychology it now has. There are about 60 telemedicine services the network could make available, Thomas said. "There's a whole array out there that our providers could definitely use," he said. Alverson expects demand to increase as people see the network's value. "Telehealth doesn't replace the value of physical interaction," he said. "It can't do everything, but it goes a long way to augment" doctor-patient relationships. Telemedicine offers virtual travel to bring the patient to specialized care, allowing doctors to spot problems earlier, make adjustments in the patient's care and avoid trips to faraway specialists, Alverson said. For example, specialized cameras can screen for eye diseases associated with chronic conditions such as diabetes. Screenings can detect problems early, allowing intervention to prevent blindness. Through telemedicine, screenings done in rural areas can be reviewed by urban specialists. Patients who need additional care could travel for it, while those who don't could avoid hours away from home and work, Alverson said. "It's not only keeping people healthier in their community, but it's also keeping them in that community," he said. ___ On the Net: UNM Health Sciences Center: http://hsc.unm.edu/som/telehealth FCC Office for the Advancement of Telehealth: http://www.hrsa.gov/telehealth -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From tom at jtjohnson.com Thu Mar 20 11:42:15 2008 From: tom at jtjohnson.com (Tom Johnson) Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2008 11:42:15 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Intel claims new WiFi radio devices with near 60-mile range. Message-ID: FYI, but I remain skeptical. Perhaps I lived in Missouri too long. -tj March 20th, 2008 New WiFi from Intel improves rural communications Posted by Christopher Dawson @ 2:51 am *Categories:* Education Technology MIT's Technology Reviewis reporting on new WiFi radio devices from Intel that drastically increase the effective range of bridged routers. Intel claims a range between two of the $500 routers near 60 miles, although most implementations are expected to connect wired urban cores with wireless villages within 30 miles. As the article notes, in many areas, it simply isn't feasible to run copper or fiber to these villages: Wireless satellite connections are expensive, [Jeff Galinovsky, a senior platform manager at Intel] points out. And it's impractical to wire up some villages in Asian and African countries. "You can't lay cable," he says. "It's difficult, expensive, and someone is going to pull it up out of the ground to sell it." Most wireless routers wait for acknowledgment from other nodes on the network before sending additional data, drastically reducing bandwidth and range. The new Intel routers use software to set up specific times at which the devices are expected to be communicating, eliminating the need for such acknowledgments. At over 6Mbps, the links provide adequate speed for videoconferencing, and, of course, connecting the exurban classrooms and the Classmate PCs that Intel is rolling out. -- ========================================== J. T. Johnson Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA www.analyticjournalism.com 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) http://www.jtjohnson.com tom at jtjohnson.com "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." -- Buckminster Fuller ========================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Thu Mar 20 12:03:37 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2008 12:03:37 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Intel's Long-Distance Wi-Fi Message-ID: <20080320120337.fyx3crxc84gk0kg4@www2.dcn.org> In response to Tom's posting, I've been hoping for the past couple of days that no one would post to the 1st-Mile list about the Intel long distance wifi transmission announcement. It is less than meets the eye. Following is an informative posting from another list, about this. Be careful of tech-hype. rl ----- Forwarded message from sebastian at less.dk ----- Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2008 09:55:43 +0200 From: sebastian buettrich Dear all, i am normally an interested but quiet reader on this list, but this time around i would like to comment, since i am specializing in community wireless networking On Wed, 2008-03-19 at 05:35 -0400, Ian Thomson wrote: > Hi All, > This is a very confusing press release. Many WIFI practitioners are today getting distances of 30 to 60 kms with parabolic antenna. What is so special about the Intel development? > If it is just that is drops requests to resend packets, then this is doubtful. Any radio engineer will tell you that radio is bad for dropping packets and resending them is necessary to recover the full data. It is absolutely correct - wireless practicioners have been doing up to 300+ km already and the current world record is approx 380 km http://www.eslared.org.ve/articulos/Long%20Distance%20WiFi%20Trial.pdf Distances up to 100 km have never been *that* great challenge and can be done and are frequently done by wireless practicioners - and a lot cheaper than USD 1000 - from around USD 200-300 in wireless gear. For the tech minded, some detail: Going above 100 km, the shortcomings of the MAC 802.11 layer have been the challenge - in simple words, the "hello" and "acknowledge" timeouts between the wireless nodes. This is what the Intel product addresses, not by dropping the ACL altogether, but by using TDMA - if you are interested in more techie details The statements made in the article, ""If you take standard Wi-Fi and focus it," Galinovsky says, "you can't get past a few kilometers."" and in the Intel video can only be called misleading and simply wrong. So, it s more of a PR cloud, misleading people, than "a huge step forward". hope this helps, best to all, sebastian ------------------------------------ dr. sebastian buettrich sebastian at wire.less.dk a free book on wireless networking in the developing world - 2nd edition out now! http://www.wndw.net http://wire.less.dk http://thewirelessroadshow.org ------------------------------------ Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Thu Mar 20 12:38:06 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2008 12:38:06 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] New FCC Broadband Report Message-ID: <20080320123806.qjxmaa2f8kssgcg0@www2.dcn.org> Improving FCC Broadband Data Collection Yesterday, March 19th, the FCC issued a new report that among many other things, updates and upgrades its definition of broadband. A few selected and commented on items: There are now over 100,000,000 high speed connections (as defined by exceeding 200Kbps in one direction) in service in the United States. A little over 60,000,000 are connected to residential dwellings. Of those connections only 5.6% have a greater throughput than 25Mbps. The total number of connections that have speeds in excess of 100Mbps (in one direction) is 21,708 (Japan is close to achieving 100% deployment of 100Mbps). Over 95% of all lines are serviced by the incumbent telco and cable providers. The FCC has decided that 200Kbps (in only on direction) is no longer a true definition of broadband, deciding to increase that rate to 768Kbps (comparable to entry level DSL speed). The Benton Foundation has an excellent summary of the report, with links to the FCC site, and comments/reviews from other broadband policy organizations: www.benton.org/node/10234 www.benton.org/node/10235 The FCC's report, titled "High-Speed Services for Internet Access: Status as of June 30, 2007" can be downloaded at: http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-280906A1.pdf Commentary from Public Knowledge: www.publicknowledge.org/node/1464 Another (C/Net) review of this report is at: http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9898118-7.html -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Thu Mar 20 14:03:59 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2008 14:03:59 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Bloomfield, NM School District Networking Message-ID: <20080320140359.ezbr9izxs88844ko@www2.dcn.org> I recently came across the following article in THE Journal, and educational magazine. The article left me with some questions, which I just spoke to Sondra about. The broadband solution she refers to is a district-wide WiMax network, which provides from 10 to 100Mbps between district schools, for internal communications. External backhaul networking needs are still served by multiple T-1s. Qwest seems to have been very upset with this solution, however, never responded to the District's RFP. Of additional note, 600 students have laptops provided by a grant from the New Mexico Laptop Planning Initiative. rl --------- March 2008 ? News Case Study: Bloomfield SD's Migration to Broadband and VoIP by Sondra Adams As the IT director for Bloomfield School District in New Mexico, I faced a major challenge with our infrastructure when it came time to upgrade our network and voice systems to meet our educational and technological objectives. The district, with 10 administrative and school sites, is located in a rural area of northwestern portion of the state, which limited the alternatives available to us. Its network was based on T1 connections, and the bandwidth would not support the education initiatives of the district. It was also very expensive, costing us about $5,900 each month. On top of that, another large budget item was $60,000 we paid for annual maintenance on the PBX. Unfortunately we could not rely on Priority 2 E-Rate funding for the maintenance because our E-Rate discount is 77 percent. Funding cutoff for Priority 2 services has varied from 69 percent to 84 percent over the last five years. Bloomfield did not have the budget to upgrade the network, pay for voice T1s, and pay $60,000 in annual maintenance fees. As it turns out, there was a single solution to both of these issues. Partnering with broadband provider Trillion Partners, Bloomfield was able to deploy a WAN with 10 to 100 times the bandwidth of our previous system and migrate our legacy PBX system to a voice over IP (VoIP) service--all for less than what we had previously been paying. The Costs For our district's educational objectives, the obvious option--adding additional T1 lines at 1.5 Mbps--would not have met our bandwidth needs and would have added unreasonably to costs. I met with Trillion, who demonstrated to how we could best implement a broadband WAN that would provide 10 to 100 times the bandwidth of the old network and save money. And we'd be able to eliminate our old T1 lines and the cost of maintenance for our PBX-based voice system by implementing a VoIP service as part of the deployment. (And, as an added bonus, we'd eliminate the onsite maintenance requirements of that PBX.) With VoIP, we were able to eliminate most of the expensive T1s. And, because Trillion's service is Priority 1, we essentially turned the $60,000 that we were paying out of pocket for PBX maintenance into $261,000 worth of Priority 1 E-Rate services. (As a 77 percent E-Rate district, we pay 23 percent out-of-pocket. Hence $60,000/0.23 = $261,000.) The savings from eliminating T1s and the buying power of Priority 1 services helped us fund both our new broadband WAN and our new VoIP services for less than we were paying before. Improved Network and Telecommunications This new high-speed broadband WAN has helped us revolutionize communications within our district, providing over 10 to 100 times the bandwidth of our old T1 network. This year we are deploying 15 new teaching and administrative applications across our district to enhance learning and increase productivity. The VoIP telephony service is enabling our teachers to stay more connected with parents, collaborate better with each other and feel safer knowing they can get help if they need it. Our new service provider delivers our WAN, Internet and VoIP telephony services--giving us one point of accountability. At first, I was reluctant to install a new telephony system. Our previous installation had been very painful, taking many months to deploy. We had constant problems with our vendor and with the carrier supplying T1 connectivity to our schools. Another pain point with our legacy PBX solution was end user administration that required my team to travel onsite. When Trillion mentioned VoIP, I was also concerned about the overall impact it would have on my team. We had experience with PBX-based telephony, but none of us had experience with VoIP. I'd heard that VoIP could be complex to manage. But after much discussion and reference checks we decided to implement the broadband WAN and VoIP telephony solution throughout the Bloomfield district, and my concerns turned out to be unfounded. The deployment across 10 sites involving more than 400 handsets took three days. As for the impact, users really appreciated the new phones, and the new system was quickly adopted. Teachers liked the ability to stay in touch with parents from the privacy of their classroom. Teachers also said they felt more comfortable knowing they could communicate with the outside world during a lockdown. The system has also been used for safety measures. Recently, one of our teachers received obscene and threatening voice messages while at work. We used call records to trace the caller to a local motel where authorities were able to arrest the perpetrator. We wouldn't have been able to do that with our legacy system. Our IT department has also benefited from the migration to the new network and VoIP. Instead of adding more work to my staff, our VoIP service has actually decreased our workload while helping us provide better service to our administrators and teachers. With Trillion's solution in place I've essentially added highly skilled network and VoIP engineers to my staff that work 24 hours a day. They monitor and manage the system around the clock. Unlike my previous vendor, my new VoIP service does not require me to go onsite to make end user changes. I can make end user changes, at any of our 10 sites, while sitting at my desk. About the author: Sondra Adams is the director of technology for Bloomfield School District, New Mexico. She can be reached at sadams at bsin.k12.nm.us. Trillion, Inc., Austin, TX www.trillion.net -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From pete at ideapete.com Thu Mar 20 17:42:47 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2008 18:42:47 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Intel's Long-Distance Wi-Fi In-Reply-To: <20080320120337.fyx3crxc84gk0kg4@www2.dcn.org> References: <20080320120337.fyx3crxc84gk0kg4@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: <47E30487.6070808@ideapete.com> Hi Sebastian Loved your piece, and you are right, its so sad when companies make huge amount of money from hype " Its just radio indeed " spot on First wif fi was the answer to all the worlds problems then it becomes long distance wif fi ( upgrade upgrade same crappy service ) then the ever mystifying Wimax then long distance wi max and on and on. I would love to chime in ( U2 Richard )and give us you full take on WIMAX -- now that all the big companies like Sprint and Clearwire are abandoning it like crazy What we really need is fiber lots and lots of fiber and nothing but fiber ( : ( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ Richard Lowenberg wrote: > In response to Tom's posting, I've been hoping for the past couple of days that > no one would post to the 1st-Mile list about the Intel long distance wifi > transmission announcement. It is less than meets the eye. Following is an > informative posting from another list, about this. Be careful of tech-hype. > rl > > ----- Forwarded message from sebastian at less.dk ----- > Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2008 09:55:43 +0200 > From: sebastian buettrich > > Dear all, > i am normally an interested but quiet reader on this list, > but this time around i would like to comment, since i am specializing in > community wireless networking > > On Wed, 2008-03-19 at 05:35 -0400, Ian Thomson wrote: > >> Hi All, >> This is a very confusing press release. Many WIFI practitioners are today >> > getting distances of 30 to 60 kms with parabolic antenna. What is so special > about the Intel development? > >> If it is just that is drops requests to resend packets, then this is doubtful. >> > Any radio engineer will tell you that radio is bad for dropping packets and > resending them is necessary to recover the full data. > > It is absolutely correct - > > wireless practicioners have been doing up to 300+ km already and the > current world record is approx 380 km > > http://www.eslared.org.ve/articulos/Long%20Distance%20WiFi%20Trial.pdf > > Distances up to 100 km have never been *that* great challenge and can be > done and are frequently done by wireless practicioners - and a lot > cheaper than USD 1000 - from around USD 200-300 in wireless gear. > > For the tech minded, some detail: > > Going above 100 km, the shortcomings of the MAC 802.11 layer have been > the challenge - in simple words, the "hello" and "acknowledge" timeouts > between the wireless nodes. > This is what the Intel product addresses, not by dropping the ACL > altogether, but by using TDMA - if you are interested in more techie > details > > The statements made in the article, > > ""If you take standard Wi-Fi and focus it," Galinovsky says, "you can't > get past a few kilometers."" > > and in the Intel video can only be called misleading and simply wrong. > So, it s more of a PR cloud, misleading people, than "a huge step > forward". > > hope this helps, > best to all, > > sebastian > > ------------------------------------ > dr. sebastian buettrich > sebastian at wire.less.dk > > a free book on wireless networking in the developing world - 2nd edition out > now! > > http://www.wndw.net > http://wire.less.dk > http://thewirelessroadshow.org > ------------------------------------ > > Richard Lowenberg > 1st-Mile Institute > P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 > 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell > rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------- > This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bob at bobknight.net Thu Mar 20 20:36:05 2008 From: bob at bobknight.net (Bob Knight) Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2008 21:36:05 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Intel's Long-Distance Wi-Fi In-Reply-To: <20080320120337.fyx3crxc84gk0kg4@www2.dcn.org> References: <20080320120337.fyx3crxc84gk0kg4@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: <47E32D25.1070700@bobknight.net> The quoted message isn't exactly correct. The standard 802.11 MAC layer starts to have serious problems above ~10 km.When we first started La Canada Wireless ~5+ years ago, we had a person connecting from the ridge east of Cerrillos to our first (solar) AP above the Eldorado country store. IIRC, that was a 20 km shot. The bandwidth obtained was rarely above 100 kilobits, while we could see 2-3+ megabits on locally shorter links. The problems are related to timings in the protocol, primarily ack and slot. To get longer distances reliably, these MUST be adjusted. See http://madwifi.org/wiki/UserDocs/LongDistance for an unusually lucid presentation of the issues. Otherwise, spot on: the Intel announcement is underwhelming and misleading. We buy 802.11a equipment (5.8 Ghz) for our backhaul links. At present, our longest 11a link is ~10 miles (from Las Lagunitas to Vail mountain) and my co-worker there regularly gets well over 3 megabits over the link. Were we to put higher gain antennas on both ends (parabolics, ~4x gain of existing), I have no doubt we could double or triple that. Aesthetics are, unfortunately, in play there. I have gotten 20+ megabits out of a 7 mile point-to-point link using this equipment. At my home, I am two hops from the DS-3 upstream. The hops are about two miles each. Depending on the site to which I'm connected and the load on our router, I've seen over 10 megabits sustained on some large transfers to my laptop, which is on my home wireless 11g network.. The equipment we use is COTS @ ~$225+, depending on how it is provisioned. Not fiber speeds, but as FTTH out here is probably a pipe dream for the foreseeable future, I'll suffer. At my day job, BTW, it is rare that I'll see 50 megabit speeds to my desktop, even though the intervening infrastructure to the backbone is all gigabit+. FWIW. Bob Richard Lowenberg wrote: > In response to Tom's posting, I've been hoping for the past couple of days that > no one would post to the 1st-Mile list about the Intel long distance wifi > transmission announcement. It is less than meets the eye. Following is an > informative posting from another list, about this. Be careful of tech-hype. > rl > > ----- Forwarded message from sebastian at less.dk ----- > Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2008 09:55:43 +0200 > From: sebastian buettrich > > Dear all, > i am normally an interested but quiet reader on this list, > but this time around i would like to comment, since i am specializing in > community wireless networking > > On Wed, 2008-03-19 at 05:35 -0400, Ian Thomson wrote: > >> Hi All, >> This is a very confusing press release. Many WIFI practitioners are today >> > getting distances of 30 to 60 kms with parabolic antenna. What is so special > about the Intel development? > >> If it is just that is drops requests to resend packets, then this is doubtful. >> > Any radio engineer will tell you that radio is bad for dropping packets and > resending them is necessary to recover the full data. > > It is absolutely correct - > > wireless practicioners have been doing up to 300+ km already and the > current world record is approx 380 km > > http://www.eslared.org.ve/articulos/Long%20Distance%20WiFi%20Trial.pdf > > Distances up to 100 km have never been *that* great challenge and can be > done and are frequently done by wireless practicioners - and a lot > cheaper than USD 1000 - from around USD 200-300 in wireless gear. > > For the tech minded, some detail: > > Going above 100 km, the shortcomings of the MAC 802.11 layer have been > the challenge - in simple words, the "hello" and "acknowledge" timeouts > between the wireless nodes. > This is what the Intel product addresses, not by dropping the ACL > altogether, but by using TDMA - if you are interested in more techie > details > > The statements made in the article, > > ""If you take standard Wi-Fi and focus it," Galinovsky says, "you can't > get past a few kilometers."" > > and in the Intel video can only be called misleading and simply wrong. > So, it s more of a PR cloud, misleading people, than "a huge step > forward". > > hope this helps, > best to all, > > sebastian > > ------------------------------------ > dr. sebastian buettrich > sebastian at wire.less.dk > > a free book on wireless networking in the developing world - 2nd edition out > now! > > http://www.wndw.net > http://wire.less.dk > http://thewirelessroadshow.org > ------------------------------------ > > Richard Lowenberg > 1st-Mile Institute > P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 > 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell > rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------- > This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > From pete at ideapete.com Fri Mar 21 17:45:45 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2008 18:45:45 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Bloomfield, NM School District Networking In-Reply-To: <20080320140359.ezbr9izxs88844ko@www2.dcn.org> References: <20080320140359.ezbr9izxs88844ko@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: <47E456B9.3090702@ideapete.com> Richard I looked all through Trillions tech data and could not find any reference to protocol are you sure they are using 802.16 ? Whats the journal url ref ( : ( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ Richard Lowenberg wrote: > I recently came across the following article in THE Journal, and educational > magazine. The article left me with some questions, which I just spoke to > Sondra about. The broadband solution she refers to is a district-wide WiMax > network, which provides from 10 to 100Mbps between district schools, for > internal communications. External backhaul networking needs are still served > by multiple T-1s. Qwest seems to have been very upset with this solution, > however, never responded to the District's RFP. Of additional note, 600 > students have laptops provided by a grant from the New Mexico Laptop Planning > Initiative. > rl > --------- > > March 2008 ? News > > Case Study: Bloomfield SD's Migration to Broadband and VoIP > > by Sondra Adams > > As the IT director for Bloomfield School District in New Mexico, I faced a major > challenge with our infrastructure when it came time to upgrade our network and > voice systems to meet our educational and technological objectives. The > district, with 10 administrative and school sites, is located in a rural area > of northwestern portion of the state, which limited the alternatives available > to us. Its network was based on T1 connections, and the bandwidth would not > support the education initiatives of the district. It was also very expensive, > costing us about $5,900 each month. > > On top of that, another large budget item was $60,000 we paid for annual > maintenance on the PBX. Unfortunately we could not rely on Priority 2 E-Rate > funding for the maintenance because our E-Rate discount is 77 percent. Funding > cutoff for Priority 2 services has varied from 69 percent to 84 percent over > the last five years. Bloomfield did not have the budget to upgrade the network, > pay for voice T1s, and pay $60,000 in annual maintenance fees. > > As it turns out, there was a single solution to both of these issues. Partnering > with broadband provider Trillion Partners, Bloomfield was able to deploy a WAN > with 10 to 100 times the bandwidth of our previous system and migrate our > legacy PBX system to a voice over IP (VoIP) service--all for less than what we > had previously been paying. > > The Costs > For our district's educational objectives, the obvious option--adding additional > T1 lines at 1.5 Mbps--would not have met our bandwidth needs and would have > added unreasonably to costs. I met with Trillion, who demonstrated to how we > could best implement a broadband WAN that would provide 10 to 100 times the > bandwidth of the old network and save money. And we'd be able to eliminate our > old T1 lines and the cost of maintenance for our PBX-based voice system by > implementing a VoIP service as part of the deployment. (And, as an added bonus, > we'd eliminate the onsite maintenance requirements of that PBX.) > > With VoIP, we were able to eliminate most of the expensive T1s. And, because > Trillion's service is Priority 1, we essentially turned the $60,000 that we > were paying out of pocket for PBX maintenance into $261,000 worth of Priority 1 > E-Rate services. (As a 77 percent E-Rate district, we pay 23 percent > out-of-pocket. Hence $60,000/0.23 = $261,000.) The savings from eliminating T1s > and the buying power of Priority 1 services helped us fund both our new > broadband WAN and our new VoIP services for less than we were paying before. > > Improved Network and Telecommunications > This new high-speed broadband WAN has helped us revolutionize communications > within our district, providing over 10 to 100 times the bandwidth of our old T1 > network. This year we are deploying 15 new teaching and administrative > applications across our district to enhance learning and increase productivity. > > The VoIP telephony service is enabling our teachers to stay more connected with > parents, collaborate better with each other and feel safer knowing they can get > help if they need it. Our new service provider delivers our WAN, Internet and > VoIP telephony services--giving us one point of accountability. > > At first, I was reluctant to install a new telephony system. Our previous > installation had been very painful, taking many months to deploy. We had > constant problems with our vendor and with the carrier supplying T1 > connectivity to our schools. Another pain point with our legacy PBX solution > was end user administration that required my team to travel onsite. When > Trillion mentioned VoIP, I was also concerned about the overall impact it would > have on my team. We had experience with PBX-based telephony, but none of us had > experience with VoIP. I'd heard that VoIP could be complex to manage. > > But after much discussion and reference checks we decided to implement the > broadband WAN and VoIP telephony solution throughout the Bloomfield district, > and my concerns turned out to be unfounded. The deployment across 10 sites > involving more than 400 handsets took three days. > > As for the impact, users really appreciated the new phones, and the new system > was quickly adopted. Teachers liked the ability to stay in touch with parents > from the privacy of their classroom. Teachers also said they felt more > comfortable knowing they could communicate with the outside world during a > lockdown. The system has also been used for safety measures. Recently, one of > our teachers received obscene and threatening voice messages while at work. We > used call records to trace the caller to a local motel where authorities were > able to arrest the perpetrator. We wouldn't have been able to do that with our > legacy system. > > Our IT department has also benefited from the migration to the new network and > VoIP. Instead of adding more work to my staff, our VoIP service has actually > decreased our workload while helping us provide better service to our > administrators and teachers. With Trillion's solution in place I've essentially > added highly skilled network and VoIP engineers to my staff that work 24 hours a > day. They monitor and manage the system around the clock. Unlike my previous > vendor, my new VoIP service does not require me to go onsite to make end user > changes. I can make end user changes, at any of our 10 sites, while sitting at > my desk. > > About the author: Sondra Adams is the director of technology for Bloomfield > School District, New Mexico. She can be reached at sadams at bsin.k12.nm.us. > > Trillion, Inc., Austin, TX www.trillion.net > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Sat Mar 22 08:21:56 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2008 08:21:56 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Utopia Re-financing Update Message-ID: <20080322082156.slto6ewtw808ckkc@www2.dcn.org> http://origin.sltrib.com/ci_8645697 UTOPIA wants to reissue bonds, set term at 32 years Move will lower interest rate and give agency about $20 million more By Steven Oberbeck The Salt Lake Tribune 03/20/2008 The Utah Telecommunications Open Infrastructure Agency (UTOPIA) is getting ready to go back to the nation's capital markets to raise additional millions to help build out its fiber-optic network. Despite the approximately $20 million in new funding the bond issue will provide, the question likely will remain for several more years whether UTOPIA and its ambitious plan to offer a high-speed fiber-optic connection to all homes and businesses in 11 Utah communities will be successful. UTOPIA's board of directors this week agreed to issue up to $189 million in bonds, part of which will be used to retire approximately $135 million in previously issued notes that carry a higher short-term interest rate. The proposed bond issue, after all the fees and other expenses are paid, should give UTOPIA another $20 million to continue the construction of its massive fiber-to-the-home network. "We need to get a financial structure in place that will support our business model," UTOPIA Chairman Alex Jensen said. "This [bond issue] is designed to make ensure that UTOPIA will be a success." UTOPIA was born in 2002 amid a sense of frustration by community leaders that the state's private telecommunication providers were too slow in bringing high-speed Internet and other services to their cities. In all, 18 municipalities organized to explore construction of a state-of-the-art fiber-optic system that could serve all the homes and businesses within their boundaries. Eventually, community leaders in 11 cities - believing such a system would be a sure-fire success - pledged $202 million in tax money over 20 years to partially back UTOPIA's bonds so it could get a more reasonable interest rate on a project Wall Street viewed as junk-bond risky. With the cities pledging to back repayment of the bonds, the new debt is expected to carry an interest rate of around 6 percent. UTOPIA's bond counsel, attorney Laura Lewis, said that along with providing a break on interest rates the new issue also will be structured to extend the payback to 32 years. And that will be better for UTOPIA, she said. "We're structuring this so that debt will rise over time as UTOPIA's revenues increase," she said. "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that the real challenge [meeting debt obligations] come in the early years" of operations. Still, extending the payback period on the bonds to 32 years will mean that UTOPIA will have to go back to its 11 member cities that earlier pledged tax revenue to support the system for 20 years and ask that those communities extend their guarantees for 32 years. The total amounts that the cities have guaranteed, however, will remain the same, Lewis said. Paul Isaac, the assistant city manager for West Valley City, said he expects there will be a lot of scrutiny of UTOPIA's request from City Council members. "We have two members on our board who weren't there when the initial pledge was made," he said. "So I expect we'll be seeing a lot of Laura Lewis over the next little while." Lewis said she expects the bonding to be completed by mid-May. Pointing to UTOPIA's continuing losses and its failure to meet any of its earlier revenue and customer projections, Royce Van Tassell of the Utah Taxpayers Association questions whether UTOPIA will be able to sell its bonds, also pointing to iProvo, that city's fiber-optic network. "You'd expect that bond buyers would eventually want to be paid back and given the losses we've seen so far with UTOPIA and iProvo that is questionable," he said. steve at sltrib.com -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From editorsteve at gmail.com Sat Mar 22 15:48:30 2008 From: editorsteve at gmail.com (Steve Ross) Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2008 18:48:30 -0400 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Bloomfield, NM School District Networking In-Reply-To: <47E456B9.3090702@ideapete.com> References: <20080320140359.ezbr9izxs88844ko@www2.dcn.org> <47E456B9.3090702@ideapete.com> Message-ID: <47E58CBE.1060705@gmail.com> Trillion usually arranges licensed bandwidth -- 38 GHz, maybe lower, for schools when they go wireless. Exact band depends on the local situation. They also string/rent/buy a lot of fiber. The wireless equipment is fairly cheap and very reliable in the Southwest. They've run a nice "e-rate" business for years -- started with 802.11b back in 2000 or so, maybe 2001. They are hardly the only ones in New Mexico that do licensed wireless hookups for commercial/educational/muni customers, much to Qwest's annoyance. I've run into a few providers right in the Santa Fe and Albuquerque area. BTW, Scott DeGarmo (my boss at BBP) says anyone on this list with a state or muni affiliation can get into our Broadband Summit April 28-30 at DFW for the muni rate of only $50. That's about a tenth the normal rate, and covers the cost of some nice meals and receptions and free conference wifi. (For those who have attended in the past, we've moved the date from September.) The schedule details are at http://www.bbpmag.com/2008summit/agenda-brief.php email me or Scott for the muni rate code. Registration is running well ahead of last fall's summit, which drew about 800. That, in turn, suggests that the telecommunications corner of the real estate industry is doing fine.... or that people are having trouble figuring out the new FCC regs, economic climate, and all the neat stuff brought on by new bend-tolerant fiber technology. FCC Commissioner Deb Tate will be there, and some great muni network builders, like Tim Nulty. Steven S. Ross Editor-in-Chief Broadband Properties steve at broadbandproperties.com www.bbpmag.com SKYPE: editorsteve +1 781-284-8810 +1 646-216-8030 fax +1 201-456-5933 mobile peter wrote: > Richard > > I looked all through Trillions tech data and could not find any > reference to protocol are you sure they are using 802.16 ? > > Whats the journal url ref > > ( : ( : pete > > Peter Baston > > *IDEAS* > > /www.ideapete.com/ > > > > > > > > > Richard Lowenberg wrote: >> I recently came across the following article in THE Journal, and educational >> magazine. The article left me with some questions, which I just spoke to >> Sondra about. The broadband solution she refers to is a district-wide WiMax >> network, which provides from 10 to 100Mbps between district schools, for >> internal communications. External backhaul networking needs are still served >> by multiple T-1s. Qwest seems to have been very upset with this solution, >> however, never responded to the District's RFP. Of additional note, 600 >> students have laptops provided by a grant from the New Mexico Laptop Planning >> Initiative. >> rl >> --------- >> >> March 2008 ? News >> >> Case Study: Bloomfield SD's Migration to Broadband and VoIP >> >> by Sondra Adams >> >> As the IT director for Bloomfield School District in New Mexico, I faced a major >> challenge with our infrastructure when it came time to upgrade our network and >> voice systems to meet our educational and technological objectives. The >> district, with 10 administrative and school sites, is located in a rural area >> of northwestern portion of the state, which limited the alternatives available >> to us. Its network was based on T1 connections, and the bandwidth would not >> support the education initiatives of the district. It was also very expensive, >> costing us about $5,900 each month. >> >> On top of that, another large budget item was $60,000 we paid for annual >> maintenance on the PBX. Unfortunately we could not rely on Priority 2 E-Rate >> funding for the maintenance because our E-Rate discount is 77 percent. Funding >> cutoff for Priority 2 services has varied from 69 percent to 84 percent over >> the last five years. Bloomfield did not have the budget to upgrade the network, >> pay for voice T1s, and pay $60,000 in annual maintenance fees. >> >> As it turns out, there was a single solution to both of these issues. Partnering >> with broadband provider Trillion Partners, Bloomfield was able to deploy a WAN >> with 10 to 100 times the bandwidth of our previous system and migrate our >> legacy PBX system to a voice over IP (VoIP) service--all for less than what we >> had previously been paying. >> >> The Costs >> For our district's educational objectives, the obvious option--adding additional >> T1 lines at 1.5 Mbps--would not have met our bandwidth needs and would have >> added unreasonably to costs. I met with Trillion, who demonstrated to how we >> could best implement a broadband WAN that would provide 10 to 100 times the >> bandwidth of the old network and save money. And we'd be able to eliminate our >> old T1 lines and the cost of maintenance for our PBX-based voice system by >> implementing a VoIP service as part of the deployment. (And, as an added bonus, >> we'd eliminate the onsite maintenance requirements of that PBX.) >> >> With VoIP, we were able to eliminate most of the expensive T1s. And, because >> Trillion's service is Priority 1, we essentially turned the $60,000 that we >> were paying out of pocket for PBX maintenance into $261,000 worth of Priority 1 >> E-Rate services. (As a 77 percent E-Rate district, we pay 23 percent >> out-of-pocket. Hence $60,000/0.23 = $261,000.) The savings from eliminating T1s >> and the buying power of Priority 1 services helped us fund both our new >> broadband WAN and our new VoIP services for less than we were paying before. >> >> Improved Network and Telecommunications >> This new high-speed broadband WAN has helped us revolutionize communications >> within our district, providing over 10 to 100 times the bandwidth of our old T1 >> network. This year we are deploying 15 new teaching and administrative >> applications across our district to enhance learning and increase productivity. >> >> The VoIP telephony service is enabling our teachers to stay more connected with >> parents, collaborate better with each other and feel safer knowing they can get >> help if they need it. Our new service provider delivers our WAN, Internet and >> VoIP telephony services--giving us one point of accountability. >> >> At first, I was reluctant to install a new telephony system. Our previous >> installation had been very painful, taking many months to deploy. We had >> constant problems with our vendor and with the carrier supplying T1 >> connectivity to our schools. Another pain point with our legacy PBX solution >> was end user administration that required my team to travel onsite. When >> Trillion mentioned VoIP, I was also concerned about the overall impact it would >> have on my team. We had experience with PBX-based telephony, but none of us had >> experience with VoIP. I'd heard that VoIP could be complex to manage. >> >> But after much discussion and reference checks we decided to implement the >> broadband WAN and VoIP telephony solution throughout the Bloomfield district, >> and my concerns turned out to be unfounded. The deployment across 10 sites >> involving more than 400 handsets took three days. >> >> As for the impact, users really appreciated the new phones, and the new system >> was quickly adopted. Teachers liked the ability to stay in touch with parents >> from the privacy of their classroom. Teachers also said they felt more >> comfortable knowing they could communicate with the outside world during a >> lockdown. The system has also been used for safety measures. Recently, one of >> our teachers received obscene and threatening voice messages while at work. We >> used call records to trace the caller to a local motel where authorities were >> able to arrest the perpetrator. We wouldn't have been able to do that with our >> legacy system. >> >> Our IT department has also benefited from the migration to the new network and >> VoIP. Instead of adding more work to my staff, our VoIP service has actually >> decreased our workload while helping us provide better service to our >> administrators and teachers. With Trillion's solution in place I've essentially >> added highly skilled network and VoIP engineers to my staff that work 24 hours a >> day. They monitor and manage the system around the clock. Unlike my previous >> vendor, my new VoIP service does not require me to go onsite to make end user >> changes. I can make end user changes, at any of our 10 sites, while sitting at >> my desk. >> >> About the author: Sondra Adams is the director of technology for Bloomfield >> School District, New Mexico. She can be reached at sadams at bsin.k12.nm.us. >> >> Trillion, Inc., Austin, TX www.trillion.net >> >> > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm From rl at 1st-mile.com Sat Mar 22 19:06:08 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2008 19:06:08 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: Interesting Article on muni wi-fi Message-ID: <20080322190608.p1aup1t604s4sg0k@www2.dcn.org> There are a growing number of articles and studies coming out on the failures and downturns of evermore wifi companies and municipal/regional networking projects. A lot of lessons being learned. Wireless networks are a critical part of our developing networked society. Getting the local-global social model and the economic model to overlay neatly is a necessary, but not an easy task. Sasha Meinrath's good works and understandings deserve attention. rl Hopes for Wireless Cities Fade as Internet Providers Pull Out By IAN URBINA Published: March 22, 2008 Excerpt: "He said that true municipal networks, the ones that are owned and operated by municipalities, were far more sustainable because they could take into account benefits that help cities beyond private profit, including property-value increases, education benefits and quality-of-life improvements that come with offering residents free wireless access. Mr. Meinrath pointed to St. Cloud, Fla., which spent $3 million two years ago to build a free wireless network that is used by more than 70 percent of the households in the city." ... In Minneapolis, the Internet service provider agreed to build the network as long as the city committed to becoming an "anchor tenant" by subscribing for a minimum number of city workers, like building inspectors, meter readers, police officers and firefighters. This type of plan is more viable, according to market analysts and city officials, because the companies paying to mount the routers and run the service are guaranteed a base number of subscribers to cover the cost of their investment. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/22/us/22wireless.html?pagewanted=1 ----- End forwarded message ----- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From pete at ideapete.com Sat Mar 22 23:31:41 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 00:31:41 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] WiMax Can Interfere With C-Band Signals Message-ID: <47E5F94D.40007@ideapete.com> More fun for wimax http://www.satellitetoday.com/broadband/headlines/22353.html -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Sat Mar 22 23:49:58 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 00:49:58 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: Interesting Article on muni wi-fi In-Reply-To: <20080322190608.p1aup1t604s4sg0k@www2.dcn.org> References: <20080322190608.p1aup1t604s4sg0k@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: <47E5FD96.7030807@ideapete.com> Agreed they are a critical part, but to get municipalities to understand the fact that to really use any form of digital technology fully, you need to radically change the way you operate and do business, well ?? does anyone know of any government department that understands this and is even trying In NM the state and local government is spending a fortune on all sorts of different protocol and web technology but the oxymoron pops up when you see that the states AG is trying to make EMAIL an official method of communication and there are a heck of a lot of government employees who disagree with him ( : ( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ Richard Lowenberg wrote: > There are a growing number of articles and studies coming out on the failures > and downturns of evermore wifi companies and municipal/regional networking > projects. A lot of lessons being learned. Wireless networks are a critical > part of our developing networked society. Getting the local-global social > model and the economic model to overlay neatly is a necessary, but not an easy > task. Sasha Meinrath's good works and understandings deserve attention. > rl > > Hopes for Wireless Cities Fade as Internet Providers Pull Out > > By IAN URBINA > Published: March 22, 2008 > > Excerpt: > > "He said that true municipal networks, the ones that are owned and > operated by municipalities, were far more sustainable because they > could take into account benefits that help cities beyond private > profit, including property-value increases, education benefits and > quality-of-life improvements that come with offering residents free > wireless access. > > Mr. Meinrath pointed to St. Cloud, Fla., which spent $3 million two > years ago to build a free wireless network that is used by more than > 70 percent of the households in the city." > ... > In Minneapolis, the Internet service provider agreed to build the > network as long as the city committed to becoming an "anchor tenant" > by subscribing for a minimum number of city workers, like building > inspectors, meter readers, police officers and firefighters. > > This type of plan is more viable, according to market analysts and > city officials, because the companies paying to mount the routers and > run the service are guaranteed a base number of subscribers to cover > the cost of their investment. > > http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/22/us/22wireless.html?pagewanted=1 > > ----- End forwarded message ----- > > > Richard Lowenberg > 1st-Mile Institute > P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 > 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell > rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com > > ---------------------------------------------------------------- > This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tom at jtjohnson.com Sun Mar 23 14:13:55 2008 From: tom at jtjohnson.com (Tom Johnson) Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 14:13:55 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: Interesting Article on muni wi-fi In-Reply-To: <47E5FD96.7030807@ideapete.com> References: <20080322190608.p1aup1t604s4sg0k@www2.dcn.org> <47E5FD96.7030807@ideapete.com> Message-ID: I may have pointed this out earlier, but Peter is spot-on in terms of the need to change the culture. Here in NM, state employees are forbidden to use the internet for shopping. A good idea, our legislatures would say. Oh, how about the fact that state employees can't go to office supply stores to compare the price the state is paying for anything like office chairs or printer paper to whatever the state contract calls for? Oh that even though the state wants to promote agriculture -- including wine makers and chili growers -- state employees use the I-net to view, or connect to, things like the Wine and Chili Festival because, gasp, "That is alcohol-related." -tj On Sat, Mar 22, 2008 at 11:49 PM, peter wrote: > Agreed they are a critical part, but to get municipalities to understand > the fact that to really use any form of digital technology fully, you need > to radically change the way you operate and do business, well ?? does anyone > know of any government department that understands this and is even trying > > In NM the state and local government is spending a fortune on all sorts of > different protocol and web technology but the oxymoron pops up when you see > that the states AG is trying to make EMAIL an official method of > communication and there are a heck of a lot of government employees who > disagree with him > > ( : ( : pete > > Peter Baston > > *IDEAS* > > *www.ideapete.com* > > > > > > > Richard Lowenberg wrote: > > There are a growing number of articles and studies coming out on the failures > and downturns of evermore wifi companies and municipal/regional networking > projects. A lot of lessons being learned. Wireless networks are a critical > part of our developing networked society. Getting the local-global social > model and the economic model to overlay neatly is a necessary, but not an easy > task. Sasha Meinrath's good works and understandings deserve attention. > rl > > Hopes for Wireless Cities Fade as Internet Providers Pull Out > > By IAN URBINA > Published: March 22, 2008 > > Excerpt: > > "He said that true municipal networks, the ones that are owned and > operated by municipalities, were far more sustainable because they > could take into account benefits that help cities beyond private > profit, including property-value increases, education benefits and > quality-of-life improvements that come with offering residents free > wireless access. > > Mr. Meinrath pointed to St. Cloud, Fla., which spent $3 million two > years ago to build a free wireless network that is used by more than > 70 percent of the households in the city." > ... > In Minneapolis, the Internet service provider agreed to build the > network as long as the city committed to becoming an "anchor tenant" > by subscribing for a minimum number of city workers, like building > inspectors, meter readers, police officers and firefighters. > > This type of plan is more viable, according to market analysts and > city officials, because the companies paying to mount the routers and > run the service are guaranteed a base number of subscribers to cover > the cost of their investment. > http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/22/us/22wireless.html?pagewanted=1 > > ----- End forwarded message ----- > > > Richard Lowenberg > 1st-Mile InstituteP.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 > 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cellrl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com > > ---------------------------------------------------------------- > This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.orghttp://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > > -- ========================================== J. T. Johnson Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA www.analyticjournalism.com 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) http://www.jtjohnson.com tom at jtjohnson.com "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." -- Buckminster Fuller ========================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Mon Mar 24 13:24:24 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 13:24:24 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] 700 MHz Auction Results Message-ID: <20080324132424.b1jlb5ei8scsoo8w@www2.dcn.org> 700 MHz Results: Usual Suspects with a Twist 21 Mar, 2008 www.telecompetitor.com/node/569 The FCC released results from the 700 MHZ auction and it looks like the pre-release consensus was right. Verizon Wireless and AT&T were the big winners, with Verizon gaining a national 700 MHz footprint. They both bid a combined $16.3 billion, with AT&T bidding $6.64 billion for 227 B-block licenses and Verizon Wireless bidding $9.63 billion for the large C-block regional licenses. An additional 99 bidders won 754 licenses, including familiar names like Echostar (DISH Networks) and Cox. The outcome of the auction did not produce a viable national wireless competitor, as many had hoped, but there are some interesting twists. Echostar bid $711 million for 168 E-block licenses, which covers a large portion of the U.S. Cox bid close to $305 million for 22 licenses in the A and B blocks. Their licenses will include areas of California, Virginia, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, Kansas and Oklahoma. These two winners will probably be the most interesting to watch from a competitive angle. Echostar now has a conceivable way to offer broadband, although speculation is that they have their eyes on mobile video, which the E-block spectrum is much better suited for. Among smaller service providers, CenturyTel won 69 B-block licenses for $149 million, raising the potential for CenturyTel to launch its own wireless service. Several tier 3 carriers won licenses including Horry Telephone of South Carolina, Pioneer Telephone in Oklahoma, and * PVT Networks in New Mexico. While the auction failed to bring a competitor to the national stage, and may have fallen somewhat short from an overall competitive standpoint, it did empower several entrants into the wireless space. Time will tell whether those entrants can actually have a competitive impact in their respective territories, but it will be interesting to observe over the coming months and years. * PVT Networks (Penasco Valley Telecommunications) www.pvt.com -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Wed Mar 26 15:35:49 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:35:49 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Glasgow, KY: The Fiber & Energy Equation Message-ID: <20080326153549.cjdkddblu8csgw0k@www2.dcn.org> Here's a slightly abridged version of the latest blog posting by Billy Ray, CEO of Glasgow Electric, in Kentucky, an early community broadband provider. Billy makes a cursory argument for the energy cost-savings provided by fiber to all. There are parallels between his concerns about the Tennessee Valley Authority, with our current concerns and considerations about PNM, the national labs and our energy future in a broadband networked society. rl ------- http://glasgowredbluegreen.blogspot.com/2008/03/elegant-solution-ignored.html Tuesday, March 25, 2008 By Billy Ray CEO, Glasgow, KY Electric Plant Board. An Elegant Solution, Ignored (snip) As an engineer, it is impossible for me to look upon heavens full of problems without proposing a solution that might, at least, extinguish the glow of a large number of those troubles. Twenty years ago we proposed a grand solution to many of Glasgow?s problems when we started construction of the first municipally owned broadband network in the U.S. That solution has worked well for many of our problems in Glasgow, but now we dream of expanding upon what we have learned here to further enhance our network in Glasgow while solving problems for our state and our region. Here is what we mean. Many of the problems in our present night sky are related to energy. The cost of electric power, natural gas, gasoline, and diesel fuel are spiraling upward and that is impacting everything in our lives. TVA is increasing electric power rates and promising more of the same in the future as they struggle to build new generating plants to meet the growing demand for electric power. The numbers are staggering. They are about 2,000 megawatts short of the capacity they need right now to meet their demand ( a megawatt is equal to 1,000 kilowatts and the average home in Glasgow requires about 10 kilowatts of capacity, so, a megawatt would serve about 100 Glasgow homes). They are looking to nuclear power for the new generation units since the outlook for additional coal-fired generation is murky, at best. They project the cost of building new nuclear units at somewhere between $2,000 and $4,000 per kilowatt. So, by their own figures, the project expenditures of more than $18 billion over the next ten years to add the capacity they need. At a recent meeting of TVA officials and the distributors of TVA power, these figures were discussed along with some preliminary plans for actually reducing our demand for electric power, I had an opportunity to compare what we know about building advanced broadband networks to the amount of money TVA is looking to spend over the next ten years on concrete, steel, and nuclear reactor vessels. The comparison ignited a blinding flash of inspiration in which I saw a single thread connecting many of our problems. That thread is a fiber optic cable and here is how I think it could solve our problems. We are doing a test project in Glasgow wherein a portion of our old coaxial cable-based broadband plant is being converted to the latest fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) configuration. In a FTTH network, all the cable television, telephone, internet, and electric metering information coming to and from your home is carried via light waves. This means that the capacity and speed of the data traveling to and from the home is virtually unlimited. We think this is the be-all and end-all network configuration that will serve the homes connected to it for twenty, or more, years without fear of obsolescence. Further, our experience shows that this advanced network can be accomplished for about $2,000 per home connected. Keep that number in your head. Now let?s return to TVA?s forecast of $2,000 to $4,000 per kilowatt for new nuclear generation capacity. In fact, to be abundantly conservative, let?s assume (and this is a very far reaching assumption for any TVA project) that they can build new capacity for $2,000 per kilowatt. That would mean that they are willing to pay the same thing per kilowatt of new capacity as we know it would cost to establish FTTH broadband to a home. If they are looking at spending $18 billion that same money would get FTTH to nine million homes. Curiously, that is about the total number of customers TVA serves over the seven state region. Stay with me on this. If TVA had an unlimited capacity data connection to every home, they could use that connection to control thermostats on heating, air conditioning, water heating, freezers, refrigerators, washing machines, clothes dryers, dishwashers, etc. That sort of control would easily allow them to shave one, probably two, likely even three to four kilowatts of demand off of their peak demand. So, spending that money on broadband networks for every home and business in the Tennessee Valley region would likely double or triple the capacity improvement they are looking to get through building new nuclear plants! So, if they built FTTH instead of more reactor vessels, they would be increasing their net capacity by actually reducing demand during peak times. Since this same amount of money would double or triple the net capacity impact that they anticipate by simply building more units, they could actually shut down a filthy coal unit or two instead! There is no more earth friendly way to add capacity to an electric system than by acting to reduce demand. No new fuel is needed for this solution. No new operating costs are added. No future nuclear fuel disposal costs are added. This is the most ?green? energy that exists. At the same time, everyone would get an advanced broadband connection with infinite capacity and speed for free! In addition, widespread use of broadband could have meaningful impact on the use of other fuels. More shopping on-line, more telecommuting, more movement of the message instead of the messenger would reduce other forms of energy consumption and all of these reductions would bring immediate benefits to the region. What would our region look like with nine million homes connected to a robust FTTH network? Well, for starters employment would skyrocket. Folks would be needed in all sorts of manufacturing plants to make the cables, electronics, hardware, and software to provide all of the plant necessary to accomplish this undertaking. Scores of folks would go to work building the networks. Hundreds of cities and towns in our region connected with FTTH would also bring all sorts of new businesses. Major internet retailers would want to locate servers in our region to tap the wealth of bandwidth. With those businesses would come software and hardware engineers and the corresponding increased demand for an educated workforce. True, the construction of new nuclear plants would employ a lot of folks as well. But the FTTH solution would spread that employment across hundreds of cities and towns instead of one or two sites. In fact, the FTTH solution would more closely mimic the model of TVA itself as TVA would, once again, be extending the latest technology to every home and business throughout the multi-state region. TVA would be back in the business of democratizing technology ? making it cheap and available to all. (snip) -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From jjmart1 at msn.com Fri Mar 28 13:09:28 2008 From: jjmart1 at msn.com (John J Martinez) Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2008 14:09:28 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Information Technology Commission Meeting Notice In-Reply-To: <20080326153549.cjdkddblu8csgw0k@www2.dcn.org> References: <20080326153549.cjdkddblu8csgw0k@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: FYI, no need to RSVP that is for the commissioners. Commission Members, There will be an Information Technology Commission Meeting from 8:30am to Noon on April 2, 2008 in Room 307 of the New Mexico State Capitol Building in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The meeting will be to plan the ITC?s schedule for the rest of the year pursuant to the Roles and Responsibilities as set forth in the Information Technology Act. A formal agenda will follow this notice and in advance of the meeting. Please make every effort to attend this important meeting. Please RSVP to Shannell Montoya, Executive Assistant to the Cabinet Secretary, DoIT, at 476-3070 or email her at Shannell.Montoya at state.nm.us Information Technology Commission -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Sat Mar 29 08:51:25 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Sat, 29 Mar 2008 08:51:25 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Broadband Implications: Libraries Message-ID: <20080329085125.e0t0twiggskwoog0@www2.dcn.org> I'm posting the following NY Times Editorial, not because of the Earthlink references, but because it mentions libraries as the sole site for Internet access in many rural communities. In New Mexico, where the State Library intends to upgrade network access to many rural community libraies, 'open access' broadband networking would allow for communities and other state networking initiatives (telehealth, schools, supercomputing, economic development) to share network connections, for greater number of applications, lower costs and win-win benefitting impacts. rl ------ www.nytimes.com/2008/03/29/opinion/29sat4.html?ex=1364443200&en=b335ef70e03a55b4&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all Editorial Broadening Broadband Published: March 29, 2008 The big problem in providing Internet service to rural America is often called ?the last mile? ? the difficulty in reaching the smallest communities and farthest-flung houses and farms. In cities, that problem might be called ?the last block? ? the difficulty in reaching every neighborhood, no matter how poor. For a while, many American cities, caught up in a tide of technological and fiscal optimism, promised to try to make Internet coverage available to all by making it citywide, wireless and low-cost or even free. That has proved to be harder than it seemed at first. EarthLink, an Internet provider that was partnering with Philadelphia, has pulled out of a much-heralded project there, and other service providers are rethinking similar projects. EarthLink is calling it a change in strategic direction. What that phrase means, simply, is where?s the profit? It is a reasonable question. But for the people who have been left without Internet service as municipal wireless plans have collapsed, there are no reasonable answers, only an all-too-familiar barrier between them and the information age. The neighborhoods that most need low-cost, public wireless service now find themselves largely dependent on Internet access through public libraries. This may not sound like a terrible thing, but have you seen what?s happened to the budgets ? and the operating hours ? of public libraries? To cities and Internet providers, municipal Wi-Fi looked like an ideal partnership. Philadelphia gave EarthLink free access to utility poles for mounting wireless routers. EarthLink promised to build hot spots, offer low-cost residential service and provide still lower-cost access for the poorest customers. The costs of building a network turned out to be higher than expected ? at a time when prices for private Internet service were dropping. It also hurt, in Philadelphia?s case, that there was a major change at EarthLink, which went from being an advocate of municipal Wi-Fi to a company determined to cut costs. Broadband service is no longer a luxury. It has become a basic part of the infrastructure of education and democracy. EarthLink should fulfill the commitments it made. Even in these tough economic times, cities should keep pushing municipal Wi-Fi and looking for partners and plans that can make it a reality. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From ggomes at optonline.net Sat Mar 29 09:47:43 2008 From: ggomes at optonline.net (ggomes at optonline.net) Date: Sat, 29 Mar 2008 16:47:43 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [1st-mile-nm] New Mexico not part of USDA funding Message-ID: It seems that CBS News is not the only party that does not know New Mexico is a state. USDA provides $267 M to Open Range to fund rural broadband in 17 states - but no New Mexico. Gary Gomes USDA Announces $267 Million Rural Broadband Loan Mar. 27, 2008 USDA Rural Development Under Secretary Thomas C. Dorr today announced that Open Range Communications, headquartered in Denver, Colo., has been approved to receive a $267 million loan from USDA Rural Development to provide broadband service to 518 rural communities in 17 states. This partnership will address the significant need to deploy wireless, portable broadband connectivity to improve service in considerable portions of rural America. The commitment by USDA and Open Range represents one of the largest public-private investments for broadband service by the federal government. This unique set of services will provide cutting-edge Wi-Max technology that transmits wireless data in areas not serviced by cable or DSL technologies. Open Range plans to offer affordable, wireless high-speed broadband service to underserved and unserved areas. The loan presents dual benefits to the residents of the communities to be served. Those without service will have access to broadband and other technologies for the first time. Residents in areas served by an existing provider will benefit from mobile and portable broadband, lower prices, enhanced service options and improved quality as a result of marketplace competition. "Portable, high-speed connectivity provides new options to help create business expansion in rural communities," Rural Development Under Secretary Thomas C. Dorr noted. "Communities that lack broadband are often bypassed for new economic development investments. "Broadband is as important today as providing rural telephone service was 75 years ago, and we're proud of our role in fostering public-private partnerships to bring broadband services to rural America." In addition to broadband, Open Range will offer satellite services to provide rural residents with portable connectivity virtually nationwide. Improved service with portability features will improve communications and responses for emergency first responders such as law enforcement and rescue providers, as well as health care providers. The project is intended to cover more than 6 million people and serve more than 447,000 households within five years. In addition, it will create jobs and business opportunities in the project's 17-state area. Open Range is leveraging the $267 million government loan with an investment of more than $100 million from the private sector. The loan is contingent upon Open Range meeting the conditions of the loan agreement. The loan was approved under the Rural Development Broadband Loan and Loan Guarantee Program, which since its inception has awarded $1.6 billion in loans for projects to provide rural broadband services. The Rural Development Broadband program has financed a variety of technologies, including wireless, fiber, hybrid fiber/coax, DSL and broadband over power lines. The Open Range project is the program's first investment to support Wi-Max technology. USDA Rural Development's investments in broadband are helping rural communities develop sustainable economic opportunities to improve the quality of life in communities across the nation. The loan to Open Range is expected to foster business development and create new jobs in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Wisconsin. USDA Rural Development's mission is to increase economic opportunity and improve the quality of life for rural residents. Rural Development has invested nearly 91 billion since 2001 for equity and technical assistance to finance and foster growth in homeownership, business development, and critical community and technology infrastructure. More than 1.7 million jobs have been created or saved through these investments. Further information on rural programs is available at a local USDA Rural Development office or by visiting USDA's web site at http://www.rurdev.usda.gov -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Sat Mar 29 10:17:32 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Sat, 29 Mar 2008 10:17:32 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] New Mexico not part of USDA funding In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20080329101732.ujvarxyujkgc4kcw@www2.dcn.org> I saw this USDA loan announcement earlier in the week, but held off posting it to this list because Open Range has no service areas in NM. That did not concern me, as there are CLECs, native communities and other rural providers in NM that have received both grants and loans from the USDA programs. I did however contact the USDA loan program officer on Thursday, to ask some questions, since this loan (to be paid back over time, and matched by a $100,000 private (satellite) company investment) was previously announced in March of '07. Other concerns have to do with the fact that this is for unproven WiMax and some satellite access provision, and that Open Range does not have a public information web site. The URL above, only gives an email address for their company president, who has never responded to my contact. The USDA program officer could not answer any of my questions in this regard. We'll watch and see what happens with this loan and multi-state rural services project. Quite a few federally funded projects of this sort do not manifest as proposed, and some spend received funds, without realizing their projects. This has been the case with some of the native community wireless access projects in NM, as far as my personal inquiries have determined. Having real needs, and writing proposals is a lot easier than the required long=term project management, oversight and community outreach/education follow-through. Unfortunate, at the least. rl ----- Quoting ggomes at optonline.net: > It seems that CBS News is not the only party that does not know New > Mexico is a state. USDA provides $267 M to Open Range to fund rural > broadband in 17 states - but no New Mexico. > Gary Gomes > > USDA Announces $267 Million Rural Broadband Loan > Mar. 27, 2008 > -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From pete at ideapete.com Sat Mar 29 20:12:20 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Sat, 29 Mar 2008 21:12:20 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] New Mexico not part of USDA funding In-Reply-To: <20080329101732.ujvarxyujkgc4kcw@www2.dcn.org> References: <20080329101732.ujvarxyujkgc4kcw@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: <47EF0514.6000400@ideapete.com> Well USDA sure knows where the pueblos are - U S D A Logo */USDA Rural Development is an Equal Opportunity Lender, Provider, and Employer. Complaints of discrimination should be sent to: USDA, Director, Office of Civil Rights, Washington, D.C. 20250-9410 /* **Rural Development Telecommunications Program Broadband Grant Program Applications** Pueblo of Pojoaque 579,767 19,596,206 NM Pueblo of Pojoaque The first figure is the latest application and the second figure is what they have been granted so far Now what is wrong with this picture with a population of 1200 people getting these kinds of grants of about $17,000c each for basic service Well I did a " can we help you " call to PJQ a couple of years ago thinking for the kind of money they were getting from just 1 branch of the ferderal gov ( They are geting money from several more ) that they could plan and build a first class REAL broadband network > Here is what I was told. /" No you don't understand we re not going to build anything, we will just use part of the funds to build some tech centers for ( 150) students conect some basic wireless and then use a couple of $m to blackmail Qwest to expand and upgrade their existing services and if they do not threaten them with federally supported competition ( Sacred wind combination ) and cut out their cellular transmission towers on the reservation then we just pocket the rest and use it for local consulting fees etc. "/ Sad sad opportunity missed but in their eyes it was just getting money back that had been stollen from them in the first place so who gives a hoot Sad sad opportunity missed but in their eyes it was just getting money back that had been stolen from them in the first place so who gives a hoot That money could have made PJQ one of the most wired connected places in the state with huge economic benefit This is probably repeated in multiple pueblos all over the state ( : ( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ Richard Lowenberg wrote: > I saw this USDA loan announcement earlier in the week, but held > off posting > it to this list because Open Range has no > service areas > in NM. That did not concern me, as there are CLECs, native communities and > other rural providers in NM that have received both grants and loans from the > USDA programs. I did however contact the USDA loan program officer on > Thursday, to ask some questions, since this loan (to be paid back over time, > and matched by a $100,000 private (satellite) company investment) was > previously announced in March of '07. Other concerns have to do with the fact > that this is for unproven WiMax and some satellite access provision, and that > Open Range does not have a public information web site. The URL above, only > gives an email address for their company president, who has never responded to > my contact. The USDA program officer could not answer any of my questions in > this regard. We'll watch and see what happens with this loan and multi-state > rural services project. > Quite a few federally funded projects of this sort do not manifest as > proposed, and some spend received funds, without realizing their > projects. This has been the case with some of the native community > wireless access > projects in NM, as far as my personal inquiries have determined. Having real > needs, and writing proposals is a lot easier than the required long=term > project management, oversight and community outreach/education > follow-through. Unfortunate, at the least. > rl > ----- > > Quoting ggomes at optonline.net: > > >> It seems that CBS News is not the only party that does not know New >> Mexico is a state. USDA provides $267 M to Open Range to fund rural >> broadband in 17 states - but no New Mexico. >> Gary Gomes >> >> USDA Announces $267 Million Rural Broadband Loan >> Mar. 27, 2008 >> >> > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: usdasharp.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 3197 bytes Desc: not available URL: From pete at ideapete.com Sat Mar 29 21:21:29 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Sat, 29 Mar 2008 22:21:29 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fine-tuning Wi-Fi Message-ID: <47EF1549.1030805@ideapete.com> This may have been up before but if not its a good coverage on why even subsidized wifi has problems /Atlanta-based EarthLink's February confirmation that it was selling off its municipal Wi-Fi business sounded the final death knell for some cities' ambitious goals to offer ubiquitous wireless broadband./ http://americancityandcounty.com/technology/wireless/finetuning_wifi_att_riverside/ -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Thu Apr 3 14:53:49 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Thu, 03 Apr 2008 15:53:49 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] 'Telemedicine' links Africans to Indian expertise : Mail & Guardian Online Message-ID: <47F551ED.8010105@ideapete.com> http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=336160&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__international_news/ -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From granoff at zianet.com Thu Apr 3 15:55:10 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Thu, 03 Apr 2008 16:55:10 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Challenge publicity at LANL Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20080403164413.0d02a880@mail.zianet.com> For those of you who are not familiar with the Supercomputing Challenge Program for mid and high school students, you can go to http://www.supercomputingchallenge.org/ and click on the "About" button at the top of the page to find out more. There is a very nice article about the the program starting on page 4 of this month's LANL newsletter. See the link below. The Challenge is always struggling for enough funding to keep the program going. Contributions are always welcome and are tax-deductible. Click on the "Sponsors" link on the left hand side for more information. >We made the front cover of the Lab's monthly newsletter! > >http://www.lanl.gov/news/currents/docs/currents_04_2008.pdf > >David Best Regards, Marianne From pete at ideapete.com Thu Apr 3 18:04:55 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Thu, 03 Apr 2008 19:04:55 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] WiMAX is more of a crawl than a Sprint | The Register Message-ID: <47F57EB7.6070200@ideapete.com> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/03/zohm_delayed/ -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From david at breeckerassociates.com Fri Apr 4 08:47:25 2008 From: david at breeckerassociates.com (David Breecker) Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2008 09:47:25 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] 'Telemedicine' links Africans to Indian expertise : Mail & Guardian Online In-Reply-To: <47F551ED.8010105@ideapete.com> References: <47F551ED.8010105@ideapete.com> Message-ID: <0C757F90-2F5B-485B-A1C1-F39DB0D03C30@breeckerassociates.com> Well then, our solution is finally clear: let's invite India to wire NM. dba | David Breecker Associates, Inc. Santa Fe: 505-690-2335 Abiquiu: 505-685-4891 www.BreeckerAssociates.com On Apr 3, 2008, at 3:53 PM, peter wrote: > http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=336160&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__international_news/ > -- > Peter Baston > IDEAS > www.ideapete.com > > > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tom at jtjohnson.com Sun Apr 6 19:33:45 2008 From: tom at jtjohnson.com (Tom Johnson) Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2008 20:33:45 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Kicking the Internet up a notch Message-ID: Let's see now: what are the odds we in New Mexico -- hell, in the U.S. -- will ever see a fraction of this in our home? http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article3689881.ece?print=yes&randnum=1207538948023--- -- tj ========================================== J. T. Johnson Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA www.analyticjournalism.com 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) http://www.jtjohnson.com tom at jtjohnson.com "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." -- Buckminster Fuller ========================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From owen at backspaces.net Sun Apr 6 19:56:16 2008 From: owen at backspaces.net (Owen Densmore) Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2008 20:56:16 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] [FRIAM] Kicking the Internet up a notch In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <005CFCE0-9F09-46F1-9DBA-1E83B7471B4B@backspaces.net> Finally! This is a good intro to what Don and I have been working on the last couple of weeks. The network is the computer .. wait .. Sun? Here's step one, the cloud: http://www.joyent.com/accelerator Basically we're tracing the newest "hosting" technologies, and believe me, they are changing at light speed. Cloud computing is a brilliant combination of hardware/server advancement .. where small fractions of a "blade" can have its own IP address, to software that "virtualizes" these fractions into dozens of "sites". And when I say "virtualize", I DEFINITELY do NOT mean VMWare or Parallels. I mean a fascinating combination of DNS stunts with name-based sub-servers on every "site". And yes, these services offer clustered systems so you can go from a fraction of a server to multiple servers. Basically Torrents are going to replace streams, and Virtual Servers are going to replace hosting services as we once knew them. Currently the torrent part is weakest, but we believe we'll see "torrent url's" soon .. stunts where the torrent technology will not be limited to file sharing, but will be a "transport" for any layer in the Internet. To be specific, Don and I have an architecture for hosting that includes two "computers" .. one the typical shared hosting service .. but with GREAT programmer oriented services, an the other a dedicated fraction of a "blade" (with root access).. which bursts up to the full blade, or can advance to clustered. Managing this is a "DNS Management Service" .. yet another web hosting service that lets some of the requests for our domain go to the shared system, and others to the shared .. i.e. a form of load balancing. And for storage, the service has a Network Storage System (Joyent Bingo Disks) that is completely scalable, and on a 100Mb pipe. All facilities interoperable. Managing all this is a fantastic web based administration package called Virtualmin .. virtual computing administration. And we can move our Virtualmin system from Joyent to Amazon (S3/EC2) in a day, with Virtualmin's migration facilities. Its not your father's internet any more! See these: http://www.joyent.com/ http://www.virtualmin.com/ https://www.dnsmadeeasy.com/ So Tom, the answer to: > Let's see now: what are the odds we in New Mexico -- hell, in the > U.S. -- > will ever see a fraction of this in our home? .. is very high if we in The Complex decide to work on this. The pieces are in place. -- Owen On Apr 6, 2008, at 8:33 PM, Tom Johnson wrote: > Let's see now: what are the odds we in New Mexico -- hell, in the > U.S. -- > will ever see a fraction of this in our home? > > http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article3689881.ece?print=yes&randnum=1207538948023--- > > -- tj > > ========================================== > J. T. Johnson > Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA > www.analyticjournalism.com > 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) > http://www.jtjohnson.com tom at jtjohnson.com > > "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. > To change something, build a new model that makes the > existing model obsolete." > -- Buckminster Fuller > ========================================== > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org From bob at bobknight.net Sun Apr 6 20:16:00 2008 From: bob at bobknight.net (Bob Knight) Date: Sun, 06 Apr 2008 21:16:00 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] [FRIAM] Kicking the Internet up a notch In-Reply-To: <005CFCE0-9F09-46F1-9DBA-1E83B7471B4B@backspaces.net> References: <005CFCE0-9F09-46F1-9DBA-1E83B7471B4B@backspaces.net> Message-ID: <47F991F0.4020009@bobknight.net> Am I missing something or does this dovetail nicely with something like LTSP or Sun Rays? For various reasons, I am very enamored of thin clients: if you have access to bandwidth via 3g, wireless or wire, they give you the ability to move your workspace with you without carrying your actual bits. Why is this good? What happens if your laptop or computers at home get ripped off? Massive ID theft? Perhaps not, if you're fastidious about using things like encryption. If you're not doing heavy gaming or graphics, they are lightweight enough bandwidth-wise so that things are not too annoying. Couple them with what Owen's talking about and ... you don't have to have a roomful of confusers at home, you have great bandwidth to your computing and someone else is worrying about security and HVAC. Or is this completely tangential? FWIW. Bob Owen Densmore wrote: > Finally! This is a good intro to what Don and I have been working on > the last couple of weeks. The network is the computer .. wait .. Sun? > > Here's step one, the cloud: > http://www.joyent.com/accelerator > Basically we're tracing the newest "hosting" technologies, and believe > me, they are changing at light speed. > > Cloud computing is a brilliant combination of hardware/server > advancement .. where small fractions of a "blade" can have its own IP > address, to software that "virtualizes" these fractions into dozens of > "sites". And when I say "virtualize", I DEFINITELY do NOT mean VMWare > or Parallels. I mean a fascinating combination of DNS stunts with > name-based sub-servers on every "site". And yes, these services offer > clustered systems so you can go from a fraction of a server to > multiple servers. > > Basically Torrents are going to replace streams, and Virtual Servers > are going to replace hosting services as we once knew them. Currently > the torrent part is weakest, but we believe we'll see "torrent url's" > soon .. stunts where the torrent technology will not be limited to > file sharing, but will be a "transport" for any layer in the Internet. > > To be specific, Don and I have an architecture for hosting that > includes two "computers" .. one the typical shared hosting service .. > but with GREAT programmer oriented services, an the other a dedicated > fraction of a "blade" (with root access).. which bursts up to the full > blade, or can advance to clustered. > > Managing this is a "DNS Management Service" .. yet another web hosting > service that lets some of the requests for our domain go to the shared > system, and others to the shared .. i.e. a form of load balancing. > And for storage, the service has a Network Storage System (Joyent > Bingo Disks) that is completely scalable, and on a 100Mb pipe. All > facilities interoperable. > > Managing all this is a fantastic web based administration package > called Virtualmin .. virtual computing administration. And we can > move our Virtualmin system from Joyent to Amazon (S3/EC2) in a day, > with Virtualmin's migration facilities. > > Its not your father's internet any more! > > See these: > http://www.joyent.com/ > http://www.virtualmin.com/ > https://www.dnsmadeeasy.com/ > > So Tom, the answer to: > >> Let's see now: what are the odds we in New Mexico -- hell, in the >> U.S. -- >> will ever see a fraction of this in our home? >> > .. is very high if we in The Complex decide to work on this. The > pieces are in place. > > -- Owen > > > On Apr 6, 2008, at 8:33 PM, Tom Johnson wrote: > > >> Let's see now: what are the odds we in New Mexico -- hell, in the >> U.S. -- >> will ever see a fraction of this in our home? >> >> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article3689881.ece?print=yes&randnum=1207538948023--- >> >> -- tj >> >> ========================================== >> J. T. Johnson >> Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA >> www.analyticjournalism.com >> 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) >> http://www.jtjohnson.com tom at jtjohnson.com >> >> "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. >> To change something, build a new model that makes the >> existing model obsolete." >> -- Buckminster Fuller >> ========================================== >> ============================================================ >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org >> > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > From owen at backspaces.net Sun Apr 6 21:07:50 2008 From: owen at backspaces.net (Owen Densmore) Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2008 22:07:50 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] [FRIAM] Kicking the Internet up a notch In-Reply-To: <47F991F0.4020009@bobknight.net> References: <005CFCE0-9F09-46F1-9DBA-1E83B7471B4B@backspaces.net> <47F991F0.4020009@bobknight.net> Message-ID: On Apr 6, 2008, at 9:16 PM, Bob Knight wrote: > Am I missing something or does this dovetail nicely with something > like LTSP or Sun Rays? Bingo, right on! Both are *extreme* thin clients with nothing on the "desktop" other than a keyboard, mouse, display, and server-connection. The Sun Ray goes to the extreme of actually having the frame buffer on the server, and the "server-connection" literally streaming the video between the thin-client and the server. I used one of these for 4 years at Sun. At first folks were concerned -- where's my *data*. Well, they then realized it was where it always was .. backed up on the network. It has a great other facility. It was "logged into" via a credit-card sorta thing .. a Java Card. I could pop mine out, run down the hall, pop it into a friends system, and we'd be looking at my system! Talk about virtual desktops! > For various reasons, I am very enamored of thin clients: if you have > access to bandwidth via 3g, wireless or wire, they give you the > ability to move your workspace with you without carrying your actual > bits. > > Why is this good? What happens if your laptop or computers at home > get ripped off? Massive ID theft? Perhaps not, if you're fastidious > about using things like encryption. If you're not doing heavy gaming > or graphics, they are lightweight enough bandwidth-wise so that > things are not too annoying. > > Couple them with what Owen's talking about and ... you don't have to > have a roomful of confusers at home, you have great bandwidth to > your computing and someone else is worrying about security and HVAC. > > Or is this completely tangential? No, its absolutely spot on. > FWIW. > > Bob -- Owen > Owen Densmore wrote: >> Finally! This is a good intro to what Don and I have been working >> on the last couple of weeks. The network is the computer .. >> wait .. Sun? >> >> Here's step one, the cloud: >> http://www.joyent.com/accelerator >> Basically we're tracing the newest "hosting" technologies, and >> believe me, they are changing at light speed. >> >> Cloud computing is a brilliant combination of hardware/server >> advancement .. where small fractions of a "blade" can have its own >> IP address, to software that "virtualizes" these fractions into >> dozens of "sites". And when I say "virtualize", I DEFINITELY do >> NOT mean VMWare or Parallels. I mean a fascinating combination of >> DNS stunts with name-based sub-servers on every "site". And yes, >> these services offer clustered systems so you can go from a >> fraction of a server to multiple servers. >> >> Basically Torrents are going to replace streams, and Virtual >> Servers are going to replace hosting services as we once knew >> them. Currently the torrent part is weakest, but we believe we'll >> see "torrent url's" soon .. stunts where the torrent technology >> will not be limited to file sharing, but will be a "transport" for >> any layer in the Internet. >> >> To be specific, Don and I have an architecture for hosting that >> includes two "computers" .. one the typical shared hosting >> service .. but with GREAT programmer oriented services, an the >> other a dedicated fraction of a "blade" (with root access).. which >> bursts up to the full blade, or can advance to clustered. >> >> Managing this is a "DNS Management Service" .. yet another web >> hosting service that lets some of the requests for our domain go >> to the shared system, and others to the shared .. i.e. a form of >> load balancing. And for storage, the service has a Network >> Storage System (Joyent Bingo Disks) that is completely scalable, >> and on a 100Mb pipe. All facilities interoperable. >> >> Managing all this is a fantastic web based administration package >> called Virtualmin .. virtual computing administration. And we can >> move our Virtualmin system from Joyent to Amazon (S3/EC2) in a >> day, with Virtualmin's migration facilities. >> >> Its not your father's internet any more! >> >> See these: >> http://www.joyent.com/ >> http://www.virtualmin.com/ >> https://www.dnsmadeeasy.com/ >> >> So Tom, the answer to: >> >>> Let's see now: what are the odds we in New Mexico -- hell, in the >>> U.S. -- >>> will ever see a fraction of this in our home? >>> >> .. is very high if we in The Complex decide to work on this. The >> pieces are in place. >> >> -- Owen >> >> >> On Apr 6, 2008, at 8:33 PM, Tom Johnson wrote: >> >> >>> Let's see now: what are the odds we in New Mexico -- hell, in the >>> U.S. -- >>> will ever see a fraction of this in our home? >>> >>> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article3689881.ece?print=yes&randnum=1207538948023--- >>> >>> -- tj >>> >>> ========================================== >>> J. T. Johnson >>> Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA >>> www.analyticjournalism.com >>> 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) >>> http://www.jtjohnson.com tom at jtjohnson.com >>> >>> "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. >>> To change something, build a new model that makes the >>> existing model obsolete." >>> -- Buckminster Fuller >>> ========================================== >>> ============================================================ >>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >>> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org >>> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 1st-mile-nm mailing list >> 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm >> From josmon at rigozsaurus.com Sun Apr 6 22:56:57 2008 From: josmon at rigozsaurus.com (John Osmon) Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2008 23:56:57 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] [FRIAM] Kicking the Internet up a notch In-Reply-To: <47F991F0.4020009@bobknight.net> References: <005CFCE0-9F09-46F1-9DBA-1E83B7471B4B@backspaces.net> <47F991F0.4020009@bobknight.net> Message-ID: <20080407055657.GB13404@jeeves.rigozsaurus.com> On Sun, Apr 06, 2008 at 09:16:00PM -0600, Bob Knight wrote: > Am I missing something or does this dovetail nicely with something like > LTSP or Sun Rays? [...] > Or is this completely tangential? Nope -- things are just starting to catch up to the promise we've had for a while... In the mid-90s, I helped transform a single unix minicomputer into a lab of 50+ workstations that were interchangable. Sit down at any, and your environment would follow (once you logged in). Centralized storage, interchangeable displays, and a network were the key bits. The Sun Rays took that a bit further -- but few people were really ready for them... A friend was in town last week talking about a reseach project where the I/O bus of a computer was replaced with TCP/IP. With the right bandwidth/latency, you don't *care* about separating the I/O and computing equipment. Back to 1st-mile issues -- thin clients have always been useful where there is sufficient bandwidth. As we get better connections, the distinction between where computing components "live" will blur. From david at breeckerassociates.com Mon Apr 7 13:58:31 2008 From: david at breeckerassociates.com (David Breecker) Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2008 14:58:31 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] [FRIAM] Kicking the Internet up a notch In-Reply-To: <005CFCE0-9F09-46F1-9DBA-1E83B7471B4B@backspaces.net> References: <005CFCE0-9F09-46F1-9DBA-1E83B7471B4B@backspaces.net> Message-ID: Back to Tom's original question: I'd like to propose that National Lambda Rail, NM Lambda Rail, the NMCAC, the 1st Mile Institute, and the Governor's Science and Technology Advisor would be an appropriate ad hoc task force to see if and how The Grid could reach us here. If that makes sense, I'll volunteer for service. Thoughts? db dba | David Breecker Associates, Inc. Santa Fe: 505-690-2335 Abiquiu: 505-685-4891 www.BreeckerAssociates.com On Apr 6, 2008, at 8:56 PM, Owen Densmore wrote: > Finally! This is a good intro to what Don and I have been working on > the last couple of weeks. The network is the computer .. wait .. Sun? > > Here's step one, the cloud: > http://www.joyent.com/accelerator > Basically we're tracing the newest "hosting" technologies, and believe > me, they are changing at light speed. > > Cloud computing is a brilliant combination of hardware/server > advancement .. where small fractions of a "blade" can have its own IP > address, to software that "virtualizes" these fractions into dozens of > "sites". And when I say "virtualize", I DEFINITELY do NOT mean VMWare > or Parallels. I mean a fascinating combination of DNS stunts with > name-based sub-servers on every "site". And yes, these services offer > clustered systems so you can go from a fraction of a server to > multiple servers. > > Basically Torrents are going to replace streams, and Virtual Servers > are going to replace hosting services as we once knew them. Currently > the torrent part is weakest, but we believe we'll see "torrent url's" > soon .. stunts where the torrent technology will not be limited to > file sharing, but will be a "transport" for any layer in the Internet. > > To be specific, Don and I have an architecture for hosting that > includes two "computers" .. one the typical shared hosting service .. > but with GREAT programmer oriented services, an the other a dedicated > fraction of a "blade" (with root access).. which bursts up to the full > blade, or can advance to clustered. > > Managing this is a "DNS Management Service" .. yet another web hosting > service that lets some of the requests for our domain go to the shared > system, and others to the shared .. i.e. a form of load balancing. > And for storage, the service has a Network Storage System (Joyent > Bingo Disks) that is completely scalable, and on a 100Mb pipe. All > facilities interoperable. > > Managing all this is a fantastic web based administration package > called Virtualmin .. virtual computing administration. And we can > move our Virtualmin system from Joyent to Amazon (S3/EC2) in a day, > with Virtualmin's migration facilities. > > Its not your father's internet any more! > > See these: > http://www.joyent.com/ > http://www.virtualmin.com/ > https://www.dnsmadeeasy.com/ > > So Tom, the answer to: >> Let's see now: what are the odds we in New Mexico -- hell, in the >> U.S. -- >> will ever see a fraction of this in our home? > .. is very high if we in The Complex decide to work on this. The > pieces are in place. > > -- Owen > > > On Apr 6, 2008, at 8:33 PM, Tom Johnson wrote: > >> Let's see now: what are the odds we in New Mexico -- hell, in the >> U.S. -- >> will ever see a fraction of this in our home? >> >> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article3689881.ece?print=yes&randnum=1207538948023--- >> >> -- tj >> >> ========================================== >> J. T. Johnson >> Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA >> www.analyticjournalism.com >> 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) >> http://www.jtjohnson.com tom at jtjohnson.com >> >> "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. >> To change something, build a new model that makes the >> existing model obsolete." >> -- Buckminster Fuller >> ========================================== >> ============================================================ >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From granoff at zianet.com Mon Apr 7 15:44:56 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Mon, 07 Apr 2008 16:44:56 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] [FRIAM] Kicking the Internet up a notch In-Reply-To: References: <005CFCE0-9F09-46F1-9DBA-1E83B7471B4B@backspaces.net> Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20080407164253.0d39adf0@mail.zianet.com> I would like to see a few consumers participate, as well as someone from PRC staff. There are implications of which just these few groups would not necessarily be aware. At 02:58 PM 4/7/2008 -0600, David Breecker wrote: >Back to Tom's original question: I'd like to propose that National Lambda >Rail, NM Lambda Rail, the NMCAC, the 1st Mile Institute, and the >Governor's Science and Technology Advisor would be an appropriate ad hoc >task force to see if and how The Grid could reach us here. > >If that makes sense, I'll volunteer for service. Thoughts? >db > >dba | David Breecker Associates, Inc. >Santa Fe: 505-690-2335 >Abiquiu: 505-685-4891 >www.BreeckerAssociates.com > > > >On Apr 6, 2008, at 8:56 PM, Owen Densmore wrote: > >>Finally! This is a good intro to what Don and I have been working on >>the last couple of weeks. The network is the computer .. wait .. Sun? >> >>Here's step one, the cloud: >> http://www.joyent.com/accelerator >>Basically we're tracing the newest "hosting" technologies, and believe >>me, they are changing at light speed. >> >>Cloud computing is a brilliant combination of hardware/server >>advancement .. where small fractions of a "blade" can have its own IP >>address, to software that "virtualizes" these fractions into dozens of >>"sites". And when I say "virtualize", I DEFINITELY do NOT mean VMWare >>or Parallels. I mean a fascinating combination of DNS stunts with >>name-based sub-servers on every "site". And yes, these services offer >>clustered systems so you can go from a fraction of a server to >>multiple servers. >> >>Basically Torrents are going to replace streams, and Virtual Servers >>are going to replace hosting services as we once knew them. Currently >>the torrent part is weakest, but we believe we'll see "torrent url's" >>soon .. stunts where the torrent technology will not be limited to >>file sharing, but will be a "transport" for any layer in the Internet. >> >>To be specific, Don and I have an architecture for hosting that >>includes two "computers" .. one the typical shared hosting service .. >>but with GREAT programmer oriented services, an the other a dedicated >>fraction of a "blade" (with root access).. which bursts up to the full >>blade, or can advance to clustered. >> >>Managing this is a "DNS Management Service" .. yet another web hosting >>service that lets some of the requests for our domain go to the shared >>system, and others to the shared .. i.e. a form of load balancing. >>And for storage, the service has a Network Storage System (Joyent >>Bingo Disks) that is completely scalable, and on a 100Mb pipe. All >>facilities interoperable. >> >>Managing all this is a fantastic web based administration package >>called Virtualmin .. virtual computing administration. And we can >>move our Virtualmin system from Joyent to Amazon (S3/EC2) in a day, >>with Virtualmin's migration facilities. >> >>Its not your father's internet any more! >> >>See these: >> http://www.joyent.com/ >> http://www.virtualmin.com/ >> https://www.dnsmadeeasy.com/ >> >>So Tom, the answer to: >>>Let's see now: what are the odds we in New Mexico -- hell, in the >>>U.S. -- >>>will ever see a fraction of this in our home? >>.. is very high if we in The Complex decide to work on this. The >>pieces are in place. >> >> -- Owen >> >> >>On Apr 6, 2008, at 8:33 PM, Tom Johnson wrote: >> >>>Let's see now: what are the odds we in New Mexico -- hell, in the >>>U.S. -- >>>will ever see a fraction of this in our home? >>> >>>http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article3689881.ece?print=yes&randnum=1207538948023--- >>> >>>-- tj >>> >>>========================================== >>>J. T. Johnson >>>Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA >>>www.analyticjournalism.com >>>505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) >>>http://www.jtjohnson.com >>>tom at jtjohnson.com >>> >>>"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. >>>To change something, build a new model that makes the >>>existing model obsolete." >>>-- Buckminster Fuller >>>========================================== >>>============================================================ >>>FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >>>Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >>>lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at >>>http://www.friam.org >> >>_______________________________________________ >>1st-mile-nm mailing list >>1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >>http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > >_______________________________________________ >1st-mile-nm mailing list >1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm >No virus found in this incoming message. >Checked by AVG. >Version: 7.5.519 / Virus Database: 269.22.8/1362 - Release Date: 4/6/2008 >11:12 AM -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From josmon at rigozsaurus.com Mon Apr 7 16:24:39 2008 From: josmon at rigozsaurus.com (John Osmon) Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2008 17:24:39 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] [FRIAM] Kicking the Internet up a notch In-Reply-To: References: <005CFCE0-9F09-46F1-9DBA-1E83B7471B4B@backspaces.net> Message-ID: <20080407232439.GW13404@jeeves.rigozsaurus.com> On Mon, Apr 07, 2008 at 02:58:31PM -0600, David Breecker wrote: > Back to Tom's original question: I'd like to propose that National > Lambda Rail, NM Lambda Rail, the NMCAC, the 1st Mile Institute, and > the Governor's Science and Technology Advisor would be an appropriate > ad hoc task force to see if and how The Grid could reach us here. > > If that makes sense, I'll volunteer for service. Thoughts? I'll throw some chum in the water: What is "The Grid," and what is needed to connect to it? Does it have to be ubiquitious? Or is is sufficient to build one or two points of presence, and then extend its reach over time? How granular does that presence have to be before we're content that "The Grid" reaches us? From john at citylinkfiber.com Mon Apr 7 16:32:26 2008 From: john at citylinkfiber.com (John Brown) Date: Mon, 07 Apr 2008 17:32:26 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] [FRIAM] Kicking the Internet up a notch In-Reply-To: <20080407232439.GW13404@jeeves.rigozsaurus.com> References: <005CFCE0-9F09-46F1-9DBA-1E83B7471B4B@backspaces.net> <20080407232439.GW13404@jeeves.rigozsaurus.com> Message-ID: <47FAAF0A.2080301@citylinkfiber.com> http://www.xcelenergy.com/XLWEB/CDA/0,3080,1-1-1_15531_43141_46932-39884-2_68_132-0,00.html http://www.currentgroup.com/ think BPL (broadband over power lines) and having it interface into the homes usage of electrons. limited by physics on BPL, unless you do OPGW not sure about open-access John Osmon wrote: > On Mon, Apr 07, 2008 at 02:58:31PM -0600, David Breecker wrote: >> Back to Tom's original question: I'd like to propose that National >> Lambda Rail, NM Lambda Rail, the NMCAC, the 1st Mile Institute, and >> the Governor's Science and Technology Advisor would be an appropriate >> ad hoc task force to see if and how The Grid could reach us here. >> >> If that makes sense, I'll volunteer for service. Thoughts? > > > I'll throw some chum in the water: > > What is "The Grid," and what is needed to connect to it? > > Does it have to be ubiquitious? Or is is sufficient to build > one or two points of presence, and then extend its reach over > time? > > How granular does that presence have to be before we're content > that "The Grid" reaches us? > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > From bob at bobknight.net Mon Apr 7 17:25:32 2008 From: bob at bobknight.net (Bob Knight) Date: Mon, 07 Apr 2008 18:25:32 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] [FRIAM] Kicking the Internet up a notch In-Reply-To: <20080407055657.GB13404@jeeves.rigozsaurus.com> References: <005CFCE0-9F09-46F1-9DBA-1E83B7471B4B@backspaces.net> <47F991F0.4020009@bobknight.net> <20080407055657.GB13404@jeeves.rigozsaurus.com> Message-ID: <47FABB7C.6000301@bobknight.net> I agree about the "catch up". In my "day job", I have serious concerns about the way we're delivering computing from any number of directions: costs, resource (e.g. people) utilization, encryption (whole-disk and partial), security, compliance/accreditation etc. whilst keeping enterprise management in mind. While not suitable for some situations, the Sun Rays (as an example) provide solutions or easily tractable workarounds to many of the aforementioned problems. They also drive some costs to service (e.g. bandwidth) providers, which is just fine by me.From a field support perspective, for example, I sure like the "lick and stick" model when one (rarely) keels over. In an era of "doing more with less", there's a lot to like. I anticipate, for instance, that I'll have a SR on my desk Real Soon Now, with a SR laptop for working at home. And I'm reminded of the similarity of centralization to running DECsystem-20's in the 80's at NMT, Stanford and SRI...perhaps I'll resurrect my white lab coat :). Bob John Osmon wrote: > On Sun, Apr 06, 2008 at 09:16:00PM -0600, Bob Knight wrote: > >> Am I missing something or does this dovetail nicely with something like >> LTSP or Sun Rays? >> > [...] > >> Or is this completely tangential? >> > > Nope -- things are just starting to catch up to the promise we've had > for a while... > > In the mid-90s, I helped transform a single unix minicomputer into a lab > of 50+ workstations that were interchangable. Sit down at any, and your > environment would follow (once you logged in). Centralized storage, > interchangeable displays, and a network were the key bits. > > The Sun Rays took that a bit further -- but few people were really > ready for them... > > A friend was in town last week talking about a reseach project where > the I/O bus of a computer was replaced with TCP/IP. With the > right bandwidth/latency, you don't *care* about separating the > I/O and computing equipment. > > Back to 1st-mile issues -- thin clients have always been useful > where there is sufficient bandwidth. As we get better connections, > the distinction between where computing components "live" will > blur. > From rl at 1st-mile.com Mon Apr 7 19:35:36 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Mon, 07 Apr 2008 19:35:36 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Governor's Executive Order on IT Consolidation Message-ID: <20080407193536.lxnw5b09wkgossos@www2.dcn.org> On April 3rd, the Governor signed Executive Order #2008-011 Clarifying the Consolidation of Agency Information Technology Operations and Governance Under the Department of Information and Technology (DoIT). www.governor.state.nm.us/2008orders.php This EO applies specifically to State government agencies, though there may be broader implications. If any State agency representatives subscribed to this list want to comment (speaking only for themselves; not their agency), it would be appreciated. Richard -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From dlc at lampinc.com Mon Apr 7 20:56:11 2008 From: dlc at lampinc.com (Dale Carstensen) Date: Mon, 07 Apr 2008 21:56:11 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] [FRIAM] Kicking the Internet up a notch In-Reply-To: <47FAAF0A.2080301@citylinkfiber.com> References: <005CFCE0-9F09-46F1-9DBA-1E83B7471B4B@backspaces.net> <20080407232439.GW13404@jeeves.rigozsaurus.com> <47FAAF0A.2080301@citylinkfiber.com> Message-ID: <20080408035539.2D8E238D601@lampinc.com> There were several messages on nanog (North American Network Operators Group) today inspired by articles in another London newspaper, the Telegraph. I think both the Times (of London) and the Telegraph articles were about the CERN (European Center for Nuclear Research, out of order due to it being in the French-speaking part of Switzerland) LHC (Large Hadron Collider) firing up in a few days. LHC will generate data at a rate that previously has been imponderable, something in the petabytes per year. Lucy Lynch and Steve Bellovin pointed out some cartoons about LHC. What CERN means by The Grid is a network of data centers, with 10 gigabits per second connections organized in levels. A step beyond what internet2 has been doing in the United States, and somewhat Europe-centric due to CERN being in Europe. I think internet2 and U.S. universities and labs will be involved in The Grid, too, certainly Fermilab in Illinois and Brookhaven in New York. There will be ten separate 10 Gb connections between CERN and other institutions, in the tier 0 (CERN) to tier 1 (those other 10 places) cloud, is what I read somewhere today. There was much criticism that the reporters for the London newspapers don't much understand the topic, also. New Mexico, though, well maybe LANL and/or Sandia might have some involvement in searching for the Higgs Boson, but if not, The Grid probably won't have any presence in the Land of Enchantment, will it? The xcel energy and current group BPL (Broadband over Power Lines) stuff seems to me to be not BPL, but rather NPL (Narrowband over Power Lines) for such purposes as remote meter reading, distribution control (hmm, probably security problems here, come to think of it, maybe financial chicanery could happen with the meter reading, too) and management of non-utility power generation (customers of power utilities selling photovoltaic or wind or biomass electrical generation back to the grid). Open access to The Grid probably means if you have multi-million dollar physics funding, they'd be happy to relieve you of some money, if you're not some crank all set to publish in the Journal of Irreproducible Results or whatever that thing is that seems more likely to be humor than science. >http://www.xcelenergy.com/XLWEB/CDA/0,3080,1-1-1_15531_43141_46932-39884-2_68_ >132-0,00.html > >http://www.currentgroup.com/ > > >think BPL (broadband over power lines) and having it interface into the >homes usage of electrons. > > >limited by physics on BPL, unless you do OPGW > >not sure about open-access > >John Osmon wrote: >> On Mon, Apr 07, 2008 at 02:58:31PM -0600, David Breecker wrote: >>> Back to Tom's original question: I'd like to propose that National >>> Lambda Rail, NM Lambda Rail, the NMCAC, the 1st Mile Institute, and >>> the Governor's Science and Technology Advisor would be an appropriate >>> ad hoc task force to see if and how The Grid could reach us here. >>> >>> If that makes sense, I'll volunteer for service. Thoughts? >> >> >> I'll throw some chum in the water: >> >> What is "The Grid," and what is needed to connect to it? >> >> Does it have to be ubiquitious? Or is is sufficient to build >> one or two points of presence, and then extend its reach over >> time? >> >> How granular does that presence have to be before we're content >> that "The Grid" reaches us? From cohill at designnine.com Tue Apr 8 08:22:41 2008 From: cohill at designnine.com (Andrew Cohill) Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2008 11:22:41 -0400 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] BPL challenges In-Reply-To: <20080408035539.2D8E238D601@lampinc.com> References: <005CFCE0-9F09-46F1-9DBA-1E83B7471B4B@backspaces.net> <20080407232439.GW13404@jeeves.rigozsaurus.com> <47FAAF0A.2080301@citylinkfiber.com> <20080408035539.2D8E238D601@lampinc.com> Message-ID: <41B0C9F7-89A2-4218-BC0B-9CB4FAB4546B@designnine.com> I spoke to a rural electric coop recently that has been experimenting with BPL from several vendors for three years, and is still not able to get more than a couple hundred kilobits of bandwidth when the distances are more than a mile or two from the transformer. Bandwidth issues aside, a weakness of BPL appears to be that a wide area deployment can cost a significant fraction of what you would spend for fiber or a hybrid fiber/wireless deployment. We're working on a project right now with a public electric utility that has decided to run fiber to substations in its rural areas and then deply WiMax both for broadband but also for electric power management and meter reading, using low power wireless close to the home for the meter reading stuff. In an open services network, the electric utility can become an anchor tenant for AMI/AMR services. Andrew On Apr 7, 2008, at 11:56 PM, Dale Carstensen wrote: > > The xcel energy and current group BPL (Broadband over Power > Lines) stuff seems to me to be not BPL, but rather NPL (Narrowband > over Power Lines) for such purposes as remote meter reading, > distribution control (hmm, probably security problems here, > come to think of it, maybe financial chicanery could happen > with the meter reading, too) and management of non-utility > power generation (customers of power utilities selling > photovoltaic or wind or biomass electrical generation back > to the grid). ------------------------------------------------- Andrew Michael Cohill, Ph.D. President Design Nine, Inc. Design Nine provides visionary broadband architecture and engineering services, telecommunications and broadband master planning, and broadband project management. Visit the Technology Futures blog for frequently updated news and commentary on technology issues. http://www.designnine.com/news/ http://www.designnine.com/ Blacksburg, Virginia 540.951.4400 From josmon at oneconnectip.com Mon Apr 7 16:17:03 2008 From: josmon at oneconnectip.com (John Osmon) Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2008 17:17:03 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] [FRIAM] Kicking the Internet up a notch In-Reply-To: References: <005CFCE0-9F09-46F1-9DBA-1E83B7471B4B@backspaces.net> Message-ID: <20080407231703.GV13404@jeeves.rigozsaurus.com> On Mon, Apr 07, 2008 at 02:58:31PM -0600, David Breecker wrote: > Back to Tom's original question: I'd like to propose that National > Lambda Rail, NM Lambda Rail, the NMCAC, the 1st Mile Institute, and > the Governor's Science and Technology Advisor would be an appropriate > ad hoc task force to see if and how The Grid could reach us here. > > If that makes sense, I'll volunteer for service. Thoughts? I'll throw some chum in the water: What is "The Grid," and what is needed to connect to it? Does it have to be ubiquitious? Or is is sufficient to build one or two points of presence, and then extend its reach over time? How granular does that presence have to be before we're content that "The Grid" reaches us? If we can't answer those questions, we're not ready to for a task force. When we can answer them, I'll help where I can. From dlc at lampinc.com Tue Apr 8 09:50:46 2008 From: dlc at lampinc.com (Dale Carstensen) Date: Tue, 08 Apr 2008 10:50:46 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] BPL challenges In-Reply-To: <41B0C9F7-89A2-4218-BC0B-9CB4FAB4546B@designnine.com> References: <005CFCE0-9F09-46F1-9DBA-1E83B7471B4B@backspaces.net> <20080407232439.GW13404@jeeves.rigozsaurus.com> <47FAAF0A.2080301@citylinkfiber.com> <20080408035539.2D8E238D601@lampinc.com> <41B0C9F7-89A2-4218-BC0B-9CB4FAB4546B@designnine.com> Message-ID: <20080408165012.E9B9538D602@lampinc.com> I haven't tried even the limited distance BPL equipment, but I would think putting internet traffic on power lines on a widespread basis would create the radio interference hams (radio amateurs) predict. All those signals on unshielded wires with lots of corroded or otherwise non-ideal connections, arbitrary topology, what a nightmare. On the other hand, aerial distribution of fiber internet by electric utilities seems to me to be a great wake-up call for our telephone monopolies. Let's get some competition into the business of inter-city internet transit! >I spoke to a rural electric coop recently that has been experimenting >with BPL from several vendors for three years, and is still not able >to get more than a couple hundred kilobits of bandwidth when the >distances are more than a mile or two from the transformer. Bandwidth >issues aside, a weakness of BPL appears to be that a wide area >deployment can cost a significant fraction of what you would spend for >fiber or a hybrid fiber/wireless deployment. > >We're working on a project right now with a public electric utility >that has decided to run fiber to substations in its rural areas and >then deply WiMax both for broadband but also for electric power >management and meter reading, using low power wireless close to the >home for the meter reading stuff. > >In an open services network, the electric utility can become an anchor >tenant for AMI/AMR services. > >Andrew > >On Apr 7, 2008, at 11:56 PM, Dale Carstensen wrote: > >> >> The xcel energy and current group BPL (Broadband over Power >> Lines) stuff seems to me to be not BPL, but rather NPL (Narrowband >> over Power Lines) for such purposes as remote meter reading, >> distribution control (hmm, probably security problems here, >> come to think of it, maybe financial chicanery could happen >> with the meter reading, too) and management of non-utility >> power generation (customers of power utilities selling >> photovoltaic or wind or biomass electrical generation back >> to the grid). > >------------------------------------------------- >Andrew Michael Cohill, Ph.D. >President >Design Nine, Inc. > >Design Nine provides visionary broadband architecture and engineering >services, telecommunications and broadband master planning, and >broadband project management. > >Visit the Technology Futures blog for frequently updated news and >commentary on technology issues. > http://www.designnine.com/news/ > >http://www.designnine.com/ >Blacksburg, Virginia >540.951.4400 From granoff at zianet.com Tue Apr 8 17:40:16 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Tue, 08 Apr 2008 18:40:16 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: 4.8.8 Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20080408183149.0478ab00@mail.zianet.com> From another list. FYI >Big ISPs back plan to wire low-income Americans, CNET >AT&T, Verizon, the cable industry, and others team up >with state and local governments and a nonprofit group >with goal of bringing broadband to 500,000 more homes >by 2010. > >http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9914063-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20 > > >U.S. Carriers Quietly Developing IPv6 Services, >They haven't released many details yet, but U.S. >carriers say they are developing commercial services >that will take advantage of IPv6, a long-anticipated >upgrade to the Internet's main communications protocol >known as IPv4. Many of the new services are due out in >the next year, carriers say... > http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/040208-ipv6-carrier-services.html > > >Comcast Suffers Through Major Weekend Outage - Gives >Silicon Valley blogger a call, dslreports >As users in our Comcast forum can attest, the cable >giant suffered through a significant 7-hour outage on >Saturday, which took customers offline in a number of >States, including New York, Pennsylvania, and >Delaware. Comcast has yet to identify a cause of the >outage, but says they're investigating. While you were >struggling to get a hold of Comcast, Comcast was >actually reaching out to help Silicon Valley startup >promoter Mike Arrington, who was called by the cable >giant after he complained about his own, California >outage on Twitter: > >http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Comcast-Suffers-Through-Major-Weekend-Outage-93372 From pete at ideapete.com Wed Apr 9 12:44:19 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2008 13:44:19 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] BPL challenges In-Reply-To: <20080408165012.E9B9538D602@lampinc.com> References: <005CFCE0-9F09-46F1-9DBA-1E83B7471B4B@backspaces.net> <20080407232439.GW13404@jeeves.rigozsaurus.com> <47FAAF0A.2080301@citylinkfiber.com> <20080408035539.2D8E238D601@lampinc.com> <41B0C9F7-89A2-4218-BC0B-9CB4FAB4546B@designnine.com> <20080408165012.E9B9538D602@lampinc.com> Message-ID: <47FD1C93.1070706@ideapete.com> Then again the devil is in the details ABB in Europe does a lot of ( Broadband sic ) over power line especially in Switzerland. We worked with ABB when they did multiple tests and demonstrations of with US clients especially Duke power to determine feasibility of BPL ( Then called PLC - PLT - PLN ) especially targeted at better and faster transfers of information within the power company. When you look at a power company like PNM you are actually looking at three different operating entities a) The power plants that produce the electricity b) The transmission lines that carry the load over the primary high power grid network c) The local stepped down lines that eventually supply power to your home and its additional services If you are targeting last / first mile you look at the group ( c ), if you are targeting backbone you look at group ( b ). This is essential because you will find totally deferent management systems, objectives, laws needs requirements in each sector. As a very astute post linked to TVA pointed out recently the efficiency of major power companies operations is way beyond pathetic For those of you interested a) = 40% b) = 45% c) = 30% The group (c) block is home to senor management the guys who tell the PRC how much money is needed to operate and run the utility and these characters are past masters at manipulating data to justify anything ( http://www.abqjournal.com/opinion/guest_columns/299213opinion04-09-08.htm ) and unfortunately as we found with many utilities good fast ACCURATE information transfer is the last thing they want and thats eventually where all this leads What the ABB tests over the US found is this ( the major points the list is quite long ) 1. In both groups ( b ) and (c ) the transmission system infrastructure in the US is way beyond bad as a result line quality deterioration only achieved signal strength 20 - 30% of what was being achieved in the European operations 2. High speed signal and smart networks are essential for the next generation in group ( b ) but no utility expressed interest ( PNM have stated on the record that this is not their problem ) 3. BPL / PLC networks opened up the door to uncontrolled network data exchange this made many utilities nervous 4. BPL / PLC in group (c) opened up the doorway to power on smart demand designs with power over Ethernet this terrifies most power companies as ( again our astute TVA guy pointed out ) and also makes reuse and bill back a snap again this is PC heresy ( Andrews point about NPL ) 5. The right of way issue in both groups ( b ) and (c) using fiber cable came into a roadblock with the lineman's unions in that they where the only ones who where licensed to install and maintain and cable on the transmission lines and all comonents and as such the test runs fiber equipment had the cable come down to ground level for repeaters and boosters, monitors and vandalism to the components skyrocketed ( This happened to a utility in NM as well, I think it was Kit Carson ) 6. No power plant in group (a ) will use BPL / PLC in its present state as it plays havoc with multiple radio bands which are essential to both daily operation and emergency maintenance at the plant Again he devil is usually in the details ( : ( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ Dale Carstensen wrote: > I haven't tried even the limited distance BPL equipment, but I would > think putting internet traffic on power lines on a widespread basis > would create the radio interference hams (radio amateurs) predict. > All those signals on unshielded wires with lots of corroded or > otherwise non-ideal connections, arbitrary topology, what a nightmare. > > On the other hand, aerial distribution of fiber internet by electric > utilities seems to me to be a great wake-up call for our telephone > monopolies. Let's get some competition into the business of > inter-city internet transit! > > >> I spoke to a rural electric coop recently that has been experimenting >> with BPL from several vendors for three years, and is still not able >> to get more than a couple hundred kilobits of bandwidth when the >> distances are more than a mile or two from the transformer. Bandwidth >> issues aside, a weakness of BPL appears to be that a wide area >> deployment can cost a significant fraction of what you would spend for >> fiber or a hybrid fiber/wireless deployment. >> >> We're working on a project right now with a public electric utility >> that has decided to run fiber to substations in its rural areas and >> then deply WiMax both for broadband but also for electric power >> management and meter reading, using low power wireless close to the >> home for the meter reading stuff. >> >> In an open services network, the electric utility can become an anchor >> tenant for AMI/AMR services. >> >> Andrew >> >> On Apr 7, 2008, at 11:56 PM, Dale Carstensen wrote: >> >> >>> The xcel energy and current group BPL (Broadband over Power >>> Lines) stuff seems to me to be not BPL, but rather NPL (Narrowband >>> over Power Lines) for such purposes as remote meter reading, >>> distribution control (hmm, probably security problems here, >>> come to think of it, maybe financial chicanery could happen >>> with the meter reading, too) and management of non-utility >>> power generation (customers of power utilities selling >>> photovoltaic or wind or biomass electrical generation back >>> to the grid). >>> >> ------------------------------------------------- >> Andrew Michael Cohill, Ph.D. >> President >> Design Nine, Inc. >> >> Design Nine provides visionary broadband architecture and engineering >> services, telecommunications and broadband master planning, and >> broadband project management. >> >> Visit the Technology Futures blog for frequently updated news and >> commentary on technology issues. >> http://www.designnine.com/news/ >> >> http://www.designnine.com/ >> Blacksburg, Virginia >> 540.951.4400 >> > > > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Thu Apr 10 10:43:59 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2008 10:43:59 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Student Funding Opportunity Message-ID: <20080410104359.nnfzbj1mw4k0kw44@www2.dcn.org> Learn and Serve America is having a grant competition for student groups/higher ed. to experiment with the use of social media(Web 2.0) to help more students serve/volunteer. Here is a description of the opportunity: www.learnandserve.gov/for_organizations/funding/nofa_detail.asp?tbl_nofa_id=56 -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Thu Apr 10 15:42:40 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2008 15:42:40 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Los Alamos Fiber Considerations Message-ID: <20080410154240.ugtb597pew4oowc4@www2.dcn.org> Los Alamos City/County is once again considering 'wideband' fiber and wireless networking needs and solutions for business and community. The following resident's letter to the editor appeared a couple of weeks ago in the Los Alamos Monitor, and has also been reprinted on Dale Carstensen's blog, at: http://fiberlanm.blogspot.com/ rl ------- Los Alamos Monitor Thurs. March 27, 2008 Letter to the Editor Broadband access crucial to the Hill By TJ Taub Dear Editor, I see the county is once again pursuing the possibility of broadband. I hope this time, it will be an exercise that engages and educates the community about broadband benefits, services and options. Educating the community ? prohibited in the last county study ? is not, in and of itself, promoting a concept. Education allows for informed decision-making. I would also hope that this time the investigating team includes individuals who can and will speak for local business, medical and educational sectors as well as county government. Broadband could allow residents to avail themselves of many county services online, from home or office, minus challenges of time, parking, weather and accessibility. It could allow the county to perform some services, such as meter reading, as a remote function. Medical tests (LARGE files) and records could be conveyed in real time to specialists and clinics, near and far. Local students could be positioned nationally in a more competitive light with improved access to materials via the Internet, as well as the ability to take real-time interactive courses from universities across the country. Local retail and service businesses could expand their audiences and enhance Internet-related services and capabilities. The same is true for nonprofit organizations related to recreation, history, culture, tourism, service providers and more. Los Alamos would become a much more competitive player in the economic development arena. Phone, Internet and television services could be bundled versus ? la carte. Where offered, bundling saves consumers money on the services they engage. Last ? and least ? movie downloads at home would be quick as a whistle. The last county excursion into broadband suggested it would be relatively easy to train county utility workers to repair and maintain fiber optic broadband. The county would maintain infrastructure while specific services, as requested by subscribers, would be offered by specialized providers. Incumbent providers, such as Qwest or Comcast, generally don?t promote their broadband services in small communities, presumably due to limited profit margins. It appears, however, their position sometimes changes when a community demonstrates its determination to gain broadband and begins to consider other providers. I don?t know if we can make this work for Los Alamos. Without it, I don?t know how well we?ll survive as a community that must attract highly educated workers and their families. TJ Taub Los Alamos -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From john at citylinkfiber.com Sun Apr 13 19:06:41 2008 From: john at citylinkfiber.com (John Brown) Date: Sun, 13 Apr 2008 20:06:41 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Looks like Dry-Pairs are back in Qwest land Message-ID: <4802BC31.90906@citylinkfiber.com> I have it on pretty good authority that at least one NM ISP (who is not a CLEC) is able to order dry-pair / alarm circuits and run broadband over them. This particular ISP is using the alarm circuits to provide a 6Mb/s connection to a downtown Albuquerque client. I've been under the impression that alarm-circuits / dry-pairs had been removed from the order book some years ago. If we can in fact order these types of links again, this could be a very economical way of solving some First-Mile issues. From carroll at cagleandassociates.com Mon Apr 14 09:47:38 2008 From: carroll at cagleandassociates.com (Carroll Cagle) Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:47:38 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Exponential technological progress Message-ID: <06b201c89e4f$4047ee40$c00a010a@yourfsyly0jtwn> By Ray Kurzweil Washington Post Sunday, April 13, 2008 M IT was so advanced in 1965 (the year I entered as a freshman) that it actually had a computer. Housed in its own building, it cost $11 million (in today's dollars) and was shared by all students and faculty. Four decades later, the computer in your cellphone is a million times smaller, a million times less expensive and a thousand times more powerful. That's a billion-fold increase in the amount of computation you can buy per dollar. Yet as powerful as information technology is today, we will make another billion-fold increase in capability (for the same cost) over the next 25 years. That's because information technology builds on itself -- we are continually using the latest tools to create the next so they grow in capability at an exponential rate. This doesn't just mean snazzier cellphones. It means that change will rock every aspect of our world. The exponential growth in computing speed will unlock a solution to global warming, unmask the secret to longer life and solve myriad other worldly conundrums. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/11/AR2008041103 326.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.gif Type: image/gif Size: 862 bytes Desc: not available URL: From editorsteve at gmail.com Mon Apr 14 11:02:08 2008 From: editorsteve at gmail.com (Steve Ross) Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:02:08 -0400 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Exponential technological progress In-Reply-To: <06b201c89e4f$4047ee40$c00a010a@yourfsyly0jtwn> References: <06b201c89e4f$4047ee40$c00a010a@yourfsyly0jtwn> Message-ID: <48039C20.2030407@gmail.com> Just to be accurate, MIT had at least a few other computers, including an IBM 1620 at the Sloan School, and a PDP1 in the basement. I used both of them in the summer of 1963, a year before I graduated high school. Ray is referring to the IBM 7090, the biggest machine in the place at the time. All were (gasp!) transistorized. Steven S. Ross Editor-in-Chief Broadband Properties steve at broadbandproperties.com www.bbpmag.com SKYPE: editorsteve +1 781-284-8810 +1 646-216-8030 fax +1 201-456-5933 mobile Carroll Cagle wrote: > /By Ray Kurzweil/ > > /Washington// Post/ > > Sunday, April 13, 2008 > > M IT was so advanced in 1965 (the year I entered as a freshman) that it > actually had a computer. Housed in its own building, it cost $11 million > (in today's dollars) and was shared by all students and faculty. Four > decades later, the computer in your cellphone is a million times > smaller, a million times less expensive and a thousand times more > powerful. That's a billion-fold increase in the amount of computation > you can buy per dollar. > > Yet as powerful as information technology is today, we will make another > billion-fold increase in capability (for the same cost) over the next 25 > years. That's because information technology builds on itself -- we are > continually using the latest tools to create the next so they grow in > capability at an exponential rate. This doesn't just mean snazzier > cellphones. It means that change will rock every aspect of our world. > The exponential growth in computing speed will unlock a solution to > global warming, unmask the secret to longer life and solve myriad other > worldly conundrums. > > http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/11/AR2008041103326.html > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm From rl at 1st-mile.com Mon Apr 14 16:27:46 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2008 16:27:46 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Navajo Nation Loses Internet Signal Message-ID: <20080414162746.37i4qj1sro480wwc@www2.dcn.org> Navajo Nation loses Internet signal for computers funded by Gates Foundation http://indiancountrynews.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3058&Itemid=1 News from Indian Country By Felicia Fonseca Albuquerque, New Mexico (AP) 4-08 The thousands of Navajo Nation tribal residents who rely on the Internet to work, study and communicate across their 27,000-square-mile (69,930-square-kilometer) reservation were out of luck, as their service provider shut off access on April 7. ?It?s a sad day,? said Ernest Franklin, director of the tribe?s Telecommunications Regulatory Commission. A tribal audit last year revealed that Utah-based provider OnSat Network Communications Inc. may have double-billed the tribe, and it raised questions about how the tribe requested bids for the Internet contract. Those discoveries led the Universal Service Administration Co., which administers the service under the Federal Communications Commission?s E-rate program, to tell the tribe March 28 that it would withhold $2.1 million (euro1.34 million) from OnSat. Jim Fitting, an attorney for OnSat, said the delay in payment means it cannot pay subcontractor SES Americom for satellite time. ?With USAC taking this particular position, it doesn?t look like we?re going to get paid in the foreseeable future,? Fitting said. ?We?re already $4 million in the hole, so why should we continue doing it?? Most evenings, when residents get off work, the reservation?s chapter houses are closed, but their wireless signals remain live. So it is common to see residents with laptops sitting in cars outside working away, a local official said. Through the Washington, D.C.-based USAC, the FCC reimburses 85 percent to 90 percent of the costs for Internet service to 70 of the tribe?s 110 chapter houses, which operate like city governments. The Navajo Nation covers the other 10 percent to 15 percent of the cost and offers service inside the chapter house and nearby through Wi-Fi. The USAC told Navajo President Joe Shirley Jr. in a March 28 letter that it is withholding money for OnSat for 2006-07 because of the possible overbilling and because the tribe didn?t comply with federal rules that require it to select the most cost-effective service or equipment through a fair, open and competitive bidding process. The USAC asked the tribe to prove OnSat provided the service it is billing for and has not overbilled. OnSat won a preliminary injunction last July in Window Rock District Court barring the tribe?s auditor from further disseminating the audit, said Fitting, the OnSat lawyer. ?We don?t believe this audit is valid,? Fitting said. The Navajo Nation has until May to respond to USAC?s letter, and the USAC can release full or partial funding or continue to withhold funding, said spokeswoman Laura Betancourt. Tribal regulator Franklin said he has given the USAC documents detailing how OnSat was selected and has shown USAC personnel the service operating last year at sites they randomly selected. ?We proved that we are delivering the bandwidth and that we went through the proper procurement system,? he said. ?We had to dig up all these documents.? OnSat will continue to provide Internet services for the tribe?s Division of Public Safety and the Office of the President and Vice President, offices whose satellite service isn?t dependent on FCC funding, Fitting said. Each Navajo chapter received a grant for computers and Internet access from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation?s Native American Access to Technology Program in 2000. But it wasn?t possible to establish dial-up access ? or create a wireless grid ? because the reservation largely lacked wired telephone service. So the tribe?s Division of Community Development contracted with OnSat in 2001 to provide satellite Internet service to the chapter houses ? even though satellite Internet technology is costly, slow and unreliable. The tribe eventually would have stopped using OnSat, Franklin said, but it needed to sustain the satellite connections for at least two years until a wireless grid is completed on the reservation. ?It?s not like it?s not being used and it?s just going to go away,? he said. ?It?s used tremendously by the public. It?s just sad that this has to happen.? Navajo President Shirley said reservation residents have come to rely on Internet access to improve their professional and educational lives. ?It would be a very sad day for the children and people of the Navajo Nation if the dark clouds descend, the lights go out, and access is denied to the chapter houses on the reservation, in large part, because USAC has failed to timely fund our application,? Shirley said in a December letter to Mel Blackwell, vice president of USAC?s Schools and Libraries Division. Inscription Chapter House community services coordinator Victoria Bydone said she is bracing for a backlash from residents who typically park outside her chapter house in the evening. ?It?s going to be unfortunate,? she said. ?It?s not going to be very good.? -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From ggomes at soundviewnet.com Tue Apr 15 15:24:20 2008 From: ggomes at soundviewnet.com (Gary Gomes) Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2008 16:24:20 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Muni Wireless Is Dead. Here Comes a New Way to Connect Message-ID: <009001c89f47$73bbc8c0$0201a8c0@GARY> This article from Wired lays out a way forward - now all we in New Mexico need is the deep pocketed donor(s) to kick-start the process. :-) Gary Muni Wireless Is Dead. Here Comes a New Way to Connect By Michael Fitzgerald 04.10.08 | 7:00 PM U.S. cities that once trumpeted their free public WiFi plans are muting their fanfare, as project after project stumbles. Now nonprofits have a plan to succeed where city governments have failed. Two such examples launched this week, with at least $61 million in combined funding. "There was a lot of breathlessness about municipal wireless. People thought it was going to be a silver bullet to bring ubiquitous access and affordable broadband in the United States. They were wrong," said Alec Ross, executive vice president of One Economy , a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit. "In the post-municipal WiFi world, we need to focus on community broadband." One Economy announced earlier this week that it is a launching a two-year program to bring internet access to 500,000 low-income Americans in more than 50 communities, backed in part by $36 million from AT&T and its foundation. Then on Thursday, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation said it will put up $15 million over five years to create the nonprofit Knight Center of Digital Excellence in Akron, Ohio. Knight has also set up a $10 million Digital Opportunity Fund, which it will use to seed access projects for 26 communities that raise matching funds. The two nonprofits developed their plans independently, but each expects to use a combination of wireless and wired technologies to create access. Both nonprofits are starting their projects in the wake of a series of high-profile stumbles for wireless access projects in cities like Boston , Chicago, St. Louis and San Francisco. Many of these failures stem from a lack of clear models on how to develop and sustain such networks, says Craig J. Settles, who runs successful.com, a business-strategy firm with a focus on municipal wireless. "You had the public good (of municipal wireless) built on a very shaky financial model," he said. One Economy will work with private partners to deploy broadband services. It will also develop community service projects involving more than 5,000 teenagers. Finally, in the belief that once low-income people go online they need more content that is tailored to them, One Economy has started a content project, chaired jointly by Senators Barack Obama and John McCain and spearheaded by the actor Robert Townsend. For its part, the Knight Center will have a dozen consultants specializing in working with communities to develop sustainable internet-access plans. It will also create a publicly available clearinghouse of examples from successful approaches. One such example is how OneCommunity , a Cleveland-based nonprofit, has combined public and private institutions to bring access to communities across northeastern Ohio. Scot M. Rourke, president and CEO of OneCommunity, will head the new Knight Center. "The goal is to collapse the time it takes for (communities) to educate themselves" on how to create -- and sustain -- public high-speed internet access, Rourke said. He noted that successful public access projects have not relied on a single technology or approach. He also said the key to keeping these networks going is to bring in partners from both government and industry, which expands the potential range of funding, and can help create ongoing revenues for access networks. Rourke said the new center will follow the same model of assessing community needs and revenue sources in all of its projects. "We're planning for the adoption and usage on the front end. It's the opposite of 'build it and they will come.'" Gary C. Gomes Managing Member SoundView Networks, LLC 5085 Copper Bar Road Las Cruces, NM 88011 575-521-1606 Mobile: 575-202-6383 -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: winmail.dat Type: application/ms-tnef Size: 10386 bytes Desc: not available URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Tue Apr 15 16:19:34 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2008 16:19:34 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Muni Wireless Is Dead. Here Comes a New Way to Connect In-Reply-To: <009001c89f47$73bbc8c0$0201a8c0@GARY> References: <009001c89f47$73bbc8c0$0201a8c0@GARY> Message-ID: <20080415161934.m5rjnpihw4sgo04o@www2.dcn.org> Quoting Gary Gomes : > This article from Wired lays out a way forward - now all we in New Mexico > need is the deep pocketed donor(s) to kick-start the process. :-) > Gary ------ Not so fast, Gary. A link to the OneEconomy announcement was also posted to this list last week. I don't have time to address all of the initiatives cited in the Wired article, but do know this: OneEconomy has been doing good work for many years, and this new initiative to provide broadband in partnership with AT&T, to 50,000 people is a good project. But it is not going to answer our needs in New Mexico. As they have to date, they will be working in major urban centers (possibly Albuquerque) to bring connectivity to poor apartment complexes, primarily. This means improved access, but not fiber speeds, to an average of 1000 residents in 50 cities; or greater numbers of high density dwellers in NYC, Phila., L.A., Oakland, Chicago, etc., with fewer in smaller cities. Computer training and access centers, educational outreach programs, and improved urban connectivity are important pieces of the grand broadband networking puzzle, but I doubt that the programs cited in the article are the answer to our rural and urban New Mexico needs and possible solutions. I have not contacted the program staffs, yet. If you or others do, and find out that they want to help in this region/state, please let us know. The 'open fiber' model that Las Cruces and a few other NM communities have been looking at, will make a lot more sense, in that if properly structured, it can pay its own way, generate added revenues, and provide true broadband to a great many residents, businesses and institutions. Richard -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From pete at ideapete.com Thu Apr 24 04:13:42 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2008 05:13:42 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] New York court upholds mobile ban in schools - The INQUIRER Message-ID: <48106B66.7000903@ideapete.com> http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/04/23/newyork-court-upholds-mobile -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Fri Apr 25 13:29:10 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 13:29:10 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Thurs. Fiber cut in Santa Fe Message-ID: <20080425132910.otib88zmokcw8cwo@www2.dcn.org> Making the case for fiber redundancy. rl ----- >From the Albuquerque Journal Friday, April 25, 2008 Phone, Cell, Internet Service Interrupted By Journal Staff Report A crew working on state government's Rail Runner commuter train cut a fiber-optic cable in Santa Fe Thursday, jamming telephone lines, cutting off Internet and cell phone service and causing other problems over much of northern New Mexico outside the capital city. At least a few businesses in Taos shut down because of the service outages and some stores and restaurants there couldn't take debit or credit cards because card readers are reliant on phone lines. The problems apparently were minor around Santa Fe, although there were some? the ATM at a Wells Fargo branch on St. Michael's was down because of the cut cable, the staff there said. The service problems apparently extended to Red River, Angel Fire, Raton and Las Vegas, N.M., as well. S.U. Mahesh, spokesman for the state Department of Transportation, said a crew working for Rail Runner contractors hit the Qwest line while digging near San Mateo Road. "Our engineers are looking into it to determine if they marked (the cable location) wrong or what happened there," Mahesh said. The Rail Runner extension into Santa Fe will follow the route of existing railroad tracks through town, including across the San Mateo-Second Street roadway, but improvements are being made to the tracks to make way for the commuter train. The Rail Runner now runs from Belen to Bernalillo through Albuquerque and is expected to begin service to Santa Fe by late this year. Mahesh said the DOT and its contractors? the Twin Mountain and Herzog construction firms? are "aware there are lot of utility lines running through the city and we'll take a closer look to make sure this doesn't happen again." "We'd like apologize for any inconvenience caused by this," Mahesh said. "We are investigating how it happened." "We understand this is a great inconvenience but we're working to make sure it get fixed," he added. Qwest termed the problems caused by the severed cable "congestion" as opposed to an outright outage, meaning that callers at least theoretically could get through if they tried several times. "People can complete calls but they need to dial a couple of times," said Qwest spokesman Gary Younger. The line was cut early or midmorning, and service was being restored in some of the affected areas by 4 p.m. or 5 p.m. Thursday. In Taos, some residents could make local calls during the day but not call outside the Taos area. Cell phone service was also out most of the day. Peoples Bank in Albertson's Supermarket was closed due to the inoperable phone lines. The post office branch in the store remained open, but was not able to take customers' credit or debit cards. A manager with Smith's Food and Drug Center said the store was able to conduct business uninterrupted because its Internet lines required for credit and debit card use were on a satellite feed. Carole Grant, a manager at Albertsons, said that store's lines were also usable. She said the biggest problem was that the store couldn't cash customers' checks because the bank was closed and that they had to let some employees leave to pick up children in day care because there was no way to get through to the day care centers by phone. A supervisor at the Taos Zianet Internet provider said he had had many calls from customers who couldn't log onto the Web. "Zianet's service was fine, but the customers using Qwest land or DSL lines couldn't get through to us in order to log on," he said. The outage had little affect on local police operations, Taos Police Chief Daron Syling said. "Our 911 lines are on a different system than the town of Taos' phone lines, and the 911 lines weren't affected at all," he said. "But telephone service was affected randomly throughout the town," he said. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From granoff at zianet.com Mon Apr 28 16:53:11 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2008 17:53:11 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: web marketing workshop May 5 Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20080428175139.033f8a70@mail.zianet.com> From another list. FYI. >10 Free Ways to Market a Web Site - Learn how to drive desired >traffic to a Web site without spending a dime! Q&A will follow. >7-8 pm Monday May 5th > >Location: Jackson Student Center of the Anderson Schools of >Management / UNM >1924 Las Lomas NE >Albuquerque, NM 87131 > >This event is for the UNM Collegiate Chapter of the American >Marketing Association, but visitors are welcome. > >The Jackson Student Center (map #76) >http://www.mgt.unm.edu/facilities/StudentCenter/default.asp >is >located east of Parish Library, in the section of the building with >different colored panes of glass. > >Parking is tricky >http://www.unm.edu/campusmap.pdf: try >the dirt lot >at the corner of Yale and Lomas and walk, parking meters east of >Parish Library #87 on the map, or the visitor floors of the UNM >Hospital parking garage #172 at Campus & Lomas. > >For more information, contact Patrick Greenough at UNM-AMA: >pdgreenough at gmail.com 505-263-7253 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Thu May 1 13:35:50 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Thu, 01 May 2008 13:35:50 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Santa Fe Area News Message-ID: <20080501133550.jtwnnrymwcgs8o04@www2.dcn.org> At their Tuesday, April 29th meeting, the Santa Fe County Commissioners approved a Resolution to support the Santa Fe Regional Telecommunications Coalition, and directed staff to continue with an application for membership to New Mexico LambdaRail Network. These initiatives intend to bring high bandwidth fiber connectivity ot the City and County of Santa Fe and the Santa Fe Community College, with the goal of providing NM Computing Applications Center (Supercomputer gateway) connection to the Community College. Santa Fe City Council hoped for approval of this Resolution was postponed until its next (May 14th) meeting; as was a decision on providing WiFi access in selected City and public sites (Libraries; community centers). This weeks cover story in the Santa Fe Reporter broadly addresses issues of network neutrality, and related Internet matters. The article cites Jane Hill of Cybermesa; Chris Kramer, chair of the NM Internet Professionals Association; Marsha Baum, law professor at UNM, who teaches a class on Internet, Technology and the Law, and others. The Reporter article is online at: http://sfreporter.com/articles/publish/cover-043008-one-web.php If you have updates on any of these or other items, please post them to this list. Richard -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Thu May 1 16:27:39 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Thu, 01 May 2008 16:27:39 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Rural Fiber-to-the-Premises Makes Economic Sense Message-ID: <20080501162739.yy7pgisnymo8wog4@www2.dcn.org> >From Telephony Online http://telephonyonline.com/fttp/news/rural-fttp-economical-0429/ Rural FTTP 'perfectly economical,' says muni fiber veteran Apr 29, 2008 1:46 PM, By Ed Gubbins The notion that fiber-to-the-premises is economically prohibitive in rural areas is a myth, according to Dr. Timothy Nulty, director of ValleyFiber, a nonprofit organization focused on bringing municipal fiber to towns in Vermont?s Upper Valley. ?It?s nonsense,? he said, addressing the Broadband Properties Summit today. ?It?s perfectly economical.? Nulty helped oversee the municipal FTTP network in Burlington Vermont, which is on track to become fully cash-flow positive (with revenue exceeding all costs, including debt service) by January 2009, four years after it secured initial financing. He left his position as general manager of Burlington Telecom to try to duplicate its success elsewhere in Vermont, retaining universal access as a goal, and he says the model is just as viable in rural areas. Fiber triple-play deployment costs generally come in three categories: the hub, the hook-up and the pass. Building a hub is actually less expensive in rural areas because real estate costs are lower there, Nulty said. ?Building a hub in a cow pasture is cheaper than doing it downtown.? Hooking up rural houses is more expensive, but not much, he said, partly because fiber costs have come down considerably. Vermont spends about $1600 per home connecting subscribers in the city and about $1800 per home in rural areas. The biggest cost gap is in passing homes, since there?s so much more space between homes in rural areas (though rural areas have more aerial, pole-based networks, which are easier and less costly than the underground networks in cities and suburbs.) Vermont towns contain more than 100 houses per square mile, but its rural areas can contain about 12 houses per square mile. As a result, Vermont spends about $250 per home in the city on this part of the project and $1100 per home in rural areas. However, passing homes is a small part of the overall cost of fiber deployment, Nulty said. And rural areas see higher service take rates because there?s less competition there. In rural towns due to get municipal fiber, Vermont is seeing 50% of the market presubscribe for its services, and Nulty expects that rate to reach 75% or 80% by the time funds are secured. ?Is rural fiber deployment more expensive?? he said, ?Yes, but not dramatically.? In fact, Nulty said, as Vermont towns roll out fiber in rural areas, they may deploy fiber drops to every house, even in advance of service orders?a reversal of the order typical in the private sector. Given the marginal added cost and the high expected take rate, he said, ?We might as well have the same crews do it while they?re out there.? -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Tue May 6 07:51:40 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Tue, 06 May 2008 07:51:40 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Albuquerque City Council Approves Fiber Franchise Message-ID: <20080506075140.bgwc7ktjs4cwwowo@www2.dcn.org> Council OKs High-Speed Internet Deal http://www.abqjournal.com/cgi-bin/print_it.pl?page=/news/metro/304818metro05-06-08.htm Tuesday, May 6, 2008 By Sean Olson Journal Staff Writer The City Council approved an agreement Monday that will give all city buildings and schools free, ultrahigh-speed Internet access. In return, local company Citylink Fiber Holdings of Albuquerque has free rein to build a fiber network through all public rights of way. Councilors voted unanimously to approve the franchise agreement. Isaac Benton and Debbie O'Malley were not present. The city would also get 2.5 percent of the company's profits from the network. The mayor would have to approve the council's action. The body further encouraged Citylink President John Brown to build out the network as soon as possible. "I'd love to see this happen tomorrow," Councilor Rey Gardu?o said. Without a franchise agreement, the company would have to apply for a license and build only where plans for the network had been approved. Any change in plans or network expansion would need to be brought back before the city before it could be built, Brown said. The agreement is not exclusive and the city could grant additional companies access to rights of way for the same purpose. For everyone else, the agreement means the eventual availability of purchasing an Internet connection at speeds that cannot be matched by cable or DSL. Currently, the fiber optic network encompasses parts of the Downtown area, including City Hall, Brown said Monday. As the network grows, the company will hook up city buildings and schools without any costs to the city. Brown claims the Internet speeds will dwarf what is currently available in Albuquerque. "It will make DSL and cable look like old school dial-up," Brown said. He estimates the speeds to be more than 10 times faster than cable connections for downloads and 100 times faster for uploads. That's because the network uses "dark fiber," which uses light instead of copper wire to carry its signal, he said. The network includes 150 homes and 50 buildings thus far, Brown said. Additions to the network will be financed by private investors and revenue from the network, he said. While there is no set plan for where and when the network will expand, the next phase will take the network down Broadway to connect to new development Mesa del Sol. Some Northeast Heights neighborhoods could be added in as soon as 18 months, Brown said. When the network is expanded, any city buildings and local schools? including higher education buildings? will be connected. The company will make its money by selling access to the network to local Internet service providers, businesses and directly to homes, he said. "We want to make it available to anybody," Brown said. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From granoff at zianet.com Tue May 6 09:46:46 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Tue, 06 May 2008 10:46:46 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: 5.6.8 Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20080506104205.0e3ddeb0@mail.zianet.com> Edited for interest. FYI. >Broadband Over Powerlines Is Dead, Dead, Dead, >Techdirt >For many, many years we've pointed out the reasons why >broadband over powerlines was unlikely to succeed. >Despite the FCC calling it the "the great broadband >hope," many people referred to it as "the great >broadband joke." The technology just wasn't able to >deliver what was promised and certainly couldn't scale >effectively. Now, as Broadband Reports points out, one >of the big "flagship" deployments of BPL, in Dallas, >has been sold and is going to shut down internet >access. Instead, the buyer is just going to use it for >monitoring the electrical grid. Given that this is >just the latest in a long line of failures -- and that >the technology has never worked up to the level >promised, can we finally put to rest the idea that BPL >is a legitimate "third pipe" for broadband? > http://techdirt.com/articles/20080503/2344201023.shtml > > >Comcast Nominated for Having Worst ToS - People use >the service but don't like the terms, dslreports >A blog over at InfoWorld recently ran a challenge >asking readers to find a company with a ToS agreement >worse than the Dilbert.com Terms of Use reported on by >the blog. The first nominee by the readers is Comcast. >Although Comcast recently changed their ToS to make >their traffic-shaping practices look more legit, they >still have a number of provisions that concern their >customers. It s primarily the lack of privacy that one >has when using their service that seems to have gotten >the company nominated for the dubious honor of Worst >ToS. The challenge is still going on so people who >believe that Comcast s ToS isn t the worst one out >there may come back with a response. > >http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Comcast-Nominated-for-Having-Worst-ToS-94116 From josmon at rigozsaurus.com Tue May 6 10:15:49 2008 From: josmon at rigozsaurus.com (John Osmon) Date: Tue, 6 May 2008 11:15:49 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Albuquerque City Council Approves Fiber Franchise In-Reply-To: <20080506075140.bgwc7ktjs4cwwowo@www2.dcn.org> References: <20080506075140.bgwc7ktjs4cwwowo@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: <20080506171549.GL11760@jeeves.rigozsaurus.com> On Tue, May 06, 2008 at 07:51:40AM -0700, Richard Lowenberg wrote: > Council OKs High-Speed Internet Deal > > http://www.abqjournal.com/cgi-bin/print_it.pl?page=/news/metro/304818metro05-06-08.htm > > Tuesday, May 6, 2008 > By Sean Olson > Journal Staff Writer > > The City Council approved an agreement Monday that will give all city > buildings and schools free, ultrahigh-speed Internet access. [...] Sounds like a great deal for the city -- but I don't think it includes Internet access. I think it is only for layer 1 connectivity. The city will have to provide layer 2 equipment and their own Internet connectivity. My bet is that Mr. Olson chose his words poorly because he doesn't understand the differences between layers 1, 2 and 3 for networking. The franchise agreement that I read last month only talked about use of fiber, and that Citylink will build laterals to city/school buildings that are within 200 ft of the fiber network. A great boon for the city where fiber is within the proscribed distances. From ggomes at soundviewnet.com Tue May 6 11:56:57 2008 From: ggomes at soundviewnet.com (Gary Gomes) Date: Tue, 6 May 2008 12:56:57 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Albuquerque Fiber Franchise Message-ID: <651632FCC3AB4B4FB1A0875BD2A44CB8@GARY> For those who have not seen it, attached is a copy of the Franchise Agreement - at least in draft form. Gary Gomes -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Albuquerque Fiber Franchise.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 70151 bytes Desc: not available URL: From granoff at zianet.com Thu May 8 08:30:01 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Thu, 08 May 2008 09:30:01 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: GigaLaw.com Daily News, May 8, 2008 Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20080508092749.04c5feb0@mail.zianet.com> From another list. FYI. >Comcast Considers Setting Limits on Users' Bandwidth > Comcast is considering monthly bandwidth caps for all those people > on its cable-based internet service. According to a report from Broadband > Reports, America's second largest ISP is mulling a plan that would cap > user downloads at 250GB a month. > Read more: > http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/07/comcast_mulls_bandwidth_cap/ From granoff at zianet.com Thu May 8 08:38:01 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Thu, 08 May 2008 09:38:01 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: NMIPA lunch meeting today! Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20080508093543.0deb4c10@mail.zianet.com> FYI >Reminder - the NMIPA Member meeting is today folks! > >See you at Tiny's in Santa Fe at 11:30 am. > >Our speaker is Oban Lambie, Principal, Brownrice Internet Inc. >(http://www.brownrice.com), based in Taos, New >Mexico. > >"Profiling a modern server hack: Who, Why, How?!?" > >Back in the good old days hackers attacked your servers for geek fame, >used tools to attack the operating system directly, were mostly located >within the US, and simply enjoyed "owning" servers. Times have >changed. Now the bad guys are in it for very different reasons, use >vastly different tools to access your system, and rarely originate from >within the US. Oban's been massaging servers for years and he's had to >deal with more than a few hacks. He'll walk you through who's getting >into your systems, how they are doing it, how to protect your machines, >and what you can effectively do if your machine does get taken down. > >Oban Lambie, System Administrator > >Oban was born and raised in San Francisco but spent significant portions >of his childhood in Northern New Mexico. He began his computer career at >the age of twelve during summer computer programming camps programming >BASIC > >36c760.png > and LOGO > >36c760.png > onApple IIe's > >36c760.png > . Oban's computer career took flight with the emergence of the Internet. > Since then he's become an accomplished Web Programmer, Database Engineer > and Systems Administrator. He's been the lead Systems Administrator for > ISP's, programmed for startups during the dot com heyday, built the back > end of many enterprise level web sites, and lead teams of programmers and > systems administrators through completion of countless successful > projects. He now manages the Brownrice Internet staff, keeps > the network humming, and chases > his wife and twin boys around during his time off. > >Also, we're pleased to announce Mike Friestad and Mike Kruchoski have been >nominated as Board candidates for next year. > >It's not too late to pay online still, or bring cash or check to the lunch. > >Regards, > >Chris > >Chris Kramer, President >. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . >pearsonkramer.com >INTERNET BUSINESS SPECIALISTS >505 988 5055 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 36c760.png Type: image/png Size: 165 bytes Desc: not available URL: From granoff at zianet.com Thu May 8 10:07:01 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Thu, 08 May 2008 11:07:01 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] What has been your expereince with respect to billing by the phone company? Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20080508110554.04bde2a0@mail.zianet.com> FYI. >From: "Harris, Brian, WEU NMAGO" > >Subject: [nmisp] What has been your expereince with respect to billing by > the phone company? > >Greetings, > >The Attorney General for New Mexico is conducting an investigation into >the billing and associated business practices of phone companies serving >small New Mexico businesses that provide telecommunications services. We >have been interviewing owners and operators of ISPs throughout the state >and are looking for accounts of any issues that such businesses may have >when dealing with any phone company. If you have any stories or concerns >you would like to share I would welcome your contact. If needed, all >communications will be treated confidentially. This investigation will >result in a report being submitted to the NM Public Regulation Commission >and may serve as the basis for further legal actions and or rulemakings. > >Please contact Brian Harris, Assistant Attorney General, Regulated Utilities > >505-827-7479 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From granoff at zianet.com Fri May 9 08:10:41 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Fri, 09 May 2008 09:10:41 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: GigaLaw.com Daily News, May 9, 2008 Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20080509090716.0dda9dd0@mail.zianet.com> FYI. >McAfee Identifies Largest Trojan File in Three Years > Almost 500,000 people have been caught out by a booby-trapped media > file, says security firm McAfee. The fake file poses as a music track, > short video or movie and has been widely seeded on file-sharing networks > to snare victims. > Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7389529.stm From rl at 1st-mile.com Tue May 13 17:27:52 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Tue, 13 May 2008 17:27:52 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Vint Cerf supports municipal broadband networks Message-ID: <20080513172752.dxmtzihlc8s8000g@www2.dcn.org> Vint Cerf supports municipal broadband networks IDG News Service 5/12/08 Nancy Gohring, IDG News Service www.itworld.com/Net/2613/vint-cerf-supports-municipal-broadband-080512/ Municipal broadband networks could help boost the availability of high-speed Internet access and even help to ensure Net neutrality in the U.S., said Vint Cerf, vice president and chief Internet evangelist at Google. Cerf, known as one of the fathers of the Internet for his role in creating its basic architecture, spoke at a lunch in Seattle, a city that is investigating the possibility of building its own broadband network. Seattle would follow its southern neighbor Tacoma, which has been operating its own fiber network for several years. Cerf disputed arguments that operators sometimes give for why they should be able to limit or block bandwidth-hungry applications on their networks, and suggested that since they don't have technology facts to back up their arguments, people should be able to build their own networks to meet their needs. "Many people raise the issue that video use on the Net is somehow going to drive it into congestion," he said. While in certain scenarios that could be true, the reality is that increasing the throughput solves the problem, he said. A person could transfer an hour's worth of video over a gigabit channel in about 16 seconds, he said. That means that rather than streaming video, which is indeed taxing on the Internet, users would download it instead. "It's much easier on the network, and people have more than enough storage to download," he said. Some operators also talk about the capacity of the Internet backbone itself. "As for running out of capacity, we've barely touched the surface of the fiber capacity. We are far from having exhausted this capacity," he said. Operators may simply not want to invest in their networks to bring higher bandwidth to users, he said. "That comes back to the municipal argument. Citizens that want the capacity should be able to decide among themselves to put the resources in place to get that kind of capacity," he said. Some operators contend that municipal networks create competition between the government and private companies. "That's nonsense," Cerf said. Governments would contract with the private sector to build the network and maybe even operate it, he said, so the two would be partners. In Tacoma the city maintains the network, but other companies serve as ISPs (Internet service providers), selling access to end-users. Cerf's comments come as a new bill was introduced by lawmakers in the U.S. this week that would subject broadband providers to antitrust violations if they block or slow Internet traffic. Some lawmakers and operators argue that such legislation is unnecessary and would slow investment in broadband networks. The bill follows discussions across the industry and by government leaders around practices at Comcast, which says it has slowed some customer access to the BitTorrent peer-to-peer protocol during times of network congestion. Cerf has been a vocal opponent of operators that limit access to certain applications. "I still think it's not a bad idea to have legislation that says don't discriminate unfairly simply because you happen to have control over this shared resource," he said on Friday. Nancy Gohring is Seattle correspondent for the IDG News Service. ------- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From granoff at zianet.com Wed May 14 08:54:49 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Wed, 14 May 2008 09:54:49 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: GigaLaw.com Daily News, May 14, 2008 Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20080514095258.0365ed10@mail.zianet.com> From another list. FYI. >Microsoft Patches Critical Security Hole in Word > Microsoft issued security patches that plug critical holes in > Microsoft Word and Publisher and a vulnerability in Windows for which a > zero-day exploit has been available for weeks. Zero-day exploits are > considered particularly dangerous. > Read more: http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9943142-7.html From granoff at zianet.com Sun May 18 18:26:25 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Sun, 18 May 2008 19:26:25 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: AG's Response to Order on Scope Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20080518191549.100d82b0@mail.zianet.com> The attached documents may be of interest to some of you. The NM PRC is investigating LEC billing - and has expanded the scope of the docket to specifically include LEC billing to ISPs and to other information services providers. This includes standard consumer billing as well. Please contact Brian Harris at the Attorney General's Office if you would like to provide additional information. BHarris at nmag.gov 505 827-7479 >X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.2.4 (2008-01-01) on ophelia.zianet.com >X-Spam-Level: >X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.3 required=4.8 tests=HTML_MESSAGE,MIME_HTML_MOSTLY > autolearn=no version=3.2.4 >Subject: AG's Resopnse to Order on Scope >Date: Fri, 16 May 2008 16:17:53 -0600 >X-MS-Has-Attach: >X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: >Thread-Topic: AG's Resopnse to Order on Scope >Thread-Index: Aci3nEZw1y9IBNuIQzCS0NoS/6ZwqAABihDg >From: "Harris, Brian, WEU NMAGO" >To: "Stephenson, Roy E., PRC" , > "Marianne Granoff" , > "Cessarich, Mark A., PRC" , > "Moquin, Margaret C., PRC" , > "Ellis, Joan T., PRC" , > "Jace Colbert" , > "Jane M. Hill" , > , > "Beadles, Cydney, PRC" >X-Antivirus: AVG for E-mail 7.5.524 [269.23.16/1445] > > > > > > >No virus found in this incoming message. >Checked by AVG. >Version: 7.5.524 / Virus Database: 269.23.16/1445 - Release Date: >5/15/2008 7:25 PM -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: AGO Exhibit 2 - Goldstein Resume.doc Type: application/msword Size: 42496 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: AG Response to Order on Scope 5 16 08.doc Type: application/msword Size: 105472 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: AGO Exh. 1 - Typical ISP monthly phone bill.JPG Type: image/jpeg Size: 36189 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: AG's MOtion for Further inquiry and RM.doc Type: application/msword Size: 43520 bytes Desc: not available URL: From granoff at zianet.com Tue May 20 08:05:20 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Tue, 20 May 2008 09:05:20 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: GigaLaw.com Daily News, May 20, 2008 Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20080520090237.0422aeb0@mail.zianet.com> From another list. FYI. >Old Laws May Restrict Monitoring of Internet Usage > Privacy advocates and attorneys point to a collection of federal > laws -- written in the 1980s when broadband services were merely a pipe > dream -- that combine to create a treacherous legal landscape for > broadband providers that plan to conduct Web monitoring. > Read more: http://www.news.com/8301-13578_3-9947499-38.html From granoff at zianet.com Tue May 20 12:34:09 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Tue, 20 May 2008 13:34:09 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: Girl Game Company Needs Teacher Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20080520133307.0dccc7b0@mail.zianet.com> Please forward as you see fit. >Hello! Girl Game Company (GGC) is an after-school information >technology youth program funded by the National Science Foundation >(ITEST) and conducted by ETR Associates, a nationally known non-profit >agency that specializes in health education and youth development. >GGC is currently being implemented with middle school girls, >predominately Latinas, but we expect our program materials to be >broadly applicable to IT programs with diverse youth, ages 9-19. > >As part of the project, we are developing program materials (i.e., >lesson plans, written strategies) and will make them available online. >To find out what kinds of materials and web features will be most >valuable to potential users, we have developed an online "user >assessment" that takes only 10 minutes to fill out and submit. Please >consider taking the survey, and forwarding this email to any teachers >or educators who might be interested. > >The first 30 people who complete the assessment will receive a $20 >gift certificate to amazon.com. >To take the user assessment, simply go to: >http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=hM67opJCCivc7rKjkHaVVQ_3d_3d >The deadline for submission is: Tuesday, May 27, 2008. > >If you have any questions, please contact Pat Rex, ETR Associates, >patr at etr.org > >Jill Denner, PhD >Senior Research Associate >ETR Associates (Education, Training, Research) >4 Carbonero Way >Scotts Valley, CA 95066 >831-438-4060 x264 From granoff at zianet.com Thu May 22 07:12:16 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Thu, 22 May 2008 08:12:16 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: [aww-discuss] web category in networking group now open Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20080522081119.036df080@mail.zianet.com> From another list. FYI. >Hi All! After a number of years with a wonderful networking group, I >am leaving it to use my time in different ways. So now they have an >opening in the web design category for a member. Its a wonderful >group of people. If you are interested, please email or call me and I >will refer you. Dues are low and humor is high! :) > >Group is Sunrise Business Networking >http://www.sunrisebiznet.com/ > >Susan Chapman >design at azurecom.com >299-7250 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Thu May 22 11:13:24 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Thu, 22 May 2008 11:13:24 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Latest OECD Report Message-ID: <20080522111324.zraa22x40gs4g8w4@www2.dcn.org> The latest OECD broadband stats are now available with some very interesting analysis of issues related to future FTTH networks. Latest OECD Broadband standings * The United States is the largest broadband market in the OECD with 69.9 million subscribers. US broadband subscribers represent 30% of all broadband connections in the OECD. (I believe that the U.S. has not moved from its ranking at 15th among OECD countries. rl ) The report also notes that: Governments need to promote competition and give consumers more choices. They should encourage new networks, particularly upgrades to fibre-optic lines. Governments providing money to fund broadband rollouts should avoid creating new monopolies. Any new infrastructure built using government funds should be open access - meaning that access to that network is provided on non-discriminatory terms to other market participants. The regulation of new broadband connections using fibre to the end user will likely be the subject of considerable debate in the next few years. The pressing question is whether fibre optic cables extending to homes, buildings and street curbs should be regulated in the same way as traditional copper telephone lines. As new fibre connections may fall outside existing regulatory frameworks, a re-evaluation of existing policies may be required. Regulators should consider whether network architectures still relying on portions of the historical copper telephone infrastructure should be treated differently from new all-fibre networks. Regulators and policy makers are increasingly concerned about fostering competition on next-generation broadband networks. Some are examining the functional separation of the dominant telecommunication provider into two units, one which handles the physical lines and the other which provides retail services over the lines as a way to ensure fair and non-discriminatory access to "last mile" infrastructure. The results of functional separation, particularly on investment, are still far from certain and warrant significant research. Regulators should actively consider other policy options at the same time, which may provide similar outcomes - such as requiring operators to share the internal wiring in buildings. Governments need to actively look for ways to encourage investment in infrastructure. Civil costs (e.g. building roads, obtaining rights of way) are among the largest entry and investment barriers facing telecommunication firms. Governments should take steps to improve access to passive infrastructure (conduit, poles, and ducts) and co-ordinate civil works as an effective way to encourage investment. Access to rights-of-way should be fair and non-discriminatory. Governments should also encourage and promote the installation of open-access, passive infrastructure any time they undertake public works. Governments should not prohibit municipalities or utilities from entering telecommunication markets. However, if there are concerns about market distortion, policy makers could limit municipal participation to only basic elements (e.g. the provision of dark fibre networks under open access rules). Maintaining a level-playing field and reducing anti-competitive practices in the face of high network effects and to promote consumer choice is crucial, i.e. in particular considering the increased use of walled garden approaches, as well as cross-industry mergers and acquisitions. With problems such as vertical integration, lock-in of consumers in certain standards, and poor access to certain content, an environment of contestable markets should be created where small and innovative players can compete. Further analysis of recent trends and impacts of concentration is also needed. When necessary, anti-trust and other policies have the means to restore competition. . It will be crucial to monitor and analyse the new market structures of broadband software, service and content providers in the next few years. Governments have a lot of experience when it comes to ensuring efficient telecommunications markets. However, when it comes to broadband applications, services, software and content, this is mostly new territory. It is important in the coming years that policy makers understand the impacts of new broadband market structures and question whether current policy approaches for ensuring competition actually work. Governments must intensify efforts to ensure there is sufficient R&D in the field of ICT, so that the economic, social and cultural effectiveness of broadband is guaranteed. The role of government and business in basic R&D may have to be reaffirmed. Any government neglect in this area should be monitored as well as examples of inadequate policy co-ordination, with the aim of increasing the efficiency of broadband-related R&D. Strengthening broadband research networks (grids), and facilitating international co-operation through such networks and collaborative research should be a policy priority. * Denmark, the Netherlands, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Finland, Korea and Sweden lead the OECD with broadband penetration well above the OECD average, each surpassing the 30 subscribers per 100 inhabitants threshold. The OECD report also noted that several countries are taking the lead in the next generation of broadband deployment - superfast fibre networks. About 40 per cent of Japan's broadband connections are fibre, with South Korea coming second at 34 per cent. Most of the OECD - 18 countries, have not yet begun rolling out fibre. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From pete at ideapete.com Fri May 23 11:12:27 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Fri, 23 May 2008 12:12:27 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Verizon | FiOS Internet Packages and Prices Message-ID: <4837090B.1040904@ideapete.com> http://www22.verizon.com/content/consumerfios/packages+and+prices/packages+and+prices.htm Just got this nice little offer for fiber to the home in the mail for our place in Sarasota I talked to the techs in Florida and they say that 100mgps is coming real soon Yup we can but dream in Nuevo Mexico -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From josmon at rigozsaurus.com Fri May 23 13:29:06 2008 From: josmon at rigozsaurus.com (John Osmon) Date: Fri, 23 May 2008 14:29:06 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Verizon | FiOS Internet Packages and Prices In-Reply-To: <4837090B.1040904@ideapete.com> References: <4837090B.1040904@ideapete.com> Message-ID: <20080523202906.GI23333@jeeves.rigozsaurus.com> On Fri, May 23, 2008 at 12:12:27PM -0600, peter wrote: > http://www22.verizon.com/content/consumerfios/packages+and+prices/packages+and+prices.htm > > Just got this nice little offer for fiber to the home in the mail for > our place in Sarasota > > I talked to the techs in Florida and they say that 100mgps is coming > real soon > > Yup we can but dream in Nuevo Mexico Be careful what you ask for -- you may get it. This isn't about "serving the consumer," as much as it's about lock-in. Let's look at Qwest DSL model -- the fairest I've seen among the RBOCs. The DSL customer can buy a DSL (layer 2 connection) from Qwest, and be connected to one of several different (layer 3) ISPs. When a single layer 2 connection can be used to get to several layer 3 ISPs, there is little need legislated network neutrality. As long as the wire is neutral, I can find an ISP that will treat my packets the way I want... However, Qwest's FTTN (fiber to the node) inititive is starting up. Qwest is extending their metro-ethernet to a number of remote terminals (RTs). They can put DLAMs in the RTs, and push up to 20M/896k to neghborhoods! They'll also be able to do 40M/40M with SHDSL equipment, and any number of new things as new equipment becomes available. Cool stuf. But they're using this upgrade to lock out the ISPs. If you want the faster service, you *must* use Qwest as the ISP. That sound you just heard was the death knell of an important product in the independent ISP's product line. The word on the street about Verizon's FIOS indicates that when the fiber is brought to your house, they disable the copper plant. Since they don't have to share the fiber, they've just locked your house into Verizon service. These upgrades, are a thinly veiled attempt to lock consumers into the ILECs service -- but disguised as an "upgrade." Personaly, I'm not really willing to give up diversity of ISPs for a few extra Mbps... From rl at 1st-mile.com Fri May 23 15:27:41 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Fri, 23 May 2008 15:27:41 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] TewaCom Message-ID: <20080523152741.3oviekew0kcoowok@www2.dcn.org> TewaCom In 2005, the Pueblo de San Ildefonso was awarded a Rural Utility Service (RUS) grant. RUS grants are offered through the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for the purpose of promoting Broadband connectivity in rural America. The Pueblo chose the San Ildefonso Enterprise Corporation (SIEC) to execute the grant. SIEC then created Tewa Communications @ San Ildefonso to offer services to the public under the name TewaCom Wireless . TewaCom Wireless formed a partnership with Motorola Canopy to deploy its broadband network. By becoming a Motorola Canopy Reseller and Certified Service Provider, TewaCom Wireless utilizes the vast knowledge and expertise of the Motorola Canopy Team. As a result, the TewaCom Wireless network runs primarily on the 900 MHz platform that was created by Motorola Canopy to overcome the ?line of site? issues that normally inhibit the deployment of wireless networks throughout rural America. The 900 MHz system allows for acquisition and transmission of Broadband services with the speed and reliability never before possible in the Upper Rio Grande Valley. With the capability of bringing high-speed connectivity to areas that previously had no access to any broadband services at all, the future of TewaCom Wireless is both abundant and assured. Eventually the network will offer such services as Voice-over Internet Protocol (VoIP), Digital Television over Internet Protocol (DTVIP), Video Conferencing, and E-Commerce. Tewa Communications @ San Ildefonso is firmly committed to continuously upgrade its TewaCom Wireless service with the most recent advancements in broadband technology as they become available. This will allow TewaCom Wireless customers throughout the Valley to experience broadband connectivity as sophisticated as any in the world. The network will initially cover the majority of the Pojoaque Valley along with portions of the Espanola Valley. Development plans call for expansion into White Rock, Los Alamos and the entire Espanola Valley, and to include the following communities: * San Ildefonso Pueblo * Santa Clara Pueblo * Pojoaque Pueblo * Nambe Pueblo * Ohkay Owingeh * Espa?ola * White Rock -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From tom at jtjohnson.com Sat May 24 14:48:22 2008 From: tom at jtjohnson.com (tom at jtjohnson.com) Date: Sat, 24 May 2008 14:48:22 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [1st-mile-nm] San Jose Mercury News: Fiber optics' digital divide Message-ID: <29474720.1211665698796.JavaMail.atgservice@atglive11.medianewsgroup.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ggomes at soundviewnet.com Sat May 24 15:00:33 2008 From: ggomes at soundviewnet.com (Gary Gomes) Date: Sat, 24 May 2008 16:00:33 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Verizon | FiOS Internet Packages and Prices In-Reply-To: <20080523202906.GI23333@jeeves.rigozsaurus.com> References: <4837090B.1040904@ideapete.com> <20080523202906.GI23333@jeeves.rigozsaurus.com> Message-ID: I certainly understand Verizon's intent, but there are a few problems with the Qwest "open access" model: 1) The price for the layer 2 Qwest DSL connection (i.e. without ISP) is virtually identical to their bundled (DSL+ISP)price - meaning one can only select an alternate ISP by paying a significant premium. 2) The price for the layer 2 DSL connectivity and the capacity of that service is set by the monopolist - "trust me, you'll love it". 3) The 896 K limit on the uplink precludes many of the services that "beg" for competitive service provision. There are really only two choices, accept the high prices and service limitations of he duopoly providers (ILEC and Cable) or implement a truly open access FTTH network. Gary -----Original Message----- From: 1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org [mailto:1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org] On Behalf Of John Osmon Sent: Friday, May 23, 2008 2:29 PM To: 1st-Mile-NM Subject: Re: [1st-mile-nm] Verizon | FiOS Internet Packages and Prices On Fri, May 23, 2008 at 12:12:27PM -0600, peter wrote: > http://www22.verizon.com/content/consumerfios/packages+and+prices/packages+a nd+prices.htm > > Just got this nice little offer for fiber to the home in the mail for > our place in Sarasota > > I talked to the techs in Florida and they say that 100mgps is coming > real soon > > Yup we can but dream in Nuevo Mexico Be careful what you ask for -- you may get it. This isn't about "serving the consumer," as much as it's about lock-in. Let's look at Qwest DSL model -- the fairest I've seen among the RBOCs. The DSL customer can buy a DSL (layer 2 connection) from Qwest, and be connected to one of several different (layer 3) ISPs. When a single layer 2 connection can be used to get to several layer 3 ISPs, there is little need legislated network neutrality. As long as the wire is neutral, I can find an ISP that will treat my packets the way I want... However, Qwest's FTTN (fiber to the node) inititive is starting up. Qwest is extending their metro-ethernet to a number of remote terminals (RTs). They can put DLAMs in the RTs, and push up to 20M/896k to neghborhoods! They'll also be able to do 40M/40M with SHDSL equipment, and any number of new things as new equipment becomes available. Cool stuf. But they're using this upgrade to lock out the ISPs. If you want the faster service, you *must* use Qwest as the ISP. That sound you just heard was the death knell of an important product in the independent ISP's product line. The word on the street about Verizon's FIOS indicates that when the fiber is brought to your house, they disable the copper plant. Since they don't have to share the fiber, they've just locked your house into Verizon service. These upgrades, are a thinly veiled attempt to lock consumers into the ILECs service -- but disguised as an "upgrade." Personaly, I'm not really willing to give up diversity of ISPs for a few extra Mbps... _______________________________________________ 1st-mile-nm mailing list 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm From rl at 1st-mile.com Sat May 24 15:14:32 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Sat, 24 May 2008 15:14:32 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Bandwidth, Digital Divides and the Goals of Networked Societies Message-ID: <20080524151432.33dtcjdvh4is0wss@www2.dcn.org> Subscriber John Goekler sent me the following posting yesterday. I wasn't going to forward it to this list, but having just received Tom Johnson's SJM article posting, and reading too many articles that focus on tech. and bandwidth, I changed my mind. My response follows John's posting. Richard ----- Forwarded message from jgoekler at rockisland.com ----- Date: Fri, 23 May 2008 18:11:24 -0600 Thought the first milers might like to see this. New from the Economist today - http://www.economist.com/daily/columns/techview/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11434920&fsrc=nwl The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) regularly releases a ranking of broadband penetration, speeds and prices across its 30 countries. . . .the excellent report, written by Taylor Reynolds and Sacha Wunsch-Vincent, goes beyond the numbers and examines why broadband is actually useful. And here the authors face a problem: there simply is not good data to show that broadband matters. Like Banquo at Macbeth's banquet, the ghost of Dr Solow's "productivity paradox" disrupts the OECD's pleasant narrative. Of course, every web-surfer knows that one can do things with amazing efficiency online. But there is little evidence to support the notion that faster is inherently better. Can the Japanese and Koreans (who finish at the top of OECD's charts) do something at 100MB that the Americans, British and Germans (in the middle tier) can't at 20MB? The idea that "bigger is better broadband" is orthodoxy, not economics. So is its corollary, the neo-Cartesian logic that goes: "Broadband ergo innovation." ----- End forwarded message ----- John, Thanks. The Economist, Business Week and others have already come out with articles commenting on the latest OECD report findings and recommendations. I hesitate to add to the 'churn', but ... Hardly anyone in the press is writing intelligently about this stuff, in my humble estimation. Of course it is not about bandwidth. More bandwidth does not assure improved knowledge exchange, intelligence generation or quality of life enhancement. What matters are content and applications; and user responsibility. At the core of the 1st-Mile approach, is the understanding that, like renewable energy and conservation, community agriculture and other aspects of localism, our networked society ought to be, at least in part, local partnership owned and operated (structural separation). This is the only way to better assure that the networks are open to competitive service providers, as well as to local content creation, and equally accessible to all. It also can thereby serve as a means of local income generation and economic vitalization. Fiber (big pipe) has a long life, can handle future convergent media needs, and if properly accounted for, pays its own way over a number of years, after which it can generate local income. The commercial providers and advertisers, as long as they own the means of access and the provision of content, within our existing for-profit corporate system, have little incentive to offer educational, healthcare, civic, cultural or other socially benefitting content and services; or to consider each of us as providers, rather than just consumers of knowledge-building exchanges. These are the things that broadband or narrowband can bring, but require a very different eco-social model. Utopian? No. Simply necessary. Richard -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From josmon at rigozsaurus.com Sat May 24 15:32:25 2008 From: josmon at rigozsaurus.com (John Osmon) Date: Sat, 24 May 2008 16:32:25 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Verizon | FiOS Internet Packages and Prices In-Reply-To: References: <4837090B.1040904@ideapete.com> <20080523202906.GI23333@jeeves.rigozsaurus.com> Message-ID: <20080524223225.GN23333@jeeves.rigozsaurus.com> I buy a *lot* of Qwest services. I think that the services they supply work as they should. I also happen to think that under different market forces their prices and service offerings would be different. Overall, I'm pretty happy -- but I'd like to have a lot more choice. With that said, I'll add a bit to the points below -- not to defend Qwest, but to get the right story out... On Sat, May 24, 2008 at 04:00:33PM -0600, Gary Gomes wrote: > I certainly understand Verizon's intent, but there are a few problems with > the Qwest "open access" model: > > 1) The price for the layer 2 Qwest DSL connection (i.e. without ISP) is > virtually identical to their bundled (DSL+ISP)price - meaning one can only > select an alternate ISP by paying a significant premium. Yep -- that's the FCC's fault for telling the states that they couldn't regulate DSL. The DSLAM locations aren't published anymore either. The premium could be worth it. I run a network where we won't ever touch (or look at) you packets unless there is a performance problem of a court order. Will you pay extra for that privilege? Or perhaps you should get your network subsidized by the folks that are looking at your packets and using them for market information? > 2) The price for the layer 2 DSL connectivity and the capacity of that > service is set by the monopolist - "trust me, you'll love it". Actually, anyone can setup shop and use the copper in the ground -- so it isn't a complete monopoly. The barriers to entry aren't as high as they were even 2-3 years ago. It *is* tough to compete with the sheer *scale* of the ILECs -- but it can be done if you pick the right niche. > 3) The 896 K limit on the uplink precludes many of the services that "beg" > for competitive service provision. Actually, 896 is a limitation of ADSL2+. ADSL does a pretty good job of give huge numbers of people access -- even if it isn't as much as any of us want. > There are really only two choices, accept the high prices and service > limitations of he duopoly providers (ILEC and Cable) or implement a truly > open access FTTH network. I'd *like* to see the open access FTTH network -- but it's going to be slow going to get there in ubiquity. In the meantime, I'd like to see a "network neutrality" that concentrates on Layer 2 access to the house/business. If that exists, the number of Layer 3 providers will proliferate. If the monopolists build to our houses, and simultaneously remove the ability to use any other Layer 3 provider -- do we gain anything in the long run? From pete at ideapete.com Sat May 24 15:54:56 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Sat, 24 May 2008 16:54:56 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Verizon | FiOS Internet Packages and Prices In-Reply-To: References: <4837090B.1040904@ideapete.com> <20080523202906.GI23333@jeeves.rigozsaurus.com> Message-ID: <48389CC0.1040609@ideapete.com> I totally agree thats its way dangerous for the incumbent monopolists of telco and cable being the primary owners of the high speed last part of the connection as they will surely hold the traffic to ransom. It not a question of if but when Part of the service that they will be offering to us in Florida is to eventually disconnect all the coper ( yes you are correct a lock in move and many of the new development we saw in Florida are being built sans copper as a digital home ) ) but that still leaves the cable pipe. One thing we did notice is that all the fiber runs are buried as opposed to the coper connects that are on poles. A great deal of this is being driven by retiree communities and there management who consider the above ground mess unsightly and pointed at the underground cable as a better way that forced the telcos hand with the cable company driving to compete with there business My only reason for posting is to show that at last a very large telco company is admitting by doing that the end game is and will be FIBER period and DSL or anything over coper is history. they are also admitting that upstream is also as important as downstream and thats a first. Now if they will only admit the mgb compared to MGB then we will be further along In the power industry its been admitted even in washington that power companies cannot own the transmission ( to prevent monopolistic poor service) lines but that level of thinking has not gotten into our connectivity arena. Even in the open access world lets admit it our business model of good independent ISPs are totally out gunned in DC where the rules are being made and i hope Google will come to the rescue on this but I will not hold my breath No comments on what the Qwest bandits are doing with this state its beyond robbery ( Qwests open access is only open depending on what you pay them and if they like you, independent ISPs are totally locked out ) but they also have to be looking at what happens when the cable companies move to the next speed level and that to will be fiber. That is also why Comcast is desperately trying to sell their entire infrastructure in NM. the big problem with Qwest is the huge power they wield in Santa Fe at the legislature ( Look what happened to Ed Lopez the GSA cabinet secretary ( a real great guy ) when he went against Qwest just trying to get a better service level, one game of golf with Bills top people and he was history Now if only Deutsch Tel would buy the Comcast piece ( just like they went after US west ) we would see a real game in town This type of fiber to everything will herald in the whole new gambit of power over Ethernet and multiple options for SCADA but that is a whole nother story ( : ( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ Gary Gomes wrote: > I certainly understand Verizon's intent, but there are a few problems with > the Qwest "open access" model: > > 1) The price for the layer 2 Qwest DSL connection (i.e. without ISP) is > virtually identical to their bundled (DSL+ISP)price - meaning one can only > select an alternate ISP by paying a significant premium. > > 2) The price for the layer 2 DSL connectivity and the capacity of that > service is set by the monopolist - "trust me, you'll love it". > > 3) The 896 K limit on the uplink precludes many of the services that "beg" > for competitive service provision. > > There are really only two choices, accept the high prices and service > limitations of he duopoly providers (ILEC and Cable) or implement a truly > open access FTTH network. > > > Gary > -----Original Message----- > From: 1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org > [mailto:1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org] On Behalf Of John Osmon > Sent: Friday, May 23, 2008 2:29 PM > To: 1st-Mile-NM > Subject: Re: [1st-mile-nm] Verizon | FiOS Internet Packages and Prices > > On Fri, May 23, 2008 at 12:12:27PM -0600, peter wrote: > > http://www22.verizon.com/content/consumerfios/packages+and+prices/packages+a > nd+prices.htm > >> Just got this nice little offer for fiber to the home in the mail for >> our place in Sarasota >> >> I talked to the techs in Florida and they say that 100mgps is coming >> real soon >> >> Yup we can but dream in Nuevo Mexico >> > > Be careful what you ask for -- you may get it. > > This isn't about "serving the consumer," as much as it's about lock-in. > > Let's look at Qwest DSL model -- the fairest I've seen among the RBOCs. > > The DSL customer can buy a DSL (layer 2 connection) from Qwest, and be > connected to one of several different (layer 3) ISPs. When a single > layer 2 connection can be used to get to several layer 3 ISPs, there is > little need legislated network neutrality. As long as the wire is > neutral, I can find an ISP that will treat my packets the way I want... > > However, Qwest's FTTN (fiber to the node) inititive is starting up. Qwest > is extending their metro-ethernet to a number of remote terminals (RTs). > They can put DLAMs in the RTs, and push up to 20M/896k to neghborhoods! > They'll also be able to do 40M/40M with SHDSL equipment, and any number > of new things as new equipment becomes available. Cool stuf. > > But they're using this upgrade to lock out the ISPs. If you want the > faster service, you *must* use Qwest as the ISP. That sound you > just heard was the death knell of an important product in the > independent ISP's product line. > > The word on the street about Verizon's FIOS indicates that when the > fiber is brought to your house, they disable the copper plant. Since > they don't have to share the fiber, they've just locked your house into > Verizon service. > > These upgrades, are a thinly veiled attempt to lock consumers into the > ILECs service -- but disguised as an "upgrade." Personaly, I'm not > really willing to give up diversity of ISPs for a few extra Mbps... > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > > > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From john at citylinkfiber.com Sat May 24 16:03:42 2008 From: john at citylinkfiber.com (John Brown) Date: Sat, 24 May 2008 17:03:42 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Verizon | FiOS Internet Packages and Prices In-Reply-To: <20080524223225.GN23333@jeeves.rigozsaurus.com> References: <4837090B.1040904@ideapete.com> <20080523202906.GI23333@jeeves.rigozsaurus.com> <20080524223225.GN23333@jeeves.rigozsaurus.com> Message-ID: <48389ECE.7070903@citylinkfiber.com> Open Access FTT* (*=H|B) is under construction in Albuquerque. 87102 has it now, with expansion into 87110 Its available as L1, L2 or L3 John Osmon wrote: > I buy a *lot* of Qwest services. I think that the services they supply > work as they should. I also happen to think that under different > market forces their prices and service offerings would be different. > Overall, I'm pretty happy -- but I'd like to have a lot more choice. > > With that said, I'll add a bit to the points below -- not to defend > Qwest, but to get the right story out... > > > On Sat, May 24, 2008 at 04:00:33PM -0600, Gary Gomes wrote: >> I certainly understand Verizon's intent, but there are a few problems with >> the Qwest "open access" model: >> >> 1) The price for the layer 2 Qwest DSL connection (i.e. without ISP) is >> virtually identical to their bundled (DSL+ISP)price - meaning one can only >> select an alternate ISP by paying a significant premium. > > Yep -- that's the FCC's fault for telling the states that they couldn't > regulate DSL. The DSLAM locations aren't published anymore either. > > The premium could be worth it. I run a network where we won't ever > touch (or look at) you packets unless there is a performance problem > of a court order. Will you pay extra for that privilege? Or perhaps > you should get your network subsidized by the folks that are looking > at your packets and using them for market information? > > >> 2) The price for the layer 2 DSL connectivity and the capacity of that >> service is set by the monopolist - "trust me, you'll love it". > > Actually, anyone can setup shop and use the copper in the ground -- so > it isn't a complete monopoly. The barriers to entry aren't as high > as they were even 2-3 years ago. It *is* tough to compete with the > sheer *scale* of the ILECs -- but it can be done if you pick the > right niche. > >> 3) The 896 K limit on the uplink precludes many of the services that "beg" >> for competitive service provision. > > Actually, 896 is a limitation of ADSL2+. ADSL does a pretty good > job of give huge numbers of people access -- even if it isn't > as much as any of us want. > >> There are really only two choices, accept the high prices and service >> limitations of he duopoly providers (ILEC and Cable) or implement a truly >> open access FTTH network. > > I'd *like* to see the open access FTTH network -- but it's going to be > slow going to get there in ubiquity. In the meantime, I'd like to see a > "network neutrality" that concentrates on Layer 2 access to the > house/business. If that exists, the number of Layer 3 providers will > proliferate. > > If the monopolists build to our houses, and simultaneously remove the > ability to use any other Layer 3 provider -- do we gain anything in > the long run? > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > From pete at ideapete.com Sun May 25 12:15:07 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Sun, 25 May 2008 13:15:07 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] The Sad State of U.S. Broadband Message-ID: <4839BABB.1030906@ideapete.com> http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may2008/tc20080522_340989.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_dialogue+with+readers -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Sun May 25 18:56:54 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Sun, 25 May 2008 19:56:54 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Meet Copowi, the world's first ISP to guarantee network neutrality: Page 1 Message-ID: <483A18E6.6020004@ideapete.com> Yup net neutrality at a price --- example from article below "/ //Users in Colorado, for example, will have to cough up a staggering $33.95 a month for a 256Kbps DSL connection---expensive by any standard (except perhaps in Kazakhstan ). "/ http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/Meet-Copowi-the-worlds-first-ISP-to-guarantee-network-neutrality.ars -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From john at citylinkfiber.com Sun May 25 19:23:38 2008 From: john at citylinkfiber.com (John Brown) Date: Sun, 25 May 2008 20:23:38 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Meet Copowi, the world's first ISP to guarantee network neutrality: Page 1 In-Reply-To: <483A18E6.6020004@ideapete.com> References: <483A18E6.6020004@ideapete.com> Message-ID: <483A1F2A.10604@citylinkfiber.com> and so i wonder how they will handle the fact that they BUY transit from others are are not a tier 1 (meaning default free in the routing table) and those others can/could limit certain types of traffic flows. now if a tier 1 came out and said it was net-neutral, that would be a BIG story. peter wrote: > Yup net neutrality at a price --- example from article below "/ > //Users in Colorado, for example, will have to cough up a staggering > $33.95 a month for a 256Kbps DSL connection?expensive by any standard > (except perhaps in Kazakhstan > ). > "/ > > > http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/Meet-Copowi-the-worlds-first-ISP-to-guarantee-network-neutrality.ars > -- > > Peter Baston > > *IDEAS* > > /www.ideapete.com/ > > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm From pete at ideapete.com Sun May 25 20:09:45 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Sun, 25 May 2008 21:09:45 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Meet Copowi, the world's first ISP to guarantee network neutrality: Page 1 In-Reply-To: <483A1F2A.10604@citylinkfiber.com> References: <483A18E6.6020004@ideapete.com> <483A1F2A.10604@citylinkfiber.com> Message-ID: <483A29F9.3040308@ideapete.com> Precisely the point John --- you look at the primary fiber across NM and you see two current major owners Level 3 and Qwest . -- end game period. net newt died Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ John Brown wrote: > and so i wonder how they will handle the fact that they BUY transit > from others are are not a tier 1 (meaning default free in the routing > table) and those others can/could limit certain types of traffic flows. > > now if a tier 1 came out and said it was net-neutral, that would be a > BIG story. > > > > peter wrote: >> Yup net neutrality at a price --- example from article below "/ >> //Users in Colorado, for example, will have to cough up a staggering >> $33.95 a month for a 256Kbps DSL connection?expensive by any standard >> (except perhaps in Kazakhstan >> ). >> "/ >> >> >> http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/Meet-Copowi-the-worlds-first-ISP-to-guarantee-network-neutrality.ars >> >> -- >> >> Peter Baston >> >> *IDEAS* >> >> /www.ideapete.com/ >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 1st-mile-nm mailing list >> 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From john at citylinkfiber.com Sun May 25 23:22:02 2008 From: john at citylinkfiber.com (John Brown) Date: Mon, 26 May 2008 00:22:02 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Meet Copowi, the world's first ISP to guarantee network neutrality: Page 1 In-Reply-To: <483A29F9.3040308@ideapete.com> References: <483A18E6.6020004@ideapete.com> <483A1F2A.10604@citylinkfiber.com> <483A29F9.3040308@ideapete.com> Message-ID: <483A570A.4080500@citylinkfiber.com> there are other "major owners" You have ATT, Verizon (ex MCI), Global Crossing, Sprint, 360 Networks what people don't understand or know is that many of these don't "break out" in NM. for example you can not get IP transit from Level3 in NM. its more complicated that most folks understand, and the layer 8 folks like to keep it that way...... peter wrote: > Precisely the point John --- you look at the primary fiber across NM > and you see two current major owners Level 3 and Qwest . -- end game > period. net newt died > > Peter Baston > > *IDEAS* > > /www.ideapete.com/ > > > > > > > > > John Brown wrote: >> and so i wonder how they will handle the fact that they BUY transit >> from others are are not a tier 1 (meaning default free in the routing >> table) and those others can/could limit certain types of traffic flows. >> >> now if a tier 1 came out and said it was net-neutral, that would be a >> BIG story. >> >> >> >> peter wrote: >>> Yup net neutrality at a price --- example from article below "/ >>> //Users in Colorado, for example, will have to cough up a staggering >>> $33.95 a month for a 256Kbps DSL connection?expensive by any standard >>> (except perhaps in Kazakhstan >>> ). >>> "/ >>> >>> >>> http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/Meet-Copowi-the-worlds-first-ISP-to-guarantee-network-neutrality.ars >>> >>> -- >>> >>> Peter Baston >>> >>> *IDEAS* >>> >>> /www.ideapete.com/ >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> 1st-mile-nm mailing list >>> 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >>> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm >> > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm From editorsteve at gmail.com Mon May 26 07:01:31 2008 From: editorsteve at gmail.com (Steve Ross) Date: Mon, 26 May 2008 10:01:31 -0400 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] San Jose Mercury News: Fiber optics' digital divide In-Reply-To: <29474720.1211665698796.JavaMail.atgservice@atglive11.medianewsgroup.com> References: <29474720.1211665698796.JavaMail.atgservice@atglive11.medianewsgroup.com> Message-ID: <483AC2BB.2030403@gmail.com> We have of course been on the story a long time. Broadband HAS revolutionized Korea -- with half the per capita GDP and a sixth the population, Korea generates about as much Internet traffic as the US. It has changed journalism there for the better, provided dozens of new services we don't have. A Korean city (Gangnam, which is part of Seoul) just won the ICF award. Steven S. Ross Editor-in-Chief Broadband Properties steve at broadbandproperties.com www.bbpmag.com SKYPE: editorsteve +1 781-284-8810 +1 646-216-8030 fax +1 201-456-5933 mobile tom at jtjohnson.com wrote: > This article link was mailed to you by: *tom at jtjohnson.com > * > The sender included the following message: > > See also: by Beth Wellington - May. 24, 2008 - See Full Review (3.1 avg. > from 13 answers) This identifies a problem but not much more. An > interesting look at the ramifications of high speed internet not just > for entertainment but civic engagement and business competitiveness can > be found in this pamphlet by the Communications Workers of America: link > as well as at OMB Watch: > http://www.ombwatch.org/article/blogs/entry/5010/31 I find it > interesting that the writer thinks that 10% of folks not even having the > current lagging technology means the problem of the digital divide has > been solved. > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > Fiber optics' digital divide - By Peter Svensson > Associated Press > > NEW YORK - The lack of high-speed Internet access in some areas of the > United States has been hotly debated, even as that digital divide has > narrowed. View Full Story > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > > Most Emailed > > (From the last 12 hours) > > 1. Arroyo, Clark named to Superior Court bench > > 2. Beach Train leaves station, signals start of summer > > 3. The Summit fire: Officials track origin off Santa Cruz > Mountains'... > > 4. SUMMIT FIRE: Ormsby Road homes burn to the ground; Fire jumps > line... > 5. Investigator testifies before state bar that Santa Clara County... > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_9356431 > > http://www.mercurynews.com > > This e-mail was initiated by machine [10.148.8.3] at IP [10.148.8.3]. > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm From rl at 1st-mile.com Mon May 26 11:14:03 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Mon, 26 May 2008 11:14:03 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] NM open broadband discussions with Andrew Cohill Message-ID: <20080526111403.4k4xrgg2044skkgk@www2.dcn.org> Andrew Cohill, Ph.D., principal of Blacksburg, VA based, broadband planning firm, Design Nine, Inc, and nationally acknowledged expert on ?open? fiber broadband networking and economics, will be in New Mexico this week. You are invited to participate in the informal meetings planned for: Tuesday afternoon, May 27, 2:30 ? 4:00, at Downtown Subscription, on Garcia St., Santa Fe; Friday afternoon, May 30, 1:45 ? 3:30, in Albuquerque (location to be announced tomorrow). Please join Andrew and other local colleagues, to discuss New Mexico statewide and local broadband initiatives and possibilities. This is a rare opportunity to share valuable knowledge, and to take some next steps on regional broadband understandings, decision-making and actions. Richard -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From pete at ideapete.com Mon May 26 12:12:03 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Mon, 26 May 2008 13:12:03 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Meet Copowi, the world's first ISP to guarantee network neutrality: Page 1 In-Reply-To: <483A570A.4080500@citylinkfiber.com> References: <483A18E6.6020004@ideapete.com> <483A1F2A.10604@citylinkfiber.com> <483A29F9.3040308@ideapete.com> <483A570A.4080500@citylinkfiber.com> Message-ID: <483B0B83.2080803@ideapete.com> Agree John, I have a relative who works at L3 ( who laid it all ) in Denver and I watched that sad sale event with the lack of available break offs in NM with horror One of the issues we keep running into is deliberate smoke and mirrors of the logic behind all this What first caught my eye at the INQ site about the open access announcement is the statement that " Its going to cost a lot of money at T3 ", thats the first time I have ever hear that comment and its absolutely spot on In my business world two sets of rules operate, business and technical, and in most cases the B rule is paramount no mater how much gobbledygook technobabble is being thrown around Simply, you cannot buy or operate a service for $4 and sell it for $1 unless you really are fond of two numbers 7 and 11 Now lets look at the Tier description ( I will not go deep with traffic and routing and services or packet layers just the overall pattern and generic overview ) * Tier 1 - A network that can reach every other network on the Internet without purchasing IP transit. * Tier 2 - A network that peers with some networks, but still purchases IP transit to reach at least some portion of the Internet. * Tier 3 - A network that solely purchases transit from other networks to reach the Internet. Normally this B rule applies and yes I know there are exceptions Tier 1 suppliers service cost $X and so they sell it to Tier 2 at $X+ Tier 2 suppliers service cost $X+ and so they sell it to Tier 2 at $X++ Thats why when I hear the rhetoric from a pure Tier 3 supplier ( Azulstar - Sandoval County Broadband and others ) that they can supply FULL service service at 1/10 of $X I just roll over and laugh keeping both hands in my pocket. Frequently in our business we look at different industries and apply patterns for comparison and when i ran the 1/10 cost Tier 3 past a banking friend of mine he identified and laughed out loud and immediately he called it a Ponzi scheme and would advise the perpetrators to look forward to a nice comfortable federal penitentiary holiday. He did however compliment the inventors on a new variation until I pointed out banks were financing this and then the Eureka moment turned into an Oh Shit session. Similarly part of our companies business is in the power industry and they have a similar tier structure albeit with a different name that looks like this * Tier 1 - Power production at the power plant source at Ultra HIGH Voltage ( normally in a remote are close to a fuel source ) * Tier 2 - Transmission lines that carry the power to local area need sources stepped down to High Voltage * Tier 3 - Local delivery transmission and customer service supply stepped down from High to medium and usable voltage One of the great debates that occurred at the breakup of the power industry ( still going on today ) to make efficient cost effective service was first the ownership split of Tier 2 from the incumbent owners of Tier 1 and 3 to prevent monopolization practices that we find common in the communications industry , this natural progression will mean eventually Tier 1 - 2- 3 users must be independent and separate companies. A model we could well follow in our industry. Ironically this is how companies like L3 started The BIGGIE point, and I think this is what John is focusing on, is that if the senior legislatures at both federal and state and county level do not understand what a TIER is let alone a LAYER protocol let alone the difference between MGB and mgb then the Broadbandits win by default and it seems like the only people who really give a dam are people in our groups and so Richard how are we going to Edumakreat ( deliberate pun ) them thar burocrustraetions Count me in anyway you want, this sounds like Leapfrog on steroids http://www.ideapete.com/leapfrog.html all over again ( : ( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ John Brown wrote: > there are other "major owners" > > You have ATT, Verizon (ex MCI), Global Crossing, Sprint, 360 Networks > > > what people don't understand or know is that many of these don't > "break out" in NM. > > for example you can not get IP transit from Level3 in NM. > > its more complicated that most folks understand, and the layer 8 folks > like to keep it that way...... > > > peter wrote: >> Precisely the point John --- you look at the primary fiber across >> NM and you see two current major owners Level 3 and Qwest . -- end >> game period. net newt died >> >> Peter Baston >> >> *IDEAS* >> >> /www.ideapete.com/ >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> John Brown wrote: >>> and so i wonder how they will handle the fact that they BUY transit >>> from others are are not a tier 1 (meaning default free in the >>> routing table) and those others can/could limit certain types of >>> traffic flows. >>> >>> now if a tier 1 came out and said it was net-neutral, that would be >>> a BIG story. >>> >>> >>> >>> peter wrote: >>>> Yup net neutrality at a price --- example from article below "/ >>>> //Users in Colorado, for example, will have to cough up a >>>> staggering $33.95 a month for a 256Kbps DSL connection?expensive by >>>> any standard (except perhaps in Kazakhstan >>>> ). >>>> "/ >>>> >>>> >>>> http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/Meet-Copowi-the-worlds-first-ISP-to-guarantee-network-neutrality.ars >>>> >>>> -- >>>> >>>> Peter Baston >>>> >>>> *IDEAS* >>>> >>>> /www.ideapete.com/ >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>>> >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> 1st-mile-nm mailing list >>>> 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >>>> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm >>> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 1st-mile-nm mailing list >> 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Mon May 26 12:30:18 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Mon, 26 May 2008 12:30:18 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] NM open broadband discussions with Andrew Cohill In-Reply-To: <20080526111403.4k4xrgg2044skkgk@www2.dcn.org> References: <20080526111403.4k4xrgg2044skkgk@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: <20080526123018.jgg418a8gccw8co0@www2.dcn.org> Please note: Change of location for the Tuesday (tomorrow) meeting. It will be at the new Santa Fe Complex, 632 Agua Fria, Santa Fe. See you there. (not at Downtown Subscription) RL -------- > Andrew Cohill, Ph.D., principal of Blacksburg, VA based, broadband planning > firm, Design Nine, Inc, and nationally acknowledged expert on ?open? fiber > broadband networking and economics, will be in New Mexico this week. > You are invited to participate in the informal meetings planned for: > > Tuesday afternoon, May 27, 2:30 - 4:00, at Santa Fe Complex, 632 Agua Fria > St., Santa Fe; > > Friday afternoon, May 30, 1:45 - 3:30, in Albuquerque (location to be > announced tomorrow). > > Please join Andrew and other local colleagues, to discuss New Mexico > statewide > and local broadband initiatives and possibilities. This is a rare > opportunity to share valuable knowledge, and to take some next steps on > regional broadband understandings, decision-making and actions. > > Richard -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From john at citylinkfiber.com Mon May 26 12:30:20 2008 From: john at citylinkfiber.com (John Brown) Date: Mon, 26 May 2008 13:30:20 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Meet Copowi, the world's first ISP to guarantee network neutrality: Page 1 In-Reply-To: <483B0B83.2080803@ideapete.com> References: <483A18E6.6020004@ideapete.com> <483A1F2A.10604@citylinkfiber.com> <483A29F9.3040308@ideapete.com> <483A570A.4080500@citylinkfiber.com> <483B0B83.2080803@ideapete.com> Message-ID: <483B0FCC.10607@citylinkfiber.com> > > Normally this B rule applies and yes I know there are exceptions > > Tier 1 suppliers service cost $X and so they sell it to Tier 2 at $X+ > Tier 2 suppliers service cost $X+ and so they sell it to Tier 2 at $X++ > > Thats why when I hear the rhetoric from a pure Tier 3 supplier ( > Azulstar - Sandoval County Broadband and others ) that they can supply > FULL service service at 1/10 of $X I just roll over and laugh keeping > both hands in my pocket. Depends on if they are applying an over-subscription ratio to their cost /pricing models. Most ISP's that I'm aware of oversubscribe their edge (customer facing) vs their backbone by at least 10:1. Meaning they will "sell 10x" the amount of bandwidth they are buying from transit providers. DSL has been oversubscribed by as much as 80:1 by some providers. Thats how an ISP attempts to generate positive cash out of the transaction. From pete at ideapete.com Mon May 26 13:41:34 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Mon, 26 May 2008 14:41:34 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] NM open broadband discussions with Andrew Cohill In-Reply-To: <20080526123018.jgg418a8gccw8co0@www2.dcn.org> References: <20080526111403.4k4xrgg2044skkgk@www2.dcn.org> <20080526123018.jgg418a8gccw8co0@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: <483B207E.6060107@ideapete.com> Great I didn't know Steve had opened a Starbucks there ( : ( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ Richard Lowenberg wrote: > Please note: Change of location for the Tuesday (tomorrow) meeting. > It will > be at the new Santa Fe Complex, 632 Agua Fria, Santa Fe. See you there. > (not at Downtown Subscription) > RL > -------- > >> Andrew Cohill, Ph.D., principal of Blacksburg, VA based, broadband >> planning >> firm, Design Nine, Inc, and nationally acknowledged expert on ?open? >> fiber >> broadband networking and economics, will be in New Mexico this week. >> You are invited to participate in the informal meetings planned for: >> >> Tuesday afternoon, May 27, 2:30 - 4:00, at Santa Fe Complex, 632 Agua >> Fria >> St., Santa Fe; >> >> Friday afternoon, May 30, 1:45 - 3:30, in Albuquerque (location to be >> announced tomorrow). >> >> Please join Andrew and other local colleagues, to discuss New Mexico >> statewide >> and local broadband initiatives and possibilities. This is a rare >> opportunity to share valuable knowledge, and to take some next steps on >> regional broadband understandings, decision-making and actions. >> >> Richard > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Mon May 26 15:12:45 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Mon, 26 May 2008 16:12:45 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Meet Copowi, the world's first ISP to guarantee network neutrality: Page 1 In-Reply-To: <483B1095.7010003@gmail.com> References: <483A18E6.6020004@ideapete.com> <483A1F2A.10604@citylinkfiber.com> <483A29F9.3040308@ideapete.com> <483A570A.4080500@citylinkfiber.com> <483B0B83.2080803@ideapete.com> <483B1095.7010003@gmail.com> Message-ID: <483B35DD.5010703@ideapete.com> I get the point but on the business model if you are buying an aggregate total service for $4m a year and selling it for $1m and less , depending that a third of your customers will pay you for nothing and lie about what everyone is getting as a product ( speed what is is how you are getting it ( speed how its measured mgb - MGB ) and also pretending that your customers really only need a portion ( downstream versus up ) then " Houston I think we have a problem ? " There is a nice article in European mag about service speed lies I will dig it out and post it ( : ( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ Steve Ross wrote: > Bear in mind that you can sell at 1/10 X if you assume: > > 1. Your users won't all be using the bandwidth at once. (But also bear > in mind that this won't last, even if it is true now.) > > 2. Much of your traffic is local (40% is local in many subnetworks > today). > > 3. Your users won't test their true bandwidth. > > ... and yes, the bankers are dumb. > > > Steven S. Ross > Editor-in-Chief > Broadband Properties > steve at broadbandproperties.com > www.bbpmag.com > SKYPE: editorsteve > +1 781-284-8810 > +1 646-216-8030 fax > +1 201-456-5933 mobile > > peter wrote: >> Agree John, I have a relative who works at L3 ( who laid it all ) in >> Denver and I watched that sad sale event with the lack of available >> break offs in NM with horror >> >> One of the issues we keep running into is deliberate smoke and >> mirrors of the logic behind all this >> >> What first caught my eye at the INQ site about the open access >> announcement is the statement that " Its going to cost a lot of money >> at T3 ", thats the first time I have ever hear that comment and its >> absolutely spot on >> >> In my business world two sets of rules operate, business and >> technical, and in most cases the B rule is paramount no mater how >> much gobbledygook technobabble is being thrown around >> >> Simply, you cannot buy or operate a service for $4 and sell it for $1 >> unless you really are fond of two numbers 7 and 11 >> >> Now lets look at the Tier description ( I will not go deep with >> traffic and routing and services or packet layers just the overall >> pattern and generic overview ) >> >> * Tier 1 - A network that can reach every other network on the >> Internet without purchasing IP transit. >> * Tier 2 - A network >> that peers with some networks, but still purchases IP transit to >> reach at least some portion of the Internet. >> * Tier 3 - A network that >> solely purchases transit from other networks to reach the >> Internet. >> >> Normally this B rule applies and yes I know there are exceptions >> >> Tier 1 suppliers service cost $X and so they sell it to Tier 2 at $X+ >> Tier 2 suppliers service cost $X+ and so they sell it to Tier 2 at $X++ >> >> Thats why when I hear the rhetoric from a pure Tier 3 supplier ( >> Azulstar - Sandoval County Broadband and others ) that they can >> supply FULL service service at 1/10 of $X I just roll over and laugh >> keeping both hands in my pocket. >> >> Frequently in our business we look at different industries and apply >> patterns for comparison and when i ran the 1/10 cost Tier 3 past a >> banking friend of mine he identified and laughed out loud and >> immediately he called it a Ponzi scheme and would advise the >> perpetrators to look forward to a nice comfortable federal >> penitentiary holiday. He did however compliment the inventors on a >> new variation until I pointed out banks were financing this and then >> the Eureka moment turned into an Oh Shit session. >> >> Similarly part of our companies business is in the power industry and >> they have a similar tier structure albeit with a different name that >> looks like this >> >> * Tier 1 - Power production at the power plant source at Ultra HIGH >> Voltage ( normally in a remote are close to a fuel source ) >> * Tier 2 - >> Transmission lines that carry the power to local area need sources >> stepped down to High Voltage >> * Tier 3 - Local delivery >> transmission and customer service supply stepped down from High to >> medium and usable voltage >> >> >> One of the great debates that occurred at the breakup of the power >> industry ( still going on today ) to make efficient cost effective >> service was first the ownership split of Tier 2 from the incumbent >> owners of Tier 1 and 3 to prevent monopolization practices that we >> find common in the communications industry , this natural progression >> will mean eventually Tier 1 - 2- 3 users must be independent and >> separate companies. A model we could well follow in our industry. >> Ironically this is how companies like L3 started >> >> The BIGGIE point, and I think this is what John is focusing on, is >> that if the senior legislatures at both federal and state and county >> level do not understand what a TIER is let alone a LAYER protocol let >> alone the difference between MGB and mgb then the Broadbandits win by >> default and it seems like the only people who really give a dam are >> people in our groups and so Richard how are we going to Edumakreat ( >> deliberate pun ) them thar burocrustraetions >> >> Count me in anyway you want, this sounds like Leapfrog on steroids >> http://www.ideapete.com/leapfrog.html all over again >> >> ( : ( : pete >> >> >> >> Peter Baston >> >> *IDEAS* >> >> /www.ideapete.com/ >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> John Brown wrote: >>> there are other "major owners" >>> >>> You have ATT, Verizon (ex MCI), Global Crossing, Sprint, 360 Networks >>> >>> >>> what people don't understand or know is that many of these don't >>> "break out" in NM. >>> >>> for example you can not get IP transit from Level3 in NM. >>> >>> its more complicated that most folks understand, and the layer 8 >>> folks like to keep it that way...... >>> >>> >>> peter wrote: >>>> Precisely the point John --- you look at the primary fiber >>>> across NM and you see two current major owners Level 3 and Qwest >>>> . -- end game period. net newt died >>>> >>>> Peter Baston >>>> >>>> *IDEAS* >>>> >>>> /www.ideapete.com/ >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> John Brown wrote: >>>>> and so i wonder how they will handle the fact that they BUY >>>>> transit from others are are not a tier 1 (meaning default free in >>>>> the routing table) and those others can/could limit certain types >>>>> of traffic flows. >>>>> >>>>> now if a tier 1 came out and said it was net-neutral, that would >>>>> be a BIG story. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> peter wrote: >>>>>> Yup net neutrality at a price --- example from article below "/ >>>>>> //Users in Colorado, for example, will have to cough up a >>>>>> staggering $33.95 a month for a 256Kbps DSL connection?expensive >>>>>> by any standard (except perhaps in Kazakhstan >>>>>> ). >>>>>> "/ >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/Meet-Copowi-the-worlds-first-ISP-to-guarantee-network-neutrality.ars >>>>>> >>>>>> -- >>>>>> >>>>>> Peter Baston >>>>>> >>>>>> *IDEAS* >>>>>> >>>>>> /www.ideapete.com/ >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>>> 1st-mile-nm mailing list >>>>>> 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >>>>>> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm >>>>> >>>> >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>>> >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> 1st-mile-nm mailing list >>>> 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >>>> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm >>> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 1st-mile-nm mailing list >> 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Mon May 26 15:17:21 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Mon, 26 May 2008 16:17:21 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Broadband customers ripped off - The INQUIRER Message-ID: <483B36F1.6090106@ideapete.com> http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/04/15/broadband-customers-ripped So on average their customer get less that 50% of what they paid for Now I wonder what this sort of test would look like here in the US, in NM its gotta be a Dilbert ( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Mon May 26 16:39:33 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Mon, 26 May 2008 17:39:33 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Awesome video work Message-ID: <483B4A35.9020405@ideapete.com> http://www.blublu.org/ http://www.blublu.org/sito/video/muto.htm http://www.blublu.org/sito/video/video.htm Every so often you come across someone using the web in a truly awesome way Check out the way this guy is doing stop motion web video on walls and his whole design concept His stuff is totally weird but truly awesome ( then again I like Monty Python and look were that code went ) I showed this to a group a young engineers and they gave it a standing ovation, the older bosses in the room were absolutely bewildered Cannot wait until this spreads around Santa Fe ( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ 3210 La Paz Lane Santa Fe, NM 87507 /Albuquerque// Office: 505-890-9649/ /Santa Fe// Office: 505-629-4227/ /Cell: 505-690-3627/ /Fax: 866-642-8918/ /_Mailto:pete at ideapete.com _/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Tue May 27 10:40:08 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 10:40:08 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Update: NM open broadband discussions with Andrew Cohill In-Reply-To: <20080526123018.jgg418a8gccw8co0@www2.dcn.org> References: <20080526111403.4k4xrgg2044skkgk@www2.dcn.org> <20080526123018.jgg418a8gccw8co0@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: <20080527104008.aqznc7y98gw4ksws@www2.dcn.org> This is an update on today's meeting in Santa Fe, and providing location for the Friday afternoon meeting at UNM in Albuquerque. rl Andrew Cohill, Ph.D., principal of Blacksburg, VA based, broadband planning firm, Design Nine, Inc, and nationally acknowledged expert on 'open' fiber broadband networking and economics, will be in New Mexico this week. You are invited to participate in the informal meetings planned for: Tuesday afternoon, May 27, 2:30 - 4:00, at Santa Fe Complex, 632 Agua Fria St., Santa Fe; Friday afternoon, May 30, 1:45 - 3:30, Scholes Hall (Admin. Bldg.), Room 101, in Albuquerque. This url will lead you to the UNM map & Scholes Hall: http://www4.unm.edu/campusmap/index.cfm Please join Andrew and other local colleagues, to discuss New Mexico statewide and local broadband initiatives and possibilities. This is a rare opportunity to share valuable knowledge, and to take some next steps on regional broadband understandings, decision-making and actions. Richard -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From granoff at zianet.com Wed May 28 08:02:50 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 09:02:50 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: 5.28.8nmisp,uswisp,aww,isps,nmipa,first mile Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20080528084927.01c4a2b0@mail.zianet.com> Edited for interest. FYI. >FCC Discusses Auction to Give You Free Wireless >Broadband - M2Z Networks proposal to offer free >service to 95% of population is revisited, dslreports >In 2007 the FCC considered (and then denied) a request >by M2Z Networks to give the company a chunk of free >spectrum to be used to provide free wireless broadband >to approximately 95% of the country. The FCC is now >considering a new spectrum auction which would be for >almost the exact same purpose as that previously >proposed by M2Z Networks. The new auction would be for >25 megahertz in the 2155-2180 MHz advanced wireless >services band. It would require that a free service >tier be offered to 50% of the population within four >years and to 95% of the population before the end of >the term. The FCC will be voting on rules for this >auction in mid-June at which time more information >should become available as to whether the auction will >take place this year and whether it will have any >impact on the proposed re-auction of the D-block >spectrum that failed to sell in the 700 MHz auction >earlier this year > >http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/FCC-Discusses-Auction-to-Give-You-Free-Wireless-Broadband-94694 > > >Canadians Rally for Net Neutrality, CircleID >Hundreds of protesters are expected to descend on >Canada's capital on Tuesday to urge government action >on keeping the internet free from interference by >service providers. The net neutrality rally is drawing >together politicians, labor unions, consumer groups >and internet activists, with protesters being bused in >from several locations including Toronto and Montreal. >At issue are the actions of big ISPs such as Bell >Canada Inc. and Rogers Communications Inc., who have >been slowing down the internet speeds of customers >using certain applications, such as peer-to-peer >software used for file sharing. > http://www.circleid.com/posts/canadians_rally_net_neutrality/ > > >New report confirms U.S. is slipping further behind, >Speed Matters >The United States has slipped to 15th in the world in >high speed Internet penetration, with just 23.3 >percent, according a new report from the Organisation >for Economic Cooperation and Development. This news >follows an unfortunate down trend?in 2006, the U.S. >was ranked 12th among OECD countries in high speed >Internet penetration and in 2001, 4th. > http://www.speedmatters.org/blog/oecd_report_further_behind.html > > >Internet address space: economic considerations in the >management of IPv4 and in the deployment of IPv6, OECD >With nearly 85% of all available Internet addresses >already in use, experts believe that, if current >trends continue, Internet addresses will run out by >2011. What next? Will the Internet be able to scale to >connect billions of people and devices to the >Internet? This new report focuses on possible >scenarios and on the need to deploy the newer version >of the Internet Protocol, IP version 6 (IPv6). > >http://www.oecd.org/topic/0,3373,en_2649_37441_1_1_1_1_37441,00.html?rssChId=37441#40605971 > > >DNSSEC Adds Value?, CircleID >The recent news that .uk, .arpa and .org may sign >their zones sometime this year is indeed good news. >Each domain is highly significant... As the DNSSEC >registry infrastructure moves inexorably forward -- >primarily driven by top level pressure and >considerations of National Interest -- it now behoves >us to clearly articulate the benefits of DNSSEC to >domain owners and registrars. In particular I want to >focus on the vast majority of us to whom cold, hard >cash is important and parting with it requires as a >minimum tangible benefits or, in extreme cases, >surgical intervention. > http://www.circleid.com/posts/852611_dnssec_adds_value/ > > >Comcast 'Pruning' Rural Markets - 46 markets across >eight states...., dslreports >The Associated Press has a little more detail on those >rural cable markets I mentioned Comcast was planning >on selling last week. Comcast is looking to sell about >46 rural markets in eight states (Maine, Kentucky, >Louisiana, New Mexico, Virginia, Georgia, West >Virginia and California), a move that would impact >about 500,000 customers. "It's not about money at >all," one analyst tells the AP. "They are pruning some >of the more outlying areas in order to make a more >efficient cluster." No buyers have been named yet. > http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Comcast-Pruning-Rural-Markets-94753 > > >Mobile VoIP cuts free from Wi-Fi, CW >One service gives users free or cheap calls over the >cellular network when they're away from hotpots, and a >rival service has launched. > http://feeds.computerworld.com/~r/Computerworld/News/~3/299149582/article.do From granoff at zianet.com Wed May 28 08:06:23 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 09:06:23 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: position annnouncement Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20080528090340.0303fe10@mail.zianet.com> From another list. FYI. >*Syringa Advertisement for President/CEO* > >Syringa Networks, a regional fiber optic telecommunications carrier, is >accepting applications for the position of President/CEO. > >The applicant must be able to perform a high level of executive duties >relating to the planning, directing, coordinating and controlling of >Syringa Networks. Formulate both short-range and long-range company >business plans and strategic focus in partnership with the Board of >Directors. Communicate the company's strategic focus and mission. Provide >leadership in the implementation and administration of company policies >and projects. > >This position will report to the Syringa Networks headquarters in Boise, >Idaho. > >Please mail application to Syringa Networks, PO Box 15035, Boise, ID 83715 >to the attention of Ron McCue, Chairman. Applicants also must email a copy >of their application information to rmccue at silverstar.net > > >Applications must be received by June 20. From granoff at zianet.com Wed May 28 08:44:44 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 09:44:44 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: Los Alamos Venture Acceleration Initiative Call for Proposals Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20080528094352.0cfcc690@mail.zianet.com> FYI. >Los Alamos Venture Acceleration Initiative >Call for Partnership Proposals > > >Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is soliciting proposals from parties >interested in partnering with LANL and Los Alamos National Security LLC >(LANS) to facilitate the identification, creation, and growth of spin-off >companies based on Laboratory technology or know-how. LANS/LANL is >prepared to provide up to $1 million over three years in support of the >operations component of this effort. > >Despite a healthy supply of regional venture funding and existing >opportunities, the rate of LANL spinouts has not reached its potential. >LANL is seeking a partner to implement a pilot program?the Los Alamos >Venture Acceleration (LAVA) Initiative?to strategically spin out start-up >companies from the Laboratory. Emphasis will be placed on establishing new >businesses in northern New Mexico. LAVA will provide the external business >guidance, market validation, maturation funding, and assemble the external >technical and management team required to bring promising technologies to >the equity-financing stage. LAVA will also be responsible for securing >pre-seed and/or seed financing for subject ventures as appropriate. > >The selected partner will meet the following requirements: >? Possess the business structure and dedicated personnel necessary >to conduct technology assessments, evaluate market opportunities, >formulate preliminary business cases, fund and guide technology >maturation, recruit management teams, and establish start-up enterprises >in preparation for Series A financing. >? Have access to sufficient capital to launch a minimum of three >companies in three years. Access means having funds under direct >management or commitments from entities that wish to invest in qualified >opportunities. >? Be managed by individuals with a proven track record of launching >successful start-up businesses. >? Have access to a network of regional and national consultants, >investors and advisors. >? Ensure that all funds from LANS will be used in support of LANL >technology commercialization opportunities. >? Locate operations and full-time staff in Los Alamos, New Mexico. >? Be fully owned and controlled by U.S. citizens. >? Be staffed by U.S. citizens eligible for uncleared badge access >to LANL sites. > >In addition, preference will be given to proposals that demonstrate: >? Previous experience in transitioning technologies out of LANL or >another national laboratory or university. >? Knowledge of LANL capabilities, technology focus areas and programs. >? A plan for sustaining the program beyond the first three-year term. > >The selected partner and LANS/LANL will enter into an Institutional >Agreement that will define the parties? respective roles and obligations, >including the performance requirements expected of the selected partner. > >The selected partner is expected to sign a non-disclosure agreement to >facilitate access to Lab personnel, inventions, and data. After a >technology is identified, the partner would then be granted a 180-day >first right of refusal to license identified technologies. To streamline >the intellectual property negotiation, a standard equity-share license >agreement will be used. All technologies must satisfy standard DOE >fairness-of-opportunity requirements. > >Period of Performance: > * Three years >Anticipated Start Date: > * October 1, 2008 > >How to Apply: >Proposals must be submitted to the Technology Transfer Division no later >than June 30, 2008. To be eligible for consideration, a proposal must >? State how the proposer meets each of the specified requirements. >? Address the extent to which the proposer meets the preferred >characteristics. >? Describe the proposer?s business structure, processes for >technology identification, opportunity assessment, and technology/business >maturation methodologies. >? Provide resumes of management team and other contract or >consultant resources. >? Provide evidence that the proposer has access to sufficient >capital to support this effort. >? Estimate the expected impact, including the number of spin-outs >anticipated, over the three years of the effort. >? Demonstrate how the proposer plans to maintain the effort beyond >the initial three-year period. >? Include at least three (3) letters of reference. > >Proposals must be submitted to >Belinda Padilla >Technology Transfer Division >Los Alamos National Laboratory >Mail Stop C333 >Los Alamos, NM 87545 > >Questions should be directed to Ms. Padilla at >bee at lanl.gov or 505-667-9896. > > > >Los Alamos Venture Acceleration Initiative >Bidder Briefings > >Monday, June 2, 2008 >9:00-11:00 a.m. >University of New Mexico >Anderson Graduate School of Management Building >1924 Las Lomas NE, Albuquerque NM >Financial Center, GSM 226 > >Parking Option #1: Metered space is available just east of the Graduate >School building on the north side of Las Lomas Blvd. > >Parking Option #2: If no metered parking is available, guests should >continue travelling along Las Lomas/Campus heading east (away from the >Graduate School), then turn south/right on Redondo and follow Redondo >around as it curves heading west again. They should park in the Visitor >Parking Structure, called the 'Parking Welcome Center'. From here, they >can walk north across campus back to building 87, the Graduate School of >Management (about a five-minute walk). > >Handicap parking is available just north of Zimmerman Library, building >53, and can be accessed via Yale Blvd and Roma Ave. > >Wednesday, June 4, 2008 >9:00-11:00 a.m. >Santa Fe Community College >6401 S. Richards Ave, Santa Fe NM >200 Wing of Main Building, Room 218 >Park in Main Building Parking Lot > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Wed May 28 12:11:54 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 13:11:54 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] The Fractal Foundation Message-ID: <483DAE7A.1040401@ideapete.com> For all of you who have never been this is a truly great show that is held regularly at the planetarium in Abq http://www.fractalfoundation.org/ Want to see kids of all ages give a STANDING ovation to MATH !!!! Go see you will have fun but get there early as the shows are always sold out Jonathan Wolfe who runs this is a deep brain type immersed in cognitive and complexity theory Friam should have one of his shows at the complex for W21 and First mile think how this could be blasted to schools everywhere Owen also mentioned yesterday at the ad hoc friam that he is trying to get the Institute to give a similar summer show at the Complex ----- GREAT Idea how do we make it happen ? ( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From granoff at zianet.com Fri May 30 08:33:44 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Fri, 30 May 2008 09:33:44 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: GigaLaw.com Daily News, May 30, 2008 Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20080530093156.030e1eb0@mail.zianet.com> From another list. FYI. >Hackers Deface Comcast Site for Several Hours > Hackers took over and defaced Comcast's Web portal for several hours > overnight, leaving a cryptic message on the site that the company's 14.1 > million subscribers use to access e-mail, news and technical support. The > front page of Comcast.net went down and was replaced with a note saying > the hackers had "RoXed" Comcast, according to postings at BroadbandReports.com. > Read more: http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/Comcast-Hacked-94826 From rl at 1st-mile.com Fri May 30 09:10:08 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Fri, 30 May 2008 09:10:08 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] CityLink Fiber in Albuquerque: Grand Opening Event Message-ID: <20080530091008.slpyc7e4q8sg4gok@www2.dcn.org> >From the CityLink press release: MEDIA SNEAK?PEEK: Fiber to the Home in Albuquerque Albuquerque, NM ? May 28 2008 ?? CityLink Telecommunications, Albuquerque?s only Next Generation Fiber to the Home (FTTH) provider will be hosting a Sneak?Peek at the most advanced entertainment and communications service in Albuquerque. This advanced technology is only available with new FTTH (Fiber to the Home) services. FTTH (Fiber to the Home) refers to the installation of a special fiber optic cable to the user?s home. With the fiber optic cable users will have access to faster Internet, digital telephone and higher quality digital video services. ?The fiber?optic network will deliver voice, video, ultra high speed internet and other services at the speed of light?, said John Brown, President of CityLink. ?Fiber optics allows us to meet current subscriber needs, while having the ability to scale to thousands of times that need in the future. Traditional copper wire infrastructure is reaching the end of its useful life, fiber is just beginning.? A fiber optic network can scale to meet future needs by using specialized lasers and different frequencies of light (colors). As more bandwidth is needed additional lasers are added to the network to augment the bandwidth. With today?s technology one single color of light can handle 40 Giga Bits per second of data. Today?s Cable or DSL technologies can only deliver around 20Mb/s to the home. CityLink?s new service will start out providing home users with 50Mb/s of service for an estimated $69.95 a month, plus installation. The company will also provide 100Mb/s of service for an estimated $129.95 a month, plus installation. Pricing will be finalized in the next few days. The service will be symmetrical in its speed offerings, meaning that download and upload speeds are the same. Cable or DSL service is typically asymmetrical, meaning that download is faster than upload. ?Today?s users are creating more video, more digital pictures and more content. That content needs to be uploaded to the Internet, and that means users want faster upload speeds.? The company plans to offer other advanced services in the near future. Service will be initially deployed to residents living in the O2 area (87102) of Albuquerque. The company has worked with local developers and has installed its fiber cable in downtowns newest Lofts and Condo?s. The company has over 150 homes with fiber optic cable already installed. As part of the grand opening of The Emerald Building on Friday May 30, 2008 the company will be demonstrating its new FTTH services from 4pm to 7pm. The Emerald Building is located at 4th and Mountain NW in downtown Albuquerque. About CityLink Telecommunications, Inc. Albuquerque based CityLink Telecommunications, provides advanced voice, video and data (Internet) services to residential and business users via its fiber optic network. CityLink is the first to bring Fiber to the Home in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The company supports Open Access networks and has a wholesale model that allows other service providers to make use of its Fiber to the Home systems. Media Contact: John Brown President, CityLink Telecommunications john at citylinkfiber.com +1 505 314 0892 -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Mon Jun 2 15:13:32 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Mon, 02 Jun 2008 15:13:32 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Santa Fe WiFi Opposition Message-ID: <20080602151332.qmgvkl9ggg0g40gc@www2.dcn.org> This and related articles got extensive coverage last week. Stay tuned to this list for an intelligent new report on wifi health effects, in the coming weeks. rl ------- Santa Fe "wireless sensitives" fight hotspot plan By Jonathan M. Gitlin | Published: May 30, 2008 http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080530-santa-fe-wireless-sensitives-fight-hotspot-plan.html Most new advances in technology encounter a certain measure of pushback from elements within the general public. Ned Ludd gave his name to the phenomenon with his opposition to the industrial revolution, early cars had to be preceeded by a man waving a red flag to warn people, and the 21st century is awash with individuals who want the technology train to back up a couple of stations. One such example is the idea that people can be sensitive, or allergic, to electromagnetic (EM) emissions in the same spectra as commonly used wireless devices. Despite there being a total absence of science to support such claims, they don't seem to be going away, as a group in Santa Fe, New Mexico proves. The group in question, lead by one Arthur Firstenberg, is seeking to fight their city's plan for public WiFi hotspots with the Americans with Disabilities Act. They claim that they suffer ?allergic reactions' to WiFi emissions, resulting in chest pain, numbness and headaches. WiFi devices operate either at 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz, and usually don't broadcast at more than 0.1 watts. Various organizations in the US, Canada, and Europe have conducted research in order to determine the possibility of any health hazards associated with EM fields in these wavelengths, and each and every time the answer has been resounding: there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever to support such claims. Electromagnetic sensitives, as such individuals prefer to be called, have yet to suggest any plausible pathophysiological mechanism by which such low power RF emissions would cause their ailments. Further, I find it illuminating that they never seem to attack cordless telephones, many of which also operate at 2.4 GHz. Toxicological research into the condition, which the World Health Organization has called "idiopathic environmental intolerance with attribution to electromagnetic fields" has not strengthened the case for such an ailment. Instead, clinical studies have shown that IEI cases "consistently identify greater incidence of current and premorbid lifetime psychiatric disorders and co-morbidity with functional somatic syndromes that are fashionable ?diagnoses'." You can make of that what you will. Despite this, it's a given that complaints about WiFi emissions will probably continue appearing in media, and that we'll continue debunking them when that happens. As for Santa Fe, the city doesn't appear concerned by the claims. City councilor Ron Trujillo points out that the city is already blanketed in WiFi signals, and that it's 2008, not 1692. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Mon Jun 2 15:19:44 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Mon, 02 Jun 2008 15:19:44 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Glenwood Springs, CO: Fiber Network Update Message-ID: <20080602151944.v3jso5zissoo8go0@www2.dcn.org> We have some new Colorado based subscribers to this list, so I will be posting occasional news on CO initiatives and issues, as appropriate. As the following article indicates, many NM and CO communities share the same incumbent providers (Qwest and Comcast), and therefore, similar potential concerns. rl ------ Glenwood Springs fiber-optic partnership gets bad reception Neither Comcast nor Qwest eager to join city By Pete Fowler, Post Independent Staff Glenwood Springs, CO Colorado June 2, 2008 www.postindependent.com/article/20080602/VALLEYNEWS/624766601 GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colorado - Qwest and Comcast didn't slam the door on partnering with Glenwood Springs to expand the city's fiber-optic network, but they didn't jump at the chance either. Qwest representatives met with city officials Wednesday and Comcast met with city officials earlier in the month for some preliminary discussion. Mayor Bruce Christensen said the city approached Qwest and Comcast to see if the companies had any interest in partnering with the city to expand its fiber-optic network. "In my opinion public-private partnerships are the best way to move forward," he said. "I didn't discount it as a possibility," said Charles Ward, president of Qwest's Colorado operations. Qwest and Comcast representatives said they couldn't say whether they would partner with the city until they get more detailed information about the proposed expansion. Comcast vice president of public relations Cindy Parsons said Comcast believes competition is good for consumers, but it best benefits everyone when it's done on a level playing field. She said Comcast has invested more than $1 billion in Colorado to upgrade and enhance its network in Colorado over the past several years. Comcast's network in Colorado includes a "robust" network of fiber optics, but it connects to homes primarily with coaxial cables, Parsons said. In an interview Wednesday, Ward expressed skepticism about the city's plan. Ward said he cautioned the city not to be overly optimistic in looking at the market. He questioned if there is any need Glenwood could fill by expanding its network. He doubts Glenwood would be able to offer lower costs to subscribers or get the network working financially. "I think they would have a difficult time recovering the cost," he said. "We would be an aggressive and effective competitor." He said Glenwood would be an unfair competitor because of its ability to get municipal bond rates that amount to financing on better terms. He also said the city would compete unfairly because Glenwood controls access to infrastructure and rights of way in the city. Christensen questioned why private companies wouldn't want to partner with the city if the city has such an advantage. "For whatever reason, it seems like on a national basis the telecoms do have an interest in preventing these models in small communities from succeeding," he said. He said the city could look to other businesses besides Qwest and Comcast to partner on the proposed expansion but he wanted to extend them the offer. Cable and telecommunications companies have successfully lobbied 15 state legislatures to pass laws preventing municipalities from entering the broadband business, according to the Wall Street Journal. They've also filed lawsuits against existing projects arguing they're an improper use of taxpayer money and compete unfairly with private companies. The journal's May 19 article says countries like France, which have faster average Internet connection speeds than the U.S., have benefited from increased competition by governments against former telecom monopolies. Qwest has been installing fiber optics to "nodes" in neighborhoods along the Front Range, but primarily connects to homes with copper, except in some "very limited" circumstances, Ward said. He said Qwest determined it wasn't yet economical to send fiber optics directly to homes on a wide scale. In April, Glenwood voters gave the city the OK to pursue expanding its network by a 707-605 vote. That vote was required by a piece of 2005 legislation whose critics charge was lobbied for by cable and telecommunications companies in order to discourage competition from cities. Glenwood's current fiber-optic network was installed in 2002 and has lost about $200,000 a year for the past three years, according to the city. It connects directly only to businesses in some areas. The plan the city is considering calls for the $12 million expansion to be repaid for by user fees and not taxes. Another vote will be required to authorize the city to enter into the $12 million debt. The expansion would allow the city to sell Internet, voice and video services directly to homes through fiber optics. Critics say the expanded network couldn't compete with large companies. They worry it would fail financially and stick taxpayers with the sizable bill. The plan's supporters believe the expansion would get the network to break even or make money while providing better services to consumers. They believe it would keep money local, bring more businesses to the city, create jobs, raise home values and allow the city to better control its own destiny. City manager Jeff Hecksel said a survey of other fiber-optics-to-homes projects should be released soon, and the next step will be to bring the issue back to the City Council for further discussion. City officials have said they will proceed cautiously and study the market thoroughly before acting. "We're not going to go issue bonds for a huge amount of money without knowing that we have a very, very high probability of succeeding," Christensen said. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Mon Jun 2 16:32:59 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Mon, 02 Jun 2008 16:32:59 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Andrew Cohill at Santa Fe Complex Message-ID: <20080602163259.rwpsxwvnk4w800so@www2.dcn.org> Virginia based, 1st-Mile list subscriber, Andrew Cohill, was in New Mexico and Colorado last week, and participated in informal conversations at UNM in Albuquerque, and at the SF Complex, in Santa Fe. The SF Complex provides brief blog and wiki notes and photos from the meeting at their facility. http://sfcomplex.org/wiki/Andrew_Cohill http://sfcomplex.org/wordpress/2008/05/andrew-cohill-broadband-initiatives#more-72 See the SF Complex home page for an announcement of their grand opening events on Saturday, June 14th, and please stop by. http://sfcomplex.org/wordpress/ -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From granoff at zianet.com Mon Jun 2 16:45:48 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Mon, 02 Jun 2008 17:45:48 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: 6.2.8 Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20080602174026.03a065d0@mail.zianet.com> Edited for interest. FYI. >New WiMAX report: Why the 'New' Clearwire gives WiMax >its best chance at success in the US marketplace, Muni >Sidecut Reports has just released a new updated >version of their WiMax report, which includes a >comprehensive study of the "new" Clearwire WiMax deal >and its $3.2 billion of investment from a group that >includes Google, Comcast, Intel and Time Warner Cable. > http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/muniwireless/~3/302758867/ > >Comcast Contractors Arrested for Animal Cruelty - >Comcast just can't seem to work with people who stay >out of trouble, dslreports >Comcast subcontractors are notorious for engaging in >bad (often illegal) behavior that s included >everything from falling asleep at customer s homes to >murder. In keeping with that ongoing tradition, three >contractors have been arrested for animal cruelty >after they were caught torturing a kitten (see news >video). The kitten was rescued after being spray >painted and kicked nearly to death. As per usual, >Comcast isn t happy to hear the news and insists that >it s doing everything it can to quit working with >people who are going to act this way. > >http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Comcast-Contractors-Arrested-for-Animal-Cruelty-94895 > > >US VoIP Gains Mean RBOC Pain, Telegeography >New data from TeleGeography reveal that voice over IP >(VoIP) telephone service, which was only recently a >novelty, is now commonplace in the U.S. By the first >quarter of 2008, 16.3 million consumer VoIP lines were >in service, representing 13.8 percent of all U.S. >households, and 27 percent of broadband households. > http://www.telegeography.com/wordpress/?p=70 From rl at 1st-mile.com Tue Jun 3 08:00:21 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2008 08:00:21 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: WiFi in the home Message-ID: <20080603080021.3ym9no9b9c4wo4ww@www2.dcn.org> Attached is a 9 page .pdf from area resident, Jim Cummings, written, in part, as a personal challenge to find clarity amid the overwhelming and widely contradictory information regarding health effects of WiFi EM radiation. As noted below, Jim would appreciate useful comments and suggestions. RL ----- Forwarded message -------------------- Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2008 08:05:36 -0600 From: Jim Cummings Subject: WiFi in the home Hi Richard, The report seems to have stabilized in this form for now; you can share it....and I'd love any input, comments. I will also post it, later today, at http://www.AcousticEcology.org/srwifi.html Thanks Jim Jim Cummings Executive Director, Acoustic Ecology Institute Sound-related Environmental Coverage: Wildlands, Ocean, Urban Issues News Digest, Special Reports, Science Coverage, Educators' Resource Center Needle clusters shirring in the wind?listen close, the sound gets better ---Gary Snyder, Mountains and Rivers Without End ----- End forwarded message ----- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: WiFi in the home.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 194253 bytes Desc: not available URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Tue Jun 3 11:28:43 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2008 11:28:43 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] WiFi to the Home: Revision Message-ID: <20080603112843.uwih6crlkwog0kkc@www2.dcn.org> Jim Cummings asked that I forward his slightly corrected and updated version of his paper (including output ratings for some non-Airport routers). A .pdf version is attached, or see his web site. rl ----- Forwarded message -------------------- Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2008 08:05:36 -0600 From: Jim Cummings Subject: WiFi in the home The report seems to have stabilized in this form for now; you can share it....and I'd love any input, comments. I will also post it at: http://www.AcousticEcology.org/srwifi.html Thanks Jim Jim Cummings Executive Director, Acoustic Ecology Institute Sound-related Environmental Coverage: Wildlands, Ocean, Urban Issues News Digest, Special Reports, Science Coverage, Educators' Resource Center Needle clusters shirring in the wind?listen close, the sound gets better ---Gary Snyder, Mountains and Rivers Without End ----- End forwarded message ----- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: WiFi in the home.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 196182 bytes Desc: not available URL: From carroll at cagleandassociates.com Tue Jun 3 13:53:07 2008 From: carroll at cagleandassociates.com (Carroll Cagle) Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2008 14:53:07 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Time Warner Cable tries metered Internet Message-ID: From: Good Morning Silicon Valley San Jose Mercury News June 3, 2008 The meter's running By LEVI SUMAGAYSAY Raise your hands if you want to sign up for Time Warner Cable's trial of metered Internet use. Anybody? Starting Thursday, Time Warner customers in Beaumont, Texas, will have to pay $1 per gigabyte if they go over their monthly allowance for uploads and downloads. A company executive said the monthly caps will range from 5 GB to 40 GB. How bad of an idea is this? Let me count the ways. It's like rationing food, water, air. Like telling us we can only have one plateful at a Las Vegas buffet. As TechCrunch says, Time Warner's going medieval. Says GigaOm: Is Time Warner Cable crazy? For some of us, this is akin to trying to figure out how many minutes of the 500 we're allotted each month we've used up on our cell phones. It's possible to find out, but it's too much trouble. Imagine having to tiptoe around the Internet, trying to remember how much of your allowance you've used so far, and struggling to decide whether you should read this, download that or upload those photos. You'd think companies such as Apple would be up in arms over this. With these caps, iTunes users would have to limit how many songs, videos or movies they buy each month. (Or those songs could cost way more than 99 cents each.) And the timing's just ridiculous, as many of the cool things you can now do on the Internet -- watch movies on Netflix, laugh at silly videos on YouTube, listen to customized radio stations on Pandora -- require more and more bandwidth. Some think the experiment will fail. Let's hope some good old healthy competition discourages other cable or telephone companies from conducting their own experiments, although Comcast, the nation's largest cable company, has said it's considering usage caps as well. The 250 gigabyte limit Comcast is mulling seems much more reasonable. That is, if you're into restrictions. But isn't this America? Me, I don't want no stinking limits. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.gif Type: image/gif Size: 862 bytes Desc: not available URL: From john at citylinkfiber.com Tue Jun 3 14:02:12 2008 From: john at citylinkfiber.com (John Brown) Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2008 15:02:12 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Time Warner Cable tries metered Internet In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4845B154.1010002@citylinkfiber.com> Hmm, so TWC sets up some pretty large PNG/JPG images on their various websites (on net hosted) and watches the meter crank up. Seriously, does this apply to those bytes xfered from TWC internal servers ?? Does it apply to all protocols, or just web (port 80 / 443, the like)??? So if a THIRD-PARTY, non-TWC customer, mail-bombs a bunch of TWC accounts with 10MB file attachments, does that count against your quota??? If so, what right of self-action does the customer have to force TWC to provide detailed technical information so that the customer can recover from the third-party abuser, or at least attempt to... The problem with quota's is that you have to define what you are measuring and limiting. TO broad a description and you have problems like those above.... Whats the real issue here?? Is it that high bandwidth providers are watching their transit get used up and thus impacting QOS for the client base?? Is that bandwidth consumption limited to specific types of applications ? (p2p, bit-torrent, etc) There are practical considerations, and limits that all providers face. Question to the readership: How do you propose a provider protect the overall health of their network against those that "abuse". Its like the person that goes to the Vegas Buffet and eats and eats and eats. There is a point where the provider looses money. What do they do? Carroll Cagle wrote: > > > From: Good Morning Silicon Valley > > San Jose Mercury News > > June 3, 2008 > > > > > > The meter's running > > By LEVI SUMAGAYSAY > > Raise your hands if you want to sign up for Time Warner Cable's trial of > metered Internet use. Anybody? Starting Thursday, Time Warner customers in > Beaumont, Texas, will have to pay $1 per gigabyte if they > go over their monthly > allowance for uploads and downloads. A company executive said the monthly > caps will range from 5 GB to 40 GB. How bad of an idea is this? Let me count > the ways. It's like rationing food, water, air. Like telling us we can only > have one plateful at a Las Vegas buffet. As TechCrunch says, Time Warner's > going > red-bandwidth-testing/> medieval. Says GigaOm: Is > s/> Time Warner Cable crazy? For some of us, this is akin to trying to > figure out how many minutes of the 500 we're allotted each month we've used > up on our cell phones. It's possible to find out, but it's too much trouble. > Imagine having to tiptoe around the Internet, trying to remember how much of > your allowance you've used so far, and struggling to decide whether you > should read this, download that or upload those photos. You'd think > companies such as Apple would be up in arms over this. With these caps, > iTunes users would have to limit how many songs, videos or movies they buy > each month. (Or those songs could cost way more than 99 cents each.) And the > timing's just ridiculous, as many of the cool things you can now do on the > Internet -- watch movies on Netflix, laugh at silly videos on YouTube, > listen to customized radio stations on Pandora -- require more and more > bandwidth. Some think the experiment will fail. > net_experiment_will_fail> Let's hope some good old healthy competition > discourages other cable or telephone companies from conducting their own > experiments, although Comcast, the nation's largest cable company, has said > it's considering usage caps as > well. The 250 gigabyte limit Comcast is mulling seems much more reasonable. > That is, if you're into restrictions. But isn't this America? Me, I don't > want no stinking limits. > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm From pete at ideapete.com Tue Jun 3 16:32:20 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2008 17:32:20 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Time Warner Cable tries metered Internet In-Reply-To: <4845B154.1010002@citylinkfiber.com> References: <4845B154.1010002@citylinkfiber.com> Message-ID: <4845D484.2040806@ideapete.com> I wont bother to punt ( pun ) at the problems which are obvious but is the commenter saying GIGABYTE or gigibit It did remind me of a metaphor we used long ago in Leapfrog " Carroll is old enough to remember that " called the French fry question and the Trust issue Extract here for a full translation http://www.ideapete.com/leapfrog.html /The next component that you add to make CONNECTIVITY work is TRUST. / /Those of you who stopped at McDonalds this morning trusted that you could get breakfast including coffee for about $4. That's how McDonalds makes money: anticipating customers' needs and meeting them. What would you do if one morning the same McDonalds offered you a single French fry for $10 and when you complained they haggled the price down to $7.50? I know this sounds silly but bear with me. You would think that they had gone nuts! And you would be right. Trust would have broken down and you would go elsewhere for your breakfast. / /This is what has happened in the connectivity market. The basic infrastructure vendors, whom you trusted to anticipate your most basic business need (CONNECTIVITY), are now in haggle mode. They are focused on how many French fries you want instead of looking for the right price and quality of your breakfast. This is what US West and their partner in crime, AT&T, are doing with connectivity. / /One thing I hear all the time is "How much connectivity do you really need?" I call this "the French fry question." 1 megabit (1 fry)? 10 megabit (fries)? How much are you prepared to pay? Or even worse with DSL/ISDN, "How much of a French fry do you want?" People keep trying to set a ceiling on an unknown need and then work backwards. If you stick a "this is a large box of French fries" label on one French fry, what do you have? Still one French fry! If you stick a Ferrari label on a tortoise you do not get a faster, or more valuable, tortoise./ A bigger question would also be " who in the heck would trust warner or any cable or telco to measure anything when its linked to billing " ( : ( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ John Brown wrote: > Hmm, so TWC sets up some pretty large PNG/JPG images on their various > websites (on net hosted) and watches the meter crank up. > > Seriously, does this apply to those bytes xfered from TWC internal > servers ?? > > Does it apply to all protocols, or just web (port 80 / 443, the like)??? > > So if a THIRD-PARTY, non-TWC customer, mail-bombs a bunch of TWC > accounts with 10MB file attachments, does that count against your > quota??? If so, what right of self-action does the customer have to > force TWC to provide detailed technical information so that the customer > can recover from the third-party abuser, or at least attempt to... > > The problem with quota's is that you have to define what you are > measuring and limiting. TO broad a description and you have problems > like those above.... > > Whats the real issue here?? Is it that high bandwidth providers are > watching their transit get used up and thus impacting QOS for the client > base?? Is that bandwidth consumption limited to specific types of > applications ? (p2p, bit-torrent, etc) > > There are practical considerations, and limits that all providers face. > Question to the readership: > > How do you propose a provider protect the overall health of their > network against those that "abuse". > > Its like the person that goes to the Vegas Buffet and eats and eats and > eats. There is a point where the provider looses money. What do they do? > > > > Carroll Cagle wrote: > >> >> >> From: Good Morning Silicon Valley >> >> San Jose Mercury News >> >> June 3, 2008 >> >> >> >> >> >> The meter's running >> >> By LEVI SUMAGAYSAY >> >> Raise your hands if you want to sign up for Time Warner Cable's trial of >> metered Internet use. Anybody? Starting Thursday, Time Warner customers in >> Beaumont, Texas, will have to pay $1 per gigabyte if they >> go over their monthly >> allowance for uploads and downloads. A company executive said the monthly >> caps will range from 5 GB to 40 GB. How bad of an idea is this? Let me count >> the ways. It's like rationing food, water, air. Like telling us we can only >> have one plateful at a Las Vegas buffet. As TechCrunch says, Time Warner's >> going >> > red-bandwidth-testing/> medieval. Says GigaOm: Is >> > s/> Time Warner Cable crazy? For some of us, this is akin to trying to >> figure out how many minutes of the 500 we're allotted each month we've used >> up on our cell phones. It's possible to find out, but it's too much trouble. >> Imagine having to tiptoe around the Internet, trying to remember how much of >> your allowance you've used so far, and struggling to decide whether you >> should read this, download that or upload those photos. You'd think >> companies such as Apple would be up in arms over this. With these caps, >> iTunes users would have to limit how many songs, videos or movies they buy >> each month. (Or those songs could cost way more than 99 cents each.) And the >> timing's just ridiculous, as many of the cool things you can now do on the >> Internet -- watch movies on Netflix, laugh at silly videos on YouTube, >> listen to customized radio stations on Pandora -- require more and more >> bandwidth. Some think the experiment will fail. >> > net_experiment_will_fail> Let's hope some good old healthy competition >> discourages other cable or telephone companies from conducting their own >> experiments, although Comcast, the nation's largest cable company, has said >> it's considering usage caps as >> well. The 250 gigabyte limit Comcast is mulling seems much more reasonable. >> That is, if you're into restrictions. But isn't this America? Me, I don't >> want no stinking limits. >> >> >> >> >> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 1st-mile-nm mailing list >> 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm >> > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Tue Jun 3 17:19:05 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2008 18:19:05 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] WiFi to the Home: Revision In-Reply-To: <20080603112843.uwih6crlkwog0kkc@www2.dcn.org> References: <20080603112843.uwih6crlkwog0kkc@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: <4845DF79.6060506@ideapete.com> The issue that this is going to raise is the age old problem of how does a scientist using left brain data to overcome a right brain problem function on a politically charged mater ? There is no one who is more "get with the program " than moi but when you listen to lets call it the "wifi opposer's " then they raise issues like where is the understandable comprehensible medical data then you have huge amounts on the we really don't know side. The wiops also have sense to use charismatic dogmatic presenters whereas the wifors tend to blast back with technobable. Charisma can overcome any form or truth anytime just listen to the political messages radiating over the airwaves currently now thats DANGEROUS.. They also take advantage of the fact that there is an inherent distrust of government data at all levels. The ADA move is double clever and Firstenberg is scarzy like a fox and fanatical as well, and thats a dangerous combination that no amount of counter data is going to overcome We can also no measure reactions down to the microscopic nano level that is reveling patterns never before seen which makes more unknown territory creating more and more ossification I got in between one of these the other day and the wiop mantra was saying screw all your technotalk that in itself is causing me psychological harm just like the worry and effects with ALL electromagnetic energy is doing , how in the heck do you counter that without being a certified psychiatrist and frankly I was sympathetic - she was really good looking 2. Bluntly though if all this wiopiafobia gets as fiber to everything quicker then my tin hat is on the shelf waiting to be used it works on unix as well One major suggestion I have for Jim's great paper, CARTOONS lots of them to emphasize and hit home with the logic in a humorous way to tone down the technotalk The first one should be to describe WFPTSS Wifobia Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome and if someone wins a lawsuit on that I want 10% ( : ( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ Richard Lowenberg wrote: > Jim Cummings asked that I forward his slightly corrected and updated version of > his paper (including output ratings for some non-Airport routers). > A .pdf version is attached, or see his web site. > rl > > ----- Forwarded message -------------------- > Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2008 08:05:36 -0600 > From: Jim Cummings > Subject: WiFi in the home > > The report seems to have stabilized in this form for now; you can share > it....and I'd love any input, comments. > > I will also post it at: > http://www.AcousticEcology.org/srwifi.html > > Thanks > Jim > > Jim Cummings > Executive Director, Acoustic Ecology Institute > > Sound-related Environmental Coverage: Wildlands, Ocean, Urban Issues > News Digest, Special Reports, Science Coverage, Educators' Resource Center > > Needle clusters shirring in the wind > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From editorsteve at gmail.com Tue Jun 3 18:34:43 2008 From: editorsteve at gmail.com (Steve Ross) Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2008 21:34:43 -0400 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] WiFi to the Home: Revision In-Reply-To: <20080603112843.uwih6crlkwog0kkc@www2.dcn.org> References: <20080603112843.uwih6crlkwog0kkc@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: <4845F133.1060709@gmail.com> Well done. I'd quibble about the cell phone frequencies. GSM and PCS in the US are up around 1900 MHz -- darn close to WiFi -- with the 800 MHz band mainly old analog. Yes, analog cellular is not uncommon, especially in rural areas, and 700 MHz mobile is coming, but the biggest carriers are all GSM or PCS/CDMA in the US. Worldwide, GSM can be 800, 1800, etc. So studies done elsewhere may be examining different frequencies. Segmented cellular antennas produce more signal strength farther way from the base stations than calculated in this paper, and cell phone antennas (on the hand sets) have widely varying propagation/radiation patterns. Cordless phones are generally 2.4 or 5.8 GHz, too. Microwave ovens operate at 2.4 GHz, and anyone who has used a 2.4 GHz cordless phone near one while it is operating knows that legally escaping microwave radiation can interfere. My argument (and the stuff of this paper) has been that holding a cell phone or cordless phone to your head is going to give you a lot more exposure than pretty much any wifi scenario except of course wifi PHONES. So why single out wifi base stations for special attention? (BTW, Head gets singled out as most likely to be harmed because the circulation system there does not dissipate heat as well as rest of body, and density of electric impulses is far, far higher.) All that being said, why DO the studies scatter so much? And what should we make of it? Having investigated a cancer cluster in NJ that was suspected to be caused by high-intensity microwaves, and having taught epidemiology stats and consulted for several high-rank schools of public health (Harvard, Columbia), I offer these guidelines: 1. The scatter is natural, and usually (almost always, really) due to difficulty measuring real exposure and following a large enough sample. People don't simply stay home. People get exposures to RF in many settings. They also get exposed to lots of stuff. The small studies control well. The large studies do not, and can not. THUS THE STUDIES DO NOT IN GENERAL HAVE ENOUGH STATISTICAL POWER, EVEN WHEN THEIR AUTHORS SAY THEY DO. Scatter they will. It's the way God made numbers, bless her. 2. In the studies we see (and some unpublished ones I've seen), when we see this kind of scatter, we can usually assume that there is no problem from KNOWN effects of exposure. That is, we know about thermal effects. We know about EF. We know that these wavelengths and fluxes do not ionize. To say that another way, given KNOWN effect mechanisms, these frequencies and signal strengths can be considered extremely low risk and probably zero risk. 3. Previously unknown effects mechanisms have bitten us in the past, however. The classic example in health studies is, of course, prions and "mad cow" disease. I once saw a clutch of papers that noted men who work with CRTs were more likely to father girls (and I have three daughters, no sons...). People worried about wifi are going to focus on that sort of stuff, not on this great paper. 4. So far, the best alternative mechanism opponents to wifi have come up with is "allergy" to wifi. Is it credible? Certainly within the realm of possibility, although there does not seem to be a single controlled study proving it exists. There are several such studies that strongly suggest it does NOT exist (can't say "disprove because you can't disprove a negative). What if the folks who say they have it acutely are just psychosomatic, as seems likely? Even so, people who ARE RF-allergic at a low level would never know it, and could show up as "scatter on the high side" in the studies. And we do know that implants of various kinds can act as RF receivers/antennas (tooth fillings and pacemakers have been studied quite a bit). One big problem, though: All those other RF sources (cell phones, microwaves, cordless phones) operating at about the same frequency as wifi and at far greater ubiquity and levels of exposure, for much longer use histories in the home. 5. It is well known that people will accept far higher risks voluntarily than they will involuntarily. So they talk on the cell phone 12 hours nonstop, but don't want their neighbor's wifi spillover. OK, it's an issue, and also not one this paper can address. Too logical. and we may come up with other mechanisms. Maybe wifi only affects folks who drink beer. At 5 AM. On Thursdays. As for me: I'm not in the wifi biz. My magazine mainly pushes fiber to the home. But given all this background, I just can't get all that excited about exposure to wifi, or people who (sincerely) claim allergies to it. Steven S. Ross Editor-in-Chief Broadband Properties steve at broadbandproperties.com www.bbpmag.com SKYPE: editorsteve +1 781-284-8810 +1 646-216-8030 fax +1 201-456-5933 mobile Richard Lowenberg wrote: > Jim Cummings asked that I forward his slightly corrected and updated version of > his paper (including output ratings for some non-Airport routers). > A .pdf version is attached, or see his web site. > rl > > ----- Forwarded message -------------------- > Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2008 08:05:36 -0600 > From: Jim Cummings > Subject: WiFi in the home > > The report seems to have stabilized in this form for now; you can share > it....and I'd love any input, comments. > > I will also post it at: > http://www.AcousticEcology.org/srwifi.html > > Thanks > Jim > > Jim Cummings > Executive Director, Acoustic Ecology Institute > > Sound-related Environmental Coverage: Wildlands, Ocean, Urban Issues > News Digest, Special Reports, Science Coverage, Educators' Resource Center > > Needle clusters shirring in the wind?listen close, the sound gets better > ---Gary Snyder, Mountains and Rivers Without End > > ----- End forwarded message ----- > > > Richard Lowenberg > 1st-Mile Institute > P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 > 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell > rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com > > ---------------------------------------------------------------- > This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm From rl at 1st-mile.com Wed Jun 4 21:10:49 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2008 21:10:49 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] After 50 Years, This Still Sounds Familiar Message-ID: <20080604211049.17zz0a480ks4oogw@www2.dcn.org> (Excerpted text sections from): "The First Fifty Years Of The Internet", an article in the latest issue of Vanity Fair, recounting the first fifty years of the Internet's history, by assembling a bunch of the people who were involved in different stages from conception right up until today, and getting them to talk about it. The article notes that both Paul Baran and Donald Davies, entirely independently, came up with the idea of packet-switched networks. Amusingly, AT&T plays the roll of the clueless big company who wants nothing more than to kill the Internet and keep its monopoly. Paul Baran: The one hurdle packet switching faced was AT&T. They fought it tooth and nail at the beginning. They tried all sorts of things to stop it. They pretty much had a monopoly in all communications. And somebody from outside saying that there?s a better way to do it of course doesn?t make sense. They automatically assumed that we didn?t know what we were doing. Bob Taylor: Working with AT&T would be like working with Cro-Magnon man. I asked them if they wanted to be early members so they could learn technology as we went along. They said no. I said, Well, why not? And they said, Because packet switching won't work. They were adamant. As a result, AT&T missed out on the whole early networking experience. AT&T trying to kill the Internet, not seeing the business opportunity and insisting things could never work (when they obviously did)? That all sounds mighty familiar... -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From pete at ideapete.com Fri Jun 6 09:06:19 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Fri, 06 Jun 2008 10:06:19 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Libraries in France switch off wi-fi internet @ popping popcorn with a cell phone Message-ID: <4849607B.6090300@ideapete.com> Just wait and see what happens when the Wiops get hold of stuff like this http://www.connexionfrance.com/news_articles.php?id=173 http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=kAd0aWxs7kQ ( : ( pete -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Fri Jun 6 09:26:23 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Fri, 06 Jun 2008 10:26:23 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Why have municipal Wi-Fi networks been such a flop? - By Tim Wu - Slate Magazine Message-ID: <4849652F.5040707@ideapete.com> http://www.slate.com/id/2174858/ -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Fri Jun 6 09:27:30 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Fri, 06 Jun 2008 10:27:30 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Why Free Internet Won't Happen Soon: FCC Owned By Wireless Industry - Silicon Alley Insider Message-ID: <48496572.3090301@ideapete.com> http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/6/why_free_internet_wont_happen_soon_fcc_owned_by_wireless_industry -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Fri Jun 6 20:03:57 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Fri, 06 Jun 2008 21:03:57 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Don't buy any download accelerator -Inquirer Message-ID: <4849FA9D.401@ideapete.com> http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/05/31/download-accelerator-for-linux -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Sun Jun 8 09:40:34 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Sun, 08 Jun 2008 09:40:34 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] PNM Data Center & Fiber Network Message-ID: <20080608094034.c5uqh7v1ssw8swk4@www2.dcn.org> >From an April article: PNM offers buildings, partnership to Din? www.gallupindependent.com/2008/April/041708pnm.html By Kathy Helms, Din? Bureau WINDOW ROCK ? PNM Resources is getting out of the landlord business and refocusing on its utility business. At the same time, it is looking to outsource some of its information technology activities and is seeking a buyer for its Aztec Trading Building and Data Center in Albuquerque. PNM representatives believe this presents a great opportunity for the Navajo Nation and is hoping to cultivate a partnership by selling the buildings to the Nation and then leasing back the space it needs. A nondisclosure agreement is now in the works. David Harkness, Cathy Newby, Stuart Grimes and Michael D?Antonio ? all of PNM ? presented their offer Tuesday to the Budget and Finance Committee, which will tour the facilities on Friday. Resources Committee toured the buildings last week and spoke in support of the purchase during a special meeting Monday afternoon. Harkness said PNM is selling its real estate with significant unused capacities. The Aztec Trading Building, which is 55,000 square feet, houses its trading group. The Data Center is at about 25 percent occupancy. The Data Center building, when built, was significantly larger than what PNM needed. ?At the time we were doing a lot of merger and acquisition activity. It looked like a good thing to do, but at this time, the building is only about 25 to 30 percent populated with PNM technology equipment, as well as the staff that maintains it,? Harkness said. With some of the budget challenges PNM is going through, in addition to its pending rate case before the Public Utility Commission, it would like to move as quickly as possible and is looking at value-added partnerships, such as with the Navajo Nation and Science Applications International Corp., whose largest customer is the U.S. government. Regarding Navajo, Harkness said, ?It?s a revenue opportunity for us to lease that space from you as well as any other companies that want to lease that space.? He said SAIC would be a good partnership for the Nation. ?They have expressed an interest in helping in any way they could be of service to help the Navajo Nation become more equipped, and training the Nation on how to operate such a facility. ?Longer term, we really see a good opportunity from a fiber optics/exchange agreement moving forward. The connectivity of the Data Center now is really focused from connectivity into Albuquerque as well as the rest of the fiber optic networks.? The state-of-the-art Data Center was built two years ago and was the first Leeds Silver Certified ?green? building in the country. It has protected power and air conditioning and is located on a secured campus, with numerous layers of security to get into the building, work space, operation control center, and technology core, Harkness said. ?We really think this is a real opportunity for PNMR as well as SAIC to work together as a job-shadowing and learning environment as we go forward.? Cathy Newby of PNM Tribal Relations said that if the Nation is going to pursue gaming, it needs an off-site data storage facility. Harkness said the location would be great for housing the infrastructure needed to monitor the casino industry. Other possible tenants, according to PNM, include New Mexico pueblos, the state of New Mexico, the federal government, University of New Mexico as well as UNM Hospital. PNM also has had inquiries from states looking for ?disaster recovery? sites. ?New Mexico is a tremendous location for disaster recovery. We don?t have very many natural disasters here,? Harkness said. ?So there really is a guaranteed revenue stream when you first come in the building. This is something that day-one, you get a return on your investment.? Additional long-term benefits deal with fiber optics. ?We have connectivity to the Lambda Rail, which provides the Internet access, we?ve got connectivity to the Carrier Hotel in downtown Albuquerque, as well as connectivity to the UNM Distance Learning/Healthcare facility,? Harkness said. Stuart Grimes of the Telecommunications Department said PNM has about 400 miles of fiber optic cable already run, which it typically uses to control its switching stations. ?We have a fairly high concentration of fiber throughout the Albuquerque metro area.? Navajo Department of Information Technology is very interested in the fiber optic system PNM has outside of Albuquerque, he said. One system extends to just outside Gallup. PNM also has a fiber optic system that runs between downtown Albuquerque all the way to San Juan Generating Station just outside Farmington. >From San Juan Generating Station, ?we have fiber optic that goes west to Shiprock Substation. I?m told that we could tie it in with NTUA and possibly get fiber out of that location and into Shiprock,? Grimes said. PNM also has microwave/wireless Internet infrastructure at the Aztec facility. ?From Albuquerque, we have a microwave link that goes to Mount Taylor, and from Mount Taylor, we have one that goes to Ambrosia,? he said. Another link goes to San Juan County. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Mon Jun 9 13:30:49 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Mon, 09 Jun 2008 13:30:49 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] LANL/IBM-Developed Roadrunner Is World's Fastest Computer Message-ID: <20080609133049.erex2ty68wkoksow@www2.dcn.org> LANL/IBM-Developed Roadrunner Is World's Fastest Computer Monday, June 09, 2008 ?? By H. Josef Hebert, Associated Press? WASHINGTON ? Scientists today unveiled the world's fastest supercomputer, a $100 million machine that for the first time has performed 1,000 trillion calculations per second in a sustained exercise.? The technology breakthrough was accomplished by engineers from the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the IBM Corp. on a computer to be used primarily on nuclear weapons work, including simulating nuclear explosions.? The computer, named Roadrunner, is twice as fast as IBM's Blue Gene system at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which itself is three times faster than any of the world's other supercomputers, according to IBM.? "The computer is a speed demon. It will allow us to solve tremendous problems," said Thomas D'Agostino, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees nuclear weapons research and maintains the warhead stockpile.? But officials said the computer also could have a wide range of other applications in civilian engineering, medicine and science, from developing biofuels and designing more fuel efficient cars to finding drug therapies and providing services to the financial industry.? To put the computer's speed in perspective, if every one of the 6 billion people on earth used a hand-held computer and worked 24 hours a day it would take them 46 years to do what the Roadrunner computer can do in a single day.? The IBM and Los Alamos engineers worked six years on the computer technology.? Some elements of the Roadrunner can be traced back to popular video games, said David Turek, vice president of IBM's supercomputing programs. In some ways, he said, it's "a very souped-up Sony PlayStation 3."? "We took the basic chip design (of a PlayStation) and advanced its capability," said Turek.? But the Roadrunner supercomputer is nothing like a video game.? The interconnecting system occupies 6,000 square feet with 57 miles of fiber optics and weighs 500,000 pounds. Although made from commercial parts, the computer consists of 6,948 dual-core computer chips and 12,960 cell engines, and it has 80 terabytes of memory.? The cost: $100 million.? Turek said the computer in a two-hour test on May 25 achieved a "petaflop" speed of sustained performance, something no other computer had ever done. It did so again in several real applications involving classified nuclear weapons work this past weekend.? "This is a huge and remarkable achievement," said Turek in a conference call with reporters.? A "flop" is an acronym meaning floating-point-operations per second. One petaflop is 1,000 trillion operations per second. Only two years ago, there were no actual applications where a computer achieved 100 teraflops ? a tenth of Roadrunner's speed ? said Turek, noting that the tenfold advancement came over a relatively short time.? The Roadrunner computer, now housed at the IBM research laboratory in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., will be moved next month to the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.? Along with other supercomputers, it will be key "to assure the safety and security of our (weapons) stockpile," said D'Agostino. With its extraordinary speed it will be able to simulate the performances of a warhead and help weapons scientists track warhead aging, he said.? But the computer ? and more so the technology that it represents ? marks a future for a wide range of other research and uses. "The technology will be pronounced in its employment across industry in the years to come," predicted Turek, the IBM executive.? Michael Anastasio, director of the Los Alamos lab, said that for the first six months the computer will be used in unclassified work including activities not related to the weapons program. After that about three-fourths of the work will involve weapons and other classified government activities.? Anastasio said the computer, in its unclassified applications, is expected to be used not only by Los Alamos scientists but others as well. He said there can be broad applications such as helping to develop a vaccine for the HIV virus, examine the chemistry in the production of cellulosic ethanol, or to understand the origins of the universe.? And Turek said the computer represents still another breakthrough, particularly important in these days of expensive energy: It is an energy miser compared with other supercomputers, performing 376 million calculations for every watt of electricity used. ?? Copyright ?2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From granoff at zianet.com Tue Jun 10 08:51:17 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2008 09:51:17 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: GigaLaw.com Daily News, June 10, 2008 Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20080610094909.05b4aa90@mail.zianet.com> From another list. FYI. >Alliance Will License Patents for WiMax Technology > Six technology heavyweights came together to announce an alliance to > jointly license patents for the broadband wireless technology WiMax. The > group, which calls itself the Open Patent Alliance, includes Intel, Cisco > Systems, Samsung Electronics, Sprint Nextel, Clearwire, and Alcatel-Lucent. > Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9963352-7.html > From carroll at cagleandassociates.com Tue Jun 10 18:26:08 2008 From: carroll at cagleandassociates.com (Carroll Cagle) Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2008 19:26:08 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] IP addressing upgrade Message-ID: Your number's up Jun 5th 2008 >From The Economist print edition Networking: The internet will run out of addresses unless a new numbering system is adopted. After years of inaction, there are now signs of progress NOBODY would expect a city water system designed for 1m residents to be able to handle a 1,000-fold increase in population in just a few years. Yet that is what the internet's fundamental addressing scheme has had to accommodate. When the network was first established there were only a handful of computer centres in America. Instead of choosing a numbering system that could support a few thousand or million addresses, the internet's designers foresightedly opted for one that could handle 4 billion. But now even that is not enough. The addressing system, called internet protocol version 4 (IPv4), cannot keep up with the flood of computers, mobile phones, hand-held gadgets, games consoles and even cars and refrigerators flooding onto the network. Nearly 85% of available addresses are already in use; if this trend continues they will run out by 2011, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, a think-tank for rich countries, warned in May. The shortage is not the only problem; so too is growing complexity. IPv4 addresses are allocated in blocks to network operators. The path to reach each network is published on a global list that is constantly updated. Big computers, called routers, use these entries to guide the flow of traffic across the internet. But as more devices and networks link to the internet, it becomes necessary to subdivide the address blocks into ever-smaller units. This risks overtaxing the millions of routers that handle the internet's traffic, which must be regularly upgraded to keep up. Were there no alternative to IPv4, parts of the internet would eventually suffer from sporadic outages, warns Paul Vixie, a network engineer who wrote the software the internet uses to translate domain names (such as economist.com ) into their underlying IPv4 addresses. Fortunately a new system does exist, called internet protocol version 6, or IPv6. (Version 5 was a short-lived experimental system.) IPv6 provides 3.4x1038 (4 billion to the fourth power) addresses. This means IPv6 addresses can be allocated to network operators and companies in much larger quantities. It also provides a clean slate for establishing new paths over the internet, reducing complexity. But switching means upgrading millions of devices. In fact, support for IPv6 is already widely available in software and hardware, but it has not been used much. Only a few research institutions and the American government took the IPv6 plunge early on. (In America all federal agencies must be capable of using IPv6 by June 30th 2008, by executive order.) But in recent months the pace of change has picked up. In February Mr Vixie and others who operate the "root nameservers"-the central computers that translate domain names into internet addresses-flipped a switch that means domain names can now map onto IPv6 addresses. This may herald more widespread adoption of the new protocol, since it means that any organisation can use IPv6 addresses with its domain names, and users can access them without special rigging. Google was one of the first widely used sites to take public advantage of this, setting up ipv6.google.com, which maps to an IPv6 address for its home page. Support for IPv6 is already baked into most popular operating-system software. It is incorporated into Windows XP and Vista, Mac OS X 10.3 "Panther" and later, and many flavours of Unix and Linux. But operating systems are only the taps of the plumbing system: a house's other fixtures (like set-top boxes), inside pipes (broadband modems and routers), and feeder pipes (backbone routers) must also be upgraded for the full benefits of IPv6 to become available. In the meantime, IPv4 and IPv6 can co-exist by smuggling data addressed in one form inside packages addressed with the other. The cost of the upgrade will be distributed across the internet's many users, from consumers to companies to network operators, and will mostly be a gradual process. "The internet itself has grown organically-it's not possible to implement or mandate a change across the network," says Leslie Daigle, chief internet-technology officer at the Internet Society, a non-profit body that supports the development of internet standards. But some big network operators may have to upgrade in order to accommodate more devices. Comcast, an American cable operator, realised in 2005 that it might need 100m IP addresses by 2008, but would be able to get perhaps one-tenth of that number of IPv4 addresses. It has since converted the core of its network to IPv6. Pressure to convert entire broadband networks to IPv6, right down to individual PCs, may come from an unexpected source, says Mr Vixie. "First-person, shoot-'em-up gaming and peer-to-peer file sharing works better if IPv6 is used," he notes. And once consumers get a taste of the benefits, he says, the adoption of IPv6 should take off dramatically. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.gif Type: image/gif Size: 862 bytes Desc: not available URL: From john at citylinkfiber.com Wed Jun 11 07:11:39 2008 From: john at citylinkfiber.com (John Brown) Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 08:11:39 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] IP addressing upgrade In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <484FDD1B.1040606@citylinkfiber.com> having a hard time doing the math that says 85% of the IPv4 space is already used up. I'd say that 88% of the space is currently available for traditional internet usage, but that its not 3% away from exhaustion. One of the first things that needs to be done is to remove the WASTE that is in the current allocations. Example: Why does the "Interop Show Network, a trade show" need 16 million IP addresses ??? Any reason why the Department of Social Security of UK needs 16 Million IP addresses ?? or the USPS ?? or duPont ?? or Eli Lily and Company ?? or Halliburton, or Ford Motor Company ?? or HP, or IBM ?? or Xerox Thats 160 Million IP addresses alone..... Why Comcast would need 100 million IP's is interesting. I guess they haven't heard of RFC 1918. Most of these organizations use private RFC 1918 address for their internal networks. Or why does the State of New Mexico need 65,000 IP addresses ?? Most of which are not in use. IPv6 requires upgrades to edge (read customer equipment), much of which is unable to handle the upgrade. Think all those Qwest DSL modems made by actiontec and others. They don't support IPv6 and potentially don't have the memory space to support the firmware updates. Translate that into, SILLICON JUNK for the land fill. Carroll Cagle wrote: > > > > > > > > * Your number?s up* > > Jun 5th 2008 >>From //The Economist// print edition > > > *Networking: The internet will run out of addresses unless a new > numbering system is adopted. After years of inaction, there are now > signs of progress* > > NOBODY would expect a city water system designed for 1m residents to be > able to handle a 1,000-fold increase in population in just a few years. > Yet that is what the internet?s fundamental addressing scheme has had to > accommodate. When the network was first established there were only a > handful of computer centres in America. Instead of choosing a numbering > system that could support a few thousand or million addresses, the > internet?s designers foresightedly opted for one that could handle 4 > billion. But now even that is not enough. > > The addressing system, called internet protocol version 4 (IPv4), cannot > keep up with the flood of computers, mobile phones, hand-held gadgets, > games consoles and even cars and refrigerators flooding onto the > network. Nearly 85% of available addresses are already in use; if this > trend continues they will run out by 2011, the Organisation for Economic > Co-operation and Development, a think-tank for rich countries, warned in > May. > > > > The shortage is not the only problem; so too is growing complexity. IPv4 > addresses are allocated in blocks to network operators. The path to > reach each network is published on a global list that is constantly > updated. Big computers, called routers, use these entries to guide the > flow of traffic across the internet. But as more devices and networks > link to the internet, it becomes necessary to subdivide the address > blocks into ever-smaller units. This risks overtaxing the millions of > routers that handle the internet?s traffic, which must be regularly > upgraded to keep up. Were there no alternative to IPv4, parts of the > internet would eventually suffer from sporadic outages, warns Paul > Vixie, a network engineer who wrote the software the internet uses to > translate domain names (such as economist.com > ) into their underlying IPv4 addresses. > > Fortunately a new system does exist, called internet protocol version 6, > or IPv6. (Version 5 was a short-lived experimental system.) IPv6 > provides 3.4x10^38 (4 billion to the fourth power) addresses. This means > IPv6 addresses can be allocated to network operators and companies in > much larger quantities. It also provides a clean slate for establishing > new paths over the internet, reducing complexity. But switching means > upgrading millions of devices. > > In fact, support for IPv6 is already widely available in software and > hardware, but it has not been used much. Only a few research > institutions and the American government took the IPv6 plunge early on. > (In America all federal agencies must be capable of using IPv6 by June > 30th 2008, by executive order.) > > But in recent months the pace of change has picked up. In February Mr > Vixie and others who operate the ?root nameservers??the central > computers that translate domain names into internet addresses?flipped a > switch that means domain names can now map onto IPv6 addresses. This may > herald more widespread adoption of the new protocol, since it means that > any organisation can use IPv6 addresses with its domain names, and users > can access them without special rigging. Google was one of the first > widely used sites to take public advantage of this, setting up > ipv6.google.com, which maps to an IPv6 address for its home page. > > Support for IPv6 is already baked into most popular operating-system > software. It is incorporated into Windows XP and Vista, Mac OS X 10.3 > ?Panther? and later, and many flavours of Unix and Linux. But operating > systems are only the taps of the plumbing system: a house?s other > fixtures (like set-top boxes), inside pipes (broadband modems and > routers), and feeder pipes (backbone routers) must also be upgraded for > the full benefits of IPv6 to become available. In the meantime, IPv4 and > IPv6 can co-exist by smuggling data addressed in one form inside > packages addressed with the other. > > The cost of the upgrade will be distributed across the internet?s many > users, from consumers to companies to network operators, and will mostly > be a gradual process. ?The internet itself has grown organically?it?s > not possible to implement or mandate a change across the network,? says > Leslie Daigle, chief internet-technology officer at the Internet Society > , a non-profit body that supports the development > of internet standards. But some big network operators may have to > upgrade in order to accommodate more devices. Comcast, an American cable > operator, realised in 2005 that it might need 100m IP addresses by 2008, > but would be able to get perhaps one-tenth of that number of IPv4 > addresses. It has since converted the core of its network to IPv6. > > Pressure to convert entire broadband networks to IPv6, right down to > individual PCs, may come from an unexpected source, says Mr Vixie. > ?First-person, shoot-?em-up gaming and peer-to-peer file sharing works > better if IPv6 is used,? he notes. And once consumers get a taste of the > benefits, he says, the adoption of IPv6 should take off dramatically. > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm From pete at ideapete.com Wed Jun 11 13:13:21 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 14:13:21 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] IP addressing upgrade In-Reply-To: <484FDD1B.1040606@citylinkfiber.com> References: <484FDD1B.1040606@citylinkfiber.com> Message-ID: <485031E1.2060902@ideapete.com> John sometimes you worry me " Logic from the government " total oxymoron Waste in gov and monopoly business = pure profit with someone else paying Can you imagine going to Santa Fe and asking GSA why they have 65,000 IPV4 adds, they would probably go looking in the motor pool Someone sent me this the other day which applies nicely /" //the engineer breaks a large problem down into small pieces, each of which he can solve. The bureaucrat takes many small problems and roles them together to form a large problem that NO ONE can solve "/ IPV4 and 6 in ( don't mention the 5 disaster ) a nutshell Your points are wonderful and total common sense thats why they will be resisted to the wall by big buiz and big gov I will buy you a beer for the great thought though ( : ( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ John Brown wrote: > having a hard time doing the math that says 85% of the IPv4 space is > already used up. I'd say that 88% of the space is currently available > for traditional internet usage, but that its not 3% away from exhaustion. > > One of the first things that needs to be done is to remove the WASTE > that is in the current allocations. Example: > > Why does the "Interop Show Network, a trade show" need 16 million IP > addresses ??? > > Any reason why the Department of Social Security of UK needs 16 Million > IP addresses ?? > > or the USPS ?? or duPont ?? or Eli Lily and Company ?? > or Halliburton, or Ford Motor Company ?? or HP, or IBM ?? or Xerox > > Thats 160 Million IP addresses alone..... > > Why Comcast would need 100 million IP's is interesting. I guess they > haven't heard of RFC 1918. > > Most of these organizations use private RFC 1918 address for their > internal networks. > > Or why does the State of New Mexico need 65,000 IP addresses ?? Most of > which are not in use. > > IPv6 requires upgrades to edge (read customer equipment), much of which > is unable to handle the upgrade. Think all those Qwest DSL modems made > by actiontec and others. They don't support IPv6 and potentially don't > have the memory space to support the firmware updates. > > Translate that into, SILLICON JUNK for the land fill. > > > > Carroll Cagle wrote: > >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> * Your number?s up* >> >> Jun 5th 2008 >> >From //The Economist// print edition >> >> >> *Networking: The internet will run out of addresses unless a new >> numbering system is adopted. After years of inaction, there are now >> signs of progress* >> >> NOBODY would expect a city water system designed for 1m residents to be >> able to handle a 1,000-fold increase in population in just a few years. >> Yet that is what the internet?s fundamental addressing scheme has had to >> accommodate. When the network was first established there were only a >> handful of computer centres in America. Instead of choosing a numbering >> system that could support a few thousand or million addresses, the >> internet?s designers foresightedly opted for one that could handle 4 >> billion. But now even that is not enough. >> >> The addressing system, called internet protocol version 4 (IPv4), cannot >> keep up with the flood of computers, mobile phones, hand-held gadgets, >> games consoles and even cars and refrigerators flooding onto the >> network. Nearly 85% of available addresses are already in use; if this >> trend continues they will run out by 2011, the Organisation for Economic >> Co-operation and Development, a think-tank for rich countries, warned in >> May. >> >> >> >> The shortage is not the only problem; so too is growing complexity. IPv4 >> addresses are allocated in blocks to network operators. The path to >> reach each network is published on a global list that is constantly >> updated. Big computers, called routers, use these entries to guide the >> flow of traffic across the internet. But as more devices and networks >> link to the internet, it becomes necessary to subdivide the address >> blocks into ever-smaller units. This risks overtaxing the millions of >> routers that handle the internet?s traffic, which must be regularly >> upgraded to keep up. Were there no alternative to IPv4, parts of the >> internet would eventually suffer from sporadic outages, warns Paul >> Vixie, a network engineer who wrote the software the internet uses to >> translate domain names (such as economist.com >> ) into their underlying IPv4 addresses. >> >> Fortunately a new system does exist, called internet protocol version 6, >> or IPv6. (Version 5 was a short-lived experimental system.) IPv6 >> provides 3.4x10^38 (4 billion to the fourth power) addresses. This means >> IPv6 addresses can be allocated to network operators and companies in >> much larger quantities. It also provides a clean slate for establishing >> new paths over the internet, reducing complexity. But switching means >> upgrading millions of devices. >> >> In fact, support for IPv6 is already widely available in software and >> hardware, but it has not been used much. Only a few research >> institutions and the American government took the IPv6 plunge early on. >> (In America all federal agencies must be capable of using IPv6 by June >> 30th 2008, by executive order.) >> >> But in recent months the pace of change has picked up. In February Mr >> Vixie and others who operate the ?root nameservers??the central >> computers that translate domain names into internet addresses?flipped a >> switch that means domain names can now map onto IPv6 addresses. This may >> herald more widespread adoption of the new protocol, since it means that >> any organisation can use IPv6 addresses with its domain names, and users >> can access them without special rigging. Google was one of the first >> widely used sites to take public advantage of this, setting up >> ipv6.google.com, which maps to an IPv6 address for its home page. >> >> Support for IPv6 is already baked into most popular operating-system >> software. It is incorporated into Windows XP and Vista, Mac OS X 10.3 >> ?Panther? and later, and many flavours of Unix and Linux. But operating >> systems are only the taps of the plumbing system: a house?s other >> fixtures (like set-top boxes), inside pipes (broadband modems and >> routers), and feeder pipes (backbone routers) must also be upgraded for >> the full benefits of IPv6 to become available. In the meantime, IPv4 and >> IPv6 can co-exist by smuggling data addressed in one form inside >> packages addressed with the other. >> >> The cost of the upgrade will be distributed across the internet?s many >> users, from consumers to companies to network operators, and will mostly >> be a gradual process. ?The internet itself has grown organically?it?s >> not possible to implement or mandate a change across the network,? says >> Leslie Daigle, chief internet-technology officer at the Internet Society >> , a non-profit body that supports the development >> of internet standards. But some big network operators may have to >> upgrade in order to accommodate more devices. Comcast, an American cable >> operator, realised in 2005 that it might need 100m IP addresses by 2008, >> but would be able to get perhaps one-tenth of that number of IPv4 >> addresses. It has since converted the core of its network to IPv6. >> >> Pressure to convert entire broadband networks to IPv6, right down to >> individual PCs, may come from an unexpected source, says Mr Vixie. >> ?First-person, shoot-?em-up gaming and peer-to-peer file sharing works >> better if IPv6 is used,? he notes. And once consumers get a taste of the >> benefits, he says, the adoption of IPv6 should take off dramatically. >> >> >> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 1st-mile-nm mailing list >> 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm >> > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Thu Jun 12 10:26:47 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 10:26:47 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Santa Fe Council Approves WiFi in Public Buildings Message-ID: <20080612102647.szrjqcwjk40cogwo@www2.dcn.org> >From today's Santa Fe New Mexican: www.sfnewmexican.com City OKs boosting wireless service Those with health concerns say they're disappointed in move Julie Ann Grimm | The New Mexican 6/11/2008 - 6/12/08 Wireless Internet will be available for free in an increased number of Santa Fe city buildings following a unanimous decision by the City Council on Wednesday night. The plan calls for the city to install the service to public libraries, the airport, Genoveva Chavez and Fort Marcy recreation centers, municipal court and other buildings. Its implementation was stalled this spring by a small army of area residents who said the city shouldn't use the technology because it had adverse effects on public health. Some said they are disabled by electromagnetic sensitivity, and the city is required to accommodate access under federal law. Opponents, many whom have inundated the media and elected officials with documentation of their concerns, expressed disappointment. "The City Council should consult the Wizard of Oz," said Ann McCampbell, who left the hearing holding a mask to her face. "They made this decision without heart, without a brain and without courage." Councilor Rosemary Romero said the decision was "very challenging" and noted governments are increasingly being asked to consider precautions about public health. "This is going to be a discussion for another time and another day ... There is more work that needs to be done in the future," she said. City Library Director Patricia Hodapp said she was proud of the council for studying the issue carefully. "They had the vision to move forward for the city of Santa Fe. We believe in service, and this will provide more service to the city," she said. The council discussed an opinion issued last week by City Attorney Frank Katz, who said case law did not demonstrate the city would be required to eliminate electricity from its buildings. "We cannot question the reality of the symptoms these people experience," Katz wrote. "But crucially the cause of these symptoms has not been proven." During the hearing, he added, "Cell phones are much more likely to be the culprit rather than Wi-Fi, but this is science, and I don't have a clue." Councilors Patti Bushee and Miguel Chavez supported an effort to install the wireless Internet service in some buildings, but to remove it from City Hall. In the end, both voted in favor of its installation. Bushee said, however, she would soon introduce changes to the city's rules of operation that made plans to turn off the service for City Council meetings at the request of residents who want to address the board, a practice the city has employed during recent debates. The head of the city Information Technology Division, Thomas Williams, told councilors he will make an effort to stay abreast of new research about wireless Internet and its potential health effects. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Thu Jun 12 10:32:27 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 10:32:27 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] $6 Million Available to Provide Training and Technical Assistance to National Service Programs Message-ID: <20080612103227.bntvqg82okgw04c4@www2.dcn.org> Please feel free to distribute this to others who might be interested. This competition is only run every three years. It is to provide training to AmeriCorps programs across the country. There is currently a lot of interest in how Web 2.0 can facilitate this training. ------ FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Susan Schechter June 12, 2008 (202) 606-7515, TTANOFA at cns.gov $6 Million Available to Provide Training and Technical Assistance to National Service Programs (Washington, DC) ? The Corporation for National and Community Service is seeking organizations to apply for $6 million in funding to provide training and technical assistance to increase the capacity of national service programs to meet community needs through service and volunteering. The Corporation anticipates awarding cooperative agreements in eight categories to organizations with the capacity and expertise to deliver training and technical assistance to grantees and potential grantees, subgrantees, sponsoring organizations and projects, and participants and members of the Senior Corps, AmeriCorps, VISTA, National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC), and Learn and Serve America programs and in support of other special initiatives of the Corporation. ?High quality training and technical assistance is critical to our support of local service and volunteer programs as they tackle tough problems and meet critical local needs,? said David Eisner, CEO of the Corporation. ?We encourage qualified organizations to apply for this funding to bolster our efforts to improve lives and strengthen communities through service and volunteering.? Selected grantees will use their technical expertise and capacity to deliver services primarily through Web-based and other distance learning approaches either directly through or in coordination with the Resource Center (www.NationalService.gov/resources), the VISTA Campus (to be launched July 2008), the National Service Learning Clearinghouse (www.ServiceLearning.org) and any future on-line resources and delivery systems. The eight categories are: Member Training and Development; Sustainability and Partnership Development; Performance Measurement and Reporting; Educational Success and Youth Development; Disaster Services Support; Disability Inclusion; Special Initiatives and Projects; and Financial and Grants Management Support. The grant competition is open to state and local government entities, non-profit organizations, including faith- and community-based organizations, higher education institutions, Indian tribes, and commercial entities. Organizations that operate or intend to operate Corporation supported programs are also eligible to apply. The deadline for eGrants submissions is 5 p.m. Eastern Time, July 10, 2008. For further information, visit http://www.nationalservice.gov and click on ?New Funding Opportunities? under the ?For Organizations? tab to review the complete notice, which includes an application, or contact Susan Schechter at (202) 606-7515, email TTANOFA at cns.gov. The TDD number is (202) 565?2799. The Corporation for National and Community Service improves lives, strengthens communities, and fosters civic engagement through service and volunteering. Each year the Corporation engages more than four million Americans of all ages and backgrounds in service to meet local needs through its Senior Corps, AmeriCorps, VISTA, NCCC, and Learn and Serve America programs. For more information, visit www.NationalService.gov . -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Thu Jun 12 11:14:40 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 11:14:40 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Qwest cost cutting on fiber, while Verizon spends Message-ID: <20080612111440.a3nm2t62804w4g4s@www2.dcn.org> (Editted for brevity. rl ) Qwest CEO Says Cost Cutting Will Continue JUNE 09, 2008 Qwest Communications International Inc.'s plans for organic growth may be on hold a while as CEO Ed Mueller says the economy is going to make for tough sledding in the weeks and months ahead. ?We?re holding our own,? said Mueller. ?With the economic trends, while [wireless] substitution continues, we now see that by the end of the year, we?ll be at the lower end of our guidance.? Mueller also said Qwest isn?t done cutting costs. ?A big part of our expense reduction is facility costs, and I do believe there is more room there." He pointed out that in the first quarter of this year Qwest added 13,000 subscribers to its recently upgraded fiber-to-the-node (FTTN) network and that future pair bonding upgrades will allow the company to deliver four to five HD streams to each individual home and, as a result, bring in even more new customers. But despite what Mueller says has been a successful foray into FTTN, he cautioned that further capex investments in the network should not be expected. ?We?re not going to change our capex without a really compelling case." Instead, Qwest will focus more on its partnerships to bring in new revenues, as it hopes its new relationship with Verizon Wireless will allow it to sell more wireless data to its customers. www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=155948&site=nxtcomm ------- Verizon says FiOS buildout may exceed plans Telephony Online By Ritsuko Ando Verizon Communication Inc said on Tuesday it could build out its all-fiber Internet and video network to more than its target of 18 million homes by the end of 2010, despite a weaker U.S. housing market and softer consumer spending. Verizon President and Chief Operating Officer Denny Strigl said the company could expand FiOS, delivered over an advanced network that will cost more than $20 billion to build, at a faster pace than the original plan without a big hike in spending. http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USN1036567020080610 -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From granoff at zianet.com Fri Jun 13 11:02:47 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 12:02:47 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: 6.13.8 Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20080613115431.01c5e7e0@mail.zianet.com> Edited for interest. FYI. >Lack of fiber backhaul delays Sprint???s WiMAX launch, Muni >If only US cities and regions had deployed fiber optic networks that were >open to all providers, Sprint???s WiMAX deployment wouldn???t be in the >pickle it???s in today. Fierce Broadband Wireless says: ???Sprint, which >was supposed to launch its Xohm network in April, is having difficulty >finding high-capacity transport links to connect cell sites as typical T-1 >lines that feed today???s mobile networks are inefficient for high-speed >wireless broadband data. The problem is that the majority of Sprint???s >sites today are T-1 lines, and there just isn???t a lot of fiber and >microwave options available across the country. The link between the local >area network and local fiber ring is still challenged by older technology >and poor coverage, offering limited access to high-capacity connections.??? > http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/muniwireless/~3/310516673/ > > >Copps Introduces Plan for Internet Freedom, Save the Internet >As hard as it may be for some to believe, last Saturday night an FCC >commissioner was transformed into an Internet superstar. > >http://www.savetheinternet.com/blog/2008/06/12/copps-introduces-plan-for-internet-freedom/ > > >A Step Towards IPv6, CISCO >A step forward has been taken in the transition to the larger internet >address space, IPv6, this week with news that computers can now find each >other without having to use the old IPv4 addressing system at all. > http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7221758.stm > > >Yes, DMCA Safe Harbors Apply To Websites, Techdirt >Every once in a while, when discussing the DMCA's "safe harbors" someone >shows up in the comments to insist that the safe harbors were never >intended to apply to websites, but merely to ISPs. Tim Lee does a nice bit >of work absolutely destroying that assertion, by pointing out how it >doesn't make sense given the language of the law which clearly is designed >to apply to websites as well as network providers (otherwise, as he notes, >why would they ever suggest content would have to be "removed" rather than >just "blocked"). > http://techdirt.com/articles/20080603/0131121297.shtml > > >Google Says It Will Support Creation of U.S. Internet Privacy Law, CircleID >In a letter, copy of which was obtained by Reuters yesterday, Google Inc. >has told a senior U.S. Republican lawmaker concerned about privacy that >the Internet search and advertising company supports a federal privacy law > http://www.circleid.com/posts/google_us_internet_privacy_law/ > > >FTC Testifies on Spyware, FTC >The Federal Trade Commission today told the Senate Committee on Commerce, >Science, and Transportation that "legislation authorizing the Commission >to seek civil penalties in spyware cases could add a potent remedy to >those otherwise available to the Commission." > http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2008/06/spyware.shtm > From pete at ideapete.com Fri Jun 13 19:08:39 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 20:08:39 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Heavy AT&T DSL users could see additional fees Message-ID: <48532827.3060601@ideapete.com> http://www.betanews.com/article/Heavy_ATT_DSL_users_could_see_additional_fees/1213387162 -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From granoff at zianet.com Thu Jun 19 15:07:48 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2008 16:07:48 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: From this AM's Congress Daily Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20080619160622.0ddb0100@mail.zianet.com> From another List. FYI. >"House Investigators Prepare For Hearings On FCC Chairman > > >Thu. Jun. 19, 2008 >by David Hatch > >A congressional probe of the FCC is set to intensify this summer with plans >for one or more hearings beginning in July despite reluctance by some >potential witnesses to testify against the agency's chairman and other top >officials. > >A House Energy and Commerce subcommittee expects to hold an initial hearing >next month, possibly followed by sessions in September or even October, >which would keep the agency's Republican chief, Kevin Martin, under >sustained political pressure from Democrats and members of his own party >until Congress adjourns. > >The investigation, which was launched in December, is focused largely on >Martin and allegations that he repeatedly used aggressive tactics in dealing >with fellow commissioners -- two Democrats and two Republicans -- to pursue >an agenda tilted in favor of more deregulation of the telecommunications >industry. > >The bipartisan probe is spearheaded by House Energy and Commerce Chairman >John Dingell and Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations >Subcommittee Chairman Bart Stupak, D-Mich., with input from Energy and >Commerce ranking member Joe Barton and Oversight Subcommittee ranking member >John Shimkus, R-Ill. > >But sources say these lawmakers are facing a major challenge: disgruntled >FCC employees and industry representatives who feel they have been >mistreated by the commission are skittish about going public with their >allegations, fearing retaliation by Martin, his close aides or other >powerful commission brass. > >Stupak acknowledged as much at a private telecom industry meeting in >mid-May, multiple sources told CongressDaily. His office declined to comment >and sources familiar with Stupak's comments spoke on the condition that they >not be quoted or named. > >Despite current difficulties, the subcommittee is said to be moving ahead >with plans for hearings and confident it can muster a sufficient lineup of >witnesses. Martin has responded over the past six months with several steps >aimed at tamping down criticism, including monthly news briefings, more >transparency for the agency's actions and renewed efforts to reach across >party lines. > >Investigators are examining a range of issues, including complaints that >under Martin's watch the FCC instituted rigid internal communications >policies, reassigned seasoned employees against their will to make room for >the chairman's allies and withdrew or altered reports inconsistent with his >policies. > >The inquiry casts a wide net, examining electronic correspondence and/or >travel records associated with all five commissioners, Martin's chief of >staff Daniel Gonzalez, agency bureau chiefs and other high-level officials. > >The review was prompted by the FCC's controversial vote late last year to >relax media ownership limits, a move championed by Martin that angered >members of both parties, and the chairman's unsuccessful attempt to impose >fresh regulations on the cable industry, which drew brickbats from >Republicans. > >With an apparently heavy volume of material to sift through, Stupak told the >closed gathering in May that he was urging investigators to narrow their >focus to the strongest allegations that could be buttressed with solid >evidence, sources said. > >The lawmaker raised concerns that a top Martin aide is on loan to the Energy >and Commerce Committee while it scrutinizes the agency. On May 6, >CongressDaily reported that Ian Dillner, the chairman's legal adviser on >wireless issues, has been detailed to the Commerce Subcommittee on >Telecommunications and the Internet to fill in for an attorney on maternity >leave. > >Dillner's supporters note that the telecom panel is not involved in the >inquiry and even skeptics of the arrangement give him high marks for >professionalism. Nevertheless, critics insist that the presence of a Martin >loyalist raises questions about the integrity of the investigation and >whether the FCC chairman might gain access to privileged information." > > > >No virus found in this incoming message. >Checked by AVG. >Version: 8.0.100 / Virus Database: 270.4.0/1509 - Release Date: 6/19/2008 >8:00 AM From granoff at zianet.com Fri Jun 20 09:56:23 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2008 10:56:23 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: 6.20 Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20080620105256.034d8950@mail.zianet.com> Edited for interest. FYI. >Big Telco Calls on FCC to Act in Comcast Case, Save the Internet >Comcast's discriminatory practices against peer-to-peer traffic are so >blatant and nefarious, even AT&T and Verizon - no friends of Network >Neutrality - think the cable giant has gone over the line. > >http://www.savetheinternet.com/blog/2008/06/19/big-telco-calls-on-fcc-to-act-in-comcast-case/ > > >Court Rules That Your Text Messages Are Private, Techdirt >A few months ago, we noted that New York City was demanding text messages >sent by some people as part of an investigation. This was just the latest >in a long line of requests for text messages, where questions have been >raised about whether or not those messages should be considered private. >Now, a court in the 9th circuit has said that there's a reasonable >expectation of privacy on text messages, and a company revealing them >without consent from either the sender or the recipient represents a >violation of the Fourth Amendment. > http://techdirt.com/articles/20080618/1351231449.shtml >More Info: http://www.cybertelecom.org/spam/emailpro.htm > >ATCA Again: Duopoly Against VoIP Long Before Video, Peerflow >Back in 1995, an organization calling itself AMERICA'S CARRIERS >TELECOMMUNICATION ASSOCIATION ("ACTA"), petitioned the FCC to regulate >Voice over IP (VoIP) services. The gist of the matter was: > >http://riskman.typepad.com/peerflow/2008/06/atca-again-duopoly-against-voip-long-before-video.html > > >U.S. Bill Grants VoIP Providers Full 911 Access, CircleID >The U.S. Senate this week passed legislation that requires 911 network >operators to allow VoIP callers to connect, no matter what service they're >calling from. The New and Emerging Technologies 911 Improvement Act passed >by unanimous consent Monday. It's meant to ensure that traditional >telecoms, which operate the emergency networks, connect VoIP providers >with the same rates and conditions they use when connecting mobile phones. > http://www.circleid.com/posts/voip_providers_911_access/ From rl at 1st-mile.com Fri Jun 20 13:25:48 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:25:48 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] SETDA: US Education System Must Step Up High-Speed Broadband Message-ID: <20080620132548.48rgmoexc80kocw4@www2.dcn.org> US Education System Must Step Up High-Speed Broadband Efforts to Maximize the Potential of Technology for Student Achievement and the 21st Century Global Economy. States, Districts, and Schools in Danger of Missing Assessment, Data, and Instructional Opportunities Due to Lack of Broadband Access. www.marketwire.com/mw/release.do?id=870599 ARLINGTON, VA--(Marketwire - June 19, 2008) - SETDA, representing all 50 states and DC, today released the "High-Speed Broadband Access for All Kids: Breaking through the Barriers" report to address the growing concern and critical need for high-speed Internet access among our districts and schools. Although national statistics boast almost 98% connectivity in US schools, the substance and bandwidth of the connection is often problematic and insufficient. High-speed broadband access and connectivity are vital for economic growth, global competitiveness, education, innovation, and creativity. Ensuring high-speed broadband access for all students has become a critical national issue especially when considering the necessity for the use of technology in assessment, accountability, engagement, and preparing our students for work and life in the 21st century. SETDA worked with stakeholders from all 50 states, education, and industry in developing the recommendations. This report identifies the key issues facing the educational community relating to robust connectivity and recommends how states and districts can successfully implement high-speed broadband in their schools. The report also provides stakeholders and policymakers with strategies and models for bringing this critical issue to the national and state policy level. You can view the full report at http://www.setda.org/web/guest/class2020actionplan . Key recommendations include: In a technology-rich learning environment for the next 2-3 years, SETDA recommends: -- An external Internet connection to the Internet Service Provider of 10 Mbps per 1,000 students/staff -- Internal wide area network connections from the district to each school between schools of at least 100 Mbps per 1,000 students/staff In a technology-rich learning environment for the next 5-7 years, SETDA recommends: -- An external Internet connection to the Internet Service Provider of 100 Mbps per 1,000 students/staff -- Internal wide area network connections from the district to each school between schools of at least 1 Gbps per 1,000 students/staff "Planning and implementing for this growth is critical for our education system," stated Mary Ann Wolf, PhD, SETDA's Executive Director. "We now have data that shows how technology makes a significant impact on student achievement in all subject areas and grades -- not to mention providing unprecedented opportunities for on-going and sustainable professional development that improves teacher practice within the classroom. High speed broadband is essential to making change happen." Key issues include: -- Teachers and students need high-speed broadband access in their schools to take advantage of a wide range of new and rich educational tools and resources available for learning anytime, anywhere -- Teachers need high-speed broadband access for professional development, and engaging in professional learning communities as well as accessing new educational resources such as curriculum cadres and education portals -- Administrators need high-speed broadband access to conduct online assessments and to access data for effective decision making -- Students need high-speed broadband access to overcome the digital divide in rural and low socio-economic areas About SETDA The State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA) is the principal association for state directors of technology and their staff members providing professional development and leadership around the effective use of technology in education to enhance competitiveness in the global workforce. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Fri Jun 20 13:41:49 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:41:49 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Video Interview with Christopher Mitchell Message-ID: <20080620134149.am6oklbuo4c4k4ws@www2.dcn.org> Here's an interview with Christopher Mitchell, Director of the Telecommunications as Commons Initiative, at the Institute for Local Self Reliance, in Minneapolis. Christoper is an intelligent advocate for (fiber) community broadband networking initiatives. Excellent. http://app-rising.com/2008/06/vidchat_debating_municipal_bro.html Christopher is a 1st-Mile list subscriber, so any discussion about this presentation, may involve some further comments from him on the list. RL -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Sat Jun 21 07:34:43 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2008 07:34:43 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] NM Gov's TeleWork Executive Order Message-ID: <20080621073443.kc410uutk4gs88gw@www2.dcn.org> On Thursday, June 19th, Governor Richardson signed an Executive Order, establishing a Telework and Alternative Work Program for State workers. Such a program will require improved home-based broadband access and connectivity for many employees, as well as tele-conferencing systems and training on effective telework practices. rl ------ For full text of EXECUTIVE ORDER 2008-028: http://governor.state.nm.us/press.php?id=839 ESTABLISHING A STRONG TELEWORK AND FLEXIBLE WORK HOURS PROGRAM TO HELP REDUCE FUEL USE AND TAXPAYERS COSTS Excerpts from the Press release and EO, follow: June 20, 2008 SANTA FE - Governor Bill Richardson has signed an executive order creating the State of New Mexico Telework and Alternative Work Schedule Program. The executive order creates the framework for a new telework and alternative work schedule policy for state employees, with strict accountability to ensure that productivity remains high. According to the executive order signed by the Governor, State Personnel Director Sandi Perez will report back to the Governor with policy guidelines for the New Mexico State Telework and Alternative Work Schedule Program by July 15th. State agencies will adopt a written policy that defines specific criteria and procedures for telework and alternative work schedules by September 1, 2008. The executive order also calls for changes to state vehicle usage, more emphasis on public transit and for technology improvements to increase productivity and support teleworking in State government. EO Item 3. The Department of Information Technology shall work with GSD?s Lead by Example Coordinator to assess, improve, and promote State government?s use of technology, such as telephone, video, and internet conferencing, to improve productivity and to support telework and reduce unnecessary employee travel. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Sat Jun 21 08:45:15 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2008 08:45:15 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Recent NM LambdaRail Network Update Message-ID: <20080621084515.x8z0qfilsscs08os@www2.dcn.org> Schools Close On Linking to Network: LambdaRail about 100 times faster than commercial Internet. Albuquerque Journal, Jun. 6--Two New Mexico universities are close to tapping into LambdaRail, the high-speed nationwide data network that's about 100 times faster than the commercial Internet. The University of New Mexico has taken the lead in rolling out LambdaRail in the state. Barney Maccabe, UNM's chief information officer, said there's been a problem in making the final fiber connection for New Mexico State and New Mexico Tech. He said the problems appear to be fixed, and he expects New Mexico Tech and New Mexico State will be connected before August. UNM is already routing some of its Internet traffic through LambdaRail, Maccabe said. Van Romero, vice president for research and economic development at New Mexico Tech and a member of the National LambdaRail board, said researchers at his university are eager for the LambdaRail connection to reach New Mexico Tech so they can tap into such things as the supercomputer. "It certainly is frustrating when we have this great supercomputer that we have access to, or that we wish we had access to, and we don't," Romero said. "And so the frustration level among the faculty is really high. But you have to realize when you look at the big picture, it's just been a month or so." Beyond allowing New Mexico Tech and New Mexico State the ability to tap into the supercomputer, LambdaRail could also be a solution for the schools' costly and everincreasing need for bandwith. New Mexico has been connected to National LambdaRail for two years. National LambdaRail is a consortium of universities and corporations that operates the 15,000-mile network that transmits data an estimated 100 times faster than the commercial Internet. The state committed to buy into National LambdaRail for $5 million. The amount was to be paid over five years. Romero said the state has paid $4 million of its debt, but didn't get the final funding from the Legislature in the last session. "We thought we had it lined up, and at the 11th hour it fell out of the bill ... ," Romero said. "We hope to in the comming session." Romero said the national organization is allowing the state to make the final payment next year. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From pete at ideapete.com Sat Jun 21 11:27:15 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2008 12:27:15 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Recent NM LambdaRail Network Update In-Reply-To: <20080621084515.x8z0qfilsscs08os@www2.dcn.org> References: <20080621084515.x8z0qfilsscs08os@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: <485D4803.1050004@ideapete.com> Excuse me for being a skeptic but i would love to see the network digram that shows how 28 lambdas at 10 gigs each providing primary layer services is going to connect to schools ( and what the real cost is ) lets see # project fails to get its finacing in full # all of a sudden schools are suffering # Connect could be carrying email traffic ( Sandoval Broadband ) The LMBD local sponsors pulled the same stunt years ago to get business to chip in with the original gigapop financing and they never delivered on a single promise Where is H L Mencken when we need him ( : ( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ Richard Lowenberg wrote: > Schools Close On Linking to Network: LambdaRail about 100 times faster than > commercial Internet. > > Albuquerque Journal, Jun. 6--Two New Mexico universities are close to tapping > into LambdaRail, the high-speed nationwide data network that's about 100 times > faster than the commercial Internet. > > The University of New Mexico has taken the lead in rolling out LambdaRail in the > state. Barney Maccabe, UNM's chief information officer, said there's been a > problem in making the final fiber connection for New Mexico State and New > Mexico Tech. > > He said the problems appear to be fixed, and he expects New Mexico Tech and New > Mexico State will be connected before August. > > UNM is already routing some of its Internet traffic through LambdaRail, Maccabe > said. > > Van Romero, vice president for research and economic development at New Mexico > Tech and a member of the National LambdaRail board, said researchers at his > university are eager for the LambdaRail connection to reach New Mexico Tech so > they can tap into such things as the supercomputer. > > "It certainly is frustrating when we have this great supercomputer that we have > access to, or that we wish we had access to, and we don't," Romero said. "And > so the frustration level among the faculty is really high. But you have to > realize when you look at the big picture, it's just been a month or so." > > Beyond allowing New Mexico Tech and New Mexico State the ability to tap into the > supercomputer, LambdaRail could also be a solution for the schools' costly and > everincreasing need for bandwith. > > New Mexico has been connected to National LambdaRail for two years. National > LambdaRail is a consortium of universities and corporations that operates the > 15,000-mile network that transmits data an estimated 100 times faster than the > commercial Internet. > > The state committed to buy into National LambdaRail for $5 million. The amount > was to be paid over five years. > > Romero said the state has paid $4 million of its debt, but didn't get the final > funding from the Legislature in the last session. > > "We thought we had it lined up, and at the 11th hour it fell out of the bill ... > ," Romero said. "We hope to in the comming session." > > Romero said the national organization is allowing the state to make the final > payment next year. > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Sun Jun 22 21:41:08 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2008 22:41:08 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Chicago firm to sell untapped Lamdarail fiber bandwidth Message-ID: <485F2964.30001@ideapete.com> Ho boy, now a company is going to charge companies for using Lamdarail after the same companies spent years ponying up and raising money to build it. http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-thu-darkstrand-fiber-optic-njun05,0,4884560.story Internet 2 / Abilene was and is a far better business model I haven't seen this sort of chicanery since ATT tried to bury packet switching and Ethernet Proves my point LMDR was an academic money raising scheme from the beginning Who's going to be the first brave person to ask LMDR committee "what they did with all the money ? " I also hear that Level 3 "PASSED" on the deal having a "BETTER" option, something is seriously wrong here ( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maccabe at unm.edu Mon Jun 23 08:38:45 2008 From: maccabe at unm.edu (Arthur Maccabe) Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2008 09:38:45 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Chicago firm to sell untapped Lamdarail fiber bandwidth In-Reply-To: <485F2964.30001@ideapete.com> References: <485F2964.30001@ideapete.com> Message-ID: <0A29080A-8FCC-4EE4-BA85-11734B384316@unm.edu> Darkstrand's deal with NRL is that they will maintain part of the infrastructure and provide an infusion of money to extend NLR's assets in exchange for being able to sell excess bandwidth to commercial entities. The partnership makes sense in that the universities that bought into NLR are not in a position to market the assets and, in wake of the failed I2 merger, NLR was in need of money for expansion and for maintenance. The assets that we own are still owned by the members of NLR. I2 may currently have a better business model than NLR; however, I2's business model has improved quite bit since the inception of NLR. Moreover, NLR continues to offer services that I2 cannot offer and, until recently, I2's governance model was fundamentally broken. On Jun 22, 2008, at 10:41 PM, peter wrote: > Ho boy, now a company is going to charge companies for using > Lamdarail after the same companies spent years ponying up and > raising money to build it. > > http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-thu-darkstrand-fiber-optic-njun05,0,4884560.story > > Internet 2 / Abilene was and is a far better business model > > I haven't seen this sort of chicanery since ATT tried to bury packet > switching and Ethernet > > Proves my point LMDR was an academic money raising scheme from the > beginning > > Who's going to be the first brave person to ask LMDR committee > "what they did with all the money ? " > > I also hear that Level 3 "PASSED" on the deal having a "BETTER" > option, something is seriously wrong here > > ( : ( : pete > -- > Peter Baston > IDEAS > www.ideapete.com > > > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm -- Barney Maccabe Chief Information Officer (Interim) Professor, Computer Science Department University of New Mexico (505) 277-8125 maccabe at unm.edu From pete at ideapete.com Mon Jun 23 11:05:05 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2008 12:05:05 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Chicago firm to sell untapped Lamdarail fiber bandwidth In-Reply-To: <0A29080A-8FCC-4EE4-BA85-11734B384316@unm.edu> References: <485F2964.30001@ideapete.com> <0A29080A-8FCC-4EE4-BA85-11734B384316@unm.edu> Message-ID: <485FE5D1.5030804@ideapete.com> I don't think that's the point Barney Let me lay out my train of thought for this posting in addition to the voluminous emails I have received this morning. Internet 2 ( I2 )and National LambdaRail* *( LMDR ) have a fundamentally different business model, based on the fact that I2 uses and leases its systems whereas LMDR wants to OWN everything end to end with someone else paying the tab.. The latter model doesn't even have a real business plan (what university or government idea does?) and no idea of final cost, except that its going to be huge $$$. I2/Abilene is following the electrical power "honest broker" infrastructure model of different entities controlling production, transmission and end supply to create impartiality and prevent an end to end monopoly, especially important as open access joins the ultra high bandwidth arena. LMDR wants to create an absolute monopoly from end to end. The commercial companies spotted this immediately and have been hammering at LMDR about the fact that they could end up sitting on a trillion-dollar asset -- all created under the feel good mantra of great research funded with public and private donated dollars. When LMDR tried to swallow I2 last year part of the different attitudes of both boards was the primary fact that it seemed LMDR was creating an absolute monopoly and it was obvious to many sources that I have talked to that LMDR was even then closely involved with commercial entities who could make a pile of money out of this. Now we know it was Darkstrand. I2 found this absolutely repellent to the very nature of the system and so balked. Thats why the takeover failed. (If anyone has any more details please post them.) Even go look at their websites and tell me which one really understands the web at todays lowly level and who knows where its headed (http://www.internet2.edu/ and http://www.nlr.net/). I2's tagline "Member FOCUSED, member led" says it all. LMDR can now say with a straight face "Using YOUR donated money to benefit our directors and shareholders." Some of the mail I have received this morning makes me out to be a Luddite / LMDR bigot, and for those who know me is laughable. No, I simply do not like to see my tax and donation dollars extracted under false pretenses. Back in about 2001, I served as senior technology adviser to the Association of Commerce and Industry (ACI) in Albuquerque. Why me? Well, read here http://www.ideapete.com/who.html. Frankly, i was trusted and potential tech fund raisers were not. LMDR local CIRT / UNM sponsors were trying to raise money for the local service connections including the gigabit pop at 505 Marquette and its connection to UNM CIRT, lobbying (mostly unsuccessfully) at all levels including state. No one at ACI really understood what LMDR was and how it impacted business and the economy, and so I was detailed to sort out all the technobabble being thrown around and enlighten ACI members. At the time much had been made of the fact that if business got behind the project, there would be huge benefits to industry and we (the business community) would be a primary cost efficient benefit user, and massive educational, health benefits would accrue, and on and on. Lots and lots of blue sky thinking and very little application outline and real rubber-meets-the-road clearly defined objectives or clarity. I even heard from one senior CIRT/LMDR source and he knows who he is ,when questioned about financial cost planning " Heck this is too exciting to put a price tag on it, its only money " I hope his mortgage company feels the same way. ACI delivered what we had been asked for and actively and successfully lobbied for funds. Even then, we pointed out that "You (UNM / CIRT / LMDR local) have made some huge assumptions but have not developed any clear plans for deployment and application or prudent financial need. We (ACI) can really help you to do that." In many of the conversations over the years with research departments who were the nominally targeted end users asking what do you really need now and what will you need in the future, ( called usability engineering ) it became very apparent that, with the massive transformation in data originating from the evolution from API-local-machine to API-application-cloud -worldwide, a whole different model of information distribution was evolving and many departments were, bluntly, even questioning the need for CIRT with its system control, uber-boss mentality and the need for another expensive centralized fat pipe system. I, and some financial experts at our top local banks and audit companies, also thought that the financing that would be required for LMDR to really work had been grossly underestimated -- purposely -- and, again, they had a plan with no cost basis except for expensive VERY expensive. LMDR is in need of LOTS of money because its basic premise and plan was totally non realistic. Supercomputers now are being outperformed worldwide by very different initiatives (such as Beowulf clusters) for faster smaller more flexible systems (Google api's) so that, to the researchers' joy, a heck of a lot more budget dollars are going directly to the project bottom line. I2 got real industrial strength financial planning support from the get-go. hence their very different model. After the ACI successfully lobbied for the first basic capital support, and even contributed, we were basically told to F*#@ off. Seven years later, I still do not see any evidence that any application needs analysis, business plan, realistic cost analysis even exists at UNM - CIRT - LMDR ( local or national ) even the blue sky buzzwords have not changed. Again, what are the main problems with the LMDR initiative: Well, it's been used as a huge fund raising tool by multiple people in this state and nationwide (some involved in fraud, like Sandoval Broadband) who, frankly, could not not tell the difference between an Ethernet connection and a light bulb socket. Thats now being turned on its head into a commercially directed profit center I also expect to see many of the LMDR board members nationwide suddenly appear on commercial boards (Darkstrand) making another ton of money, which would lead one to suspect the fix was in from the start. Under the circumstances, I think it would be prudent to freeze all future government (at all levels, including university associated grants) investment in LMDR until its board and Darkstrand come absolutely clean with its business plan (audited, and including real applications not buzzwords) and show us who really benefits (again, audited) and what they did with all the money. Or let Goggle buy them out and fire everyone who played this game. This is the entire future of the US we are talking about, and looking at the pattern evolving : LMDR with UNM / CIRT as its local agent thinks it's the next AT&T Barney, how about posting a clear UNM / CIRT / LMDR business plan initiative that is web active iterate (If you post PDFs and PowerPoints, you have proved my point) online so everyone can see who's what and where and who REALLY benefits (in real terms, not hyper)? I also see that the I2 project site at UNM is 404. Does that mean what I think it does? For Clarity , I am not a member nor do I have any financial interest in either I2 or LMDR. For all those on the list intent on sending and spreading vitriol about me: " Bring it on! I was raised in Mugabe country." And if you want to debate this and post the debate on Youtube, let's go. ( : ( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ Arthur Maccabe wrote: > > Darkstrand's deal with NRL is that they will maintain part of the > infrastructure and provide an infusion of money to extend NLR's assets > in exchange for being able to sell excess bandwidth to commercial > entities. The partnership makes sense in that the universities that > bought into NLR are not in a position to market the assets and, in > wake of the failed I2 merger, NLR was in need of money for expansion > and for maintenance. The assets that we own are still owned by the > members of NLR. > > I2 may currently have a better business model than NLR; however, I2's > business model has improved quite bit since the inception of NLR. > Moreover, NLR continues to offer services that I2 cannot offer and, > until recently, I2's governance model was fundamentally broken. > > > > > On Jun 22, 2008, at 10:41 PM, peter wrote: > >> Ho boy, now a company is going to charge companies for using >> Lamdarail after the same companies spent years ponying up and raising >> money to build it. >> >> http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-thu-darkstrand-fiber-optic-njun05,0,4884560.story >> >> >> Internet 2 / Abilene was and is a far better business model >> >> I haven't seen this sort of chicanery since ATT tried to bury packet >> switching and Ethernet >> >> Proves my point LMDR was an academic money raising scheme from the >> beginning >> >> Who's going to be the first brave person to ask LMDR committee "what >> they did with all the money ? " >> >> I also hear that Level 3 "PASSED" on the deal having a "BETTER" >> option, something is seriously wrong here >> >> ( : ( : pete >> -- >> Peter Baston >> IDEAS >> www.ideapete.com >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 1st-mile-nm mailing list >> 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From john at citylinkfiber.com Mon Jun 23 11:20:58 2008 From: john at citylinkfiber.com (John Brown) Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2008 12:20:58 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Chicago firm to sell untapped Lamdarail fiber bandwidth In-Reply-To: <485FE5D1.5030804@ideapete.com> References: <485F2964.30001@ideapete.com> <0A29080A-8FCC-4EE4-BA85-11734B384316@unm.edu> <485FE5D1.5030804@ideapete.com> Message-ID: <485FE98A.2030103@citylinkfiber.com> whats interesting is that NLR and NM-NLR (two different entities) have pitched to various people around the state that Commercial use would be available for the NLR connection. County of Sandoval NM wanted (and still wants) to leverage the NLR connection for commercial economic development. Other local commercial companies have expressed interest. To date, the NM-NLR folks haven't figured out how to make that work. Even with commercial types willing to help the process. The question that I haven't ever been able to get answered from anyone at NM-NLR / UNM / CIRT, etc is: Ok, So I connect to LambdaRail in Albuquerque (or Intel or Santa Fe or ??), what is the other end of the connection ??? Does this guarantee that I have a connection to Sony Studios in Culver City?? or to ?? No one can actually articulate the technical process and path that packets will take once they are presented at the 505 Marquette location. Its a technical question and it requires a technical answer. To date its been glossed over by the technical people managing NM-NLR. It would be nice to see that well articulated answer on this list. At present NM-NLR is a $5,000,000 ""asset"" that really isn't seeing much use. Heck NMSU and NM Tech still are not connected, even after everyone said they where a year ago. John Brown, for himself the views expressed here are my personal views and do not represent any the views of any commercial interest. peter wrote: > I don't think that's the point Barney > > Let me lay out my train of thought for this posting in addition to the > voluminous emails I have received this morning. > > Internet 2 ( I2 )and National LambdaRail* *( LMDR ) have a fundamentally > different business model, based on the fact that I2 uses and leases its > systems whereas LMDR wants to OWN everything end to end with someone > else paying the tab.. The latter model doesn't even have a real business > plan (what university or government idea does?) and no idea of final > cost, except that its going to be huge $$$. I2/Abilene is following the > electrical power "honest broker" infrastructure model of different > entities controlling production, transmission and end supply to create > impartiality and prevent an end to end monopoly, especially important as > open access joins the ultra high bandwidth arena. LMDR wants to create > an absolute monopoly from end to end. The commercial companies spotted > this immediately and have been hammering at LMDR about the fact that > they could end up sitting on a trillion-dollar asset -- all created > under the feel good mantra of great research funded with public and > private donated dollars. > > When LMDR tried to swallow I2 last year part of the different attitudes > of both boards was the primary fact that it seemed LMDR was creating an > absolute monopoly and it was obvious to many sources that I have talked > to that LMDR was even then closely involved with commercial entities who > could make a pile of money out of this. Now we know it was Darkstrand. > I2 found this absolutely repellent to the very nature of the system and > so balked. Thats why the takeover failed. (If anyone has any more > details please post them.) Even go look at their websites and tell me > which one really understands the web at todays lowly level and who knows > where its headed (http://www.internet2.edu/ and http://www.nlr.net/). > I2's tagline "Member FOCUSED, member led" says it all. LMDR can now say > with a straight face "Using YOUR donated money to benefit our directors > and shareholders." > > Some of the mail I have received this morning makes me out to be a > Luddite / LMDR bigot, and for those who know me is laughable. No, I > simply do not like to see my tax and donation dollars extracted under > false pretenses. > > Back in about 2001, I served as senior technology adviser to the > Association of Commerce and Industry (ACI) in Albuquerque. Why me? > Well, read here http://www.ideapete.com/who.html. Frankly, i was trusted > and potential tech fund raisers were not. LMDR local CIRT / UNM > sponsors were trying to raise money for the local service connections > including the gigabit pop at 505 Marquette and its connection to UNM > CIRT, lobbying (mostly unsuccessfully) at all levels including state. No > one at ACI really understood what LMDR was and how it impacted business > and the economy, and so I was detailed to sort out all the technobabble > being thrown around and enlighten ACI members. At the time much had been > made of the fact that if business got behind the project, there would be > huge benefits to industry and we (the business community) would be a > primary cost efficient benefit user, and massive educational, health > benefits would accrue, and on and on. Lots and lots of blue sky thinking > and very little application outline and real rubber-meets-the-road > clearly defined objectives or clarity. I even heard from one senior > CIRT/LMDR source and he knows who he is ,when questioned about financial > cost planning " Heck this is too exciting to put a price tag on it, its > only money " I hope his mortgage company feels the same way. > > ACI delivered what we had been asked for and actively and successfully > lobbied for funds. Even then, we pointed out that "You (UNM / CIRT / > LMDR local) have made some huge assumptions but have not developed any > clear plans for deployment and application or prudent financial need. We > (ACI) can really help you to do that." In many of the conversations > over the years with research departments who were the nominally targeted > end users asking what do you really need now and what will you need in > the future, ( called usability engineering ) it became very apparent > that, with the massive transformation in data originating from the > evolution from API-local-machine to API-application-cloud -worldwide, a > whole different model of information distribution was evolving and many > departments were, bluntly, even questioning the need for CIRT with its > system control, uber-boss mentality and the need for another expensive > centralized fat pipe system. I, and some financial experts at our top > local banks and audit companies, also thought that the financing that > would be required for LMDR to really work had been grossly > underestimated -- purposely -- and, again, they had a plan with no cost > basis except for expensive VERY expensive. LMDR is in need of LOTS of > money because its basic premise and plan was totally non realistic. > Supercomputers now are being outperformed worldwide by very different > initiatives (such as Beowulf clusters) for faster smaller more flexible > systems (Google api's) so that, to the researchers' joy, a heck of a lot > more budget dollars are going directly to the project bottom line. > > I2 got real industrial strength financial planning support from the > get-go. hence their very different model. After the ACI successfully > lobbied for the first basic capital support, and even contributed, we > were basically told to F*#@ off. Seven years later, I still do not see > any evidence that any application needs analysis, business plan, > realistic cost analysis even exists at UNM - CIRT - LMDR ( local or > national ) even the blue sky buzzwords have not changed. > > Again, what are the main problems with the LMDR initiative: Well, it's > been used as a huge fund raising tool by multiple people in this state > and nationwide (some involved in fraud, like Sandoval Broadband) who, > frankly, could not not tell the difference between an Ethernet > connection and a light bulb socket. Thats now being turned on its head > into a commercially directed profit center > > I also expect to see many of the LMDR board members nationwide suddenly > appear on commercial boards (Darkstrand) making another ton of money, > which would lead one to suspect the fix was in from the start. > > Under the circumstances, I think it would be prudent to freeze all > future government (at all levels, including university associated > grants) investment in LMDR until its board and Darkstrand come > absolutely clean with its business plan (audited, and including real > applications not buzzwords) and show us who really benefits (again, > audited) and what they did with all the money. Or let Goggle buy them > out and fire everyone who played this game. > > This is the entire future of the US we are talking about, and looking at > the pattern evolving : LMDR with UNM / CIRT as its local agent thinks > it's the next AT&T > > Barney, how about posting a clear UNM / CIRT / LMDR business plan > initiative that is web active iterate (If you post PDFs and PowerPoints, > you have proved my point) online so everyone can see who's what and > where and who REALLY benefits (in real terms, not hyper)? > > I also see that the I2 project site at UNM is 404. Does that mean what I > think it does? > > For Clarity , I am not a member nor do I have any financial interest in > either I2 or LMDR. > > For all those on the list intent on sending and spreading vitriol about > me: " Bring it on! I was raised in Mugabe country." And if you want to > debate this and post the debate on Youtube, let's go. > > ( : ( : pete > > Peter Baston > > *IDEAS* > > /www.ideapete.com/ > > > > > > > > > Arthur Maccabe wrote: >> >> Darkstrand's deal with NRL is that they will maintain part of the >> infrastructure and provide an infusion of money to extend NLR's assets >> in exchange for being able to sell excess bandwidth to commercial >> entities. The partnership makes sense in that the universities that >> bought into NLR are not in a position to market the assets and, in >> wake of the failed I2 merger, NLR was in need of money for expansion >> and for maintenance. The assets that we own are still owned by the >> members of NLR. >> >> I2 may currently have a better business model than NLR; however, I2's >> business model has improved quite bit since the inception of NLR. >> Moreover, NLR continues to offer services that I2 cannot offer and, >> until recently, I2's governance model was fundamentally broken. >> >> >> >> >> On Jun 22, 2008, at 10:41 PM, peter wrote: >> >>> Ho boy, now a company is going to charge companies for using >>> Lamdarail after the same companies spent years ponying up and raising >>> money to build it. >>> >>> http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-thu-darkstrand-fiber-optic-njun05,0,4884560.story >>> >>> >>> Internet 2 / Abilene was and is a far better business model >>> >>> I haven't seen this sort of chicanery since ATT tried to bury packet >>> switching and Ethernet >>> >>> Proves my point LMDR was an academic money raising scheme from the >>> beginning >>> >>> Who's going to be the first brave person to ask LMDR committee "what >>> they did with all the money ? " >>> >>> I also hear that Level 3 "PASSED" on the deal having a "BETTER" >>> option, something is seriously wrong here >>> >>> ( : ( : pete >>> -- >>> Peter Baston >>> IDEAS >>> www.ideapete.com >>> >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> 1st-mile-nm mailing list >>> 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >>> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm >> > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm From jearnoldjones at aol.com Mon Jun 23 11:42:34 2008 From: jearnoldjones at aol.com (Janice E. Arnold-Jones) Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2008 14:42:34 -0400 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Chicago firm to sell untapped Lamdarail fiber bandwidth In-Reply-To: <485FE98A.2030103@citylinkfiber.com> References: <485F2964.30001@ideapete.com> <0A29080A-8FCC-4EE4-BA85-11734B384316@unm.edu> <485FE5D1.5030804@ideapete.com> <485FE98A.2030103@citylinkfiber.com> Message-ID: <8CAA378085D4CBF-BAC-1C98@WEBMAIL-MC13.sysops.aol.com> While I don't comment often (hardly at all) I read every 1st mile communication.? The answer to John Brown's question continues to elude me as well.? It is time for some answers and a path forward that yields functional results.? If ever we needed?this list-servs'?combined experience and insight, it is now! "Real connectivity will help us overcome our geography, preserve our environment, and enhance our economic prosperity!" Janice E. Arnold-Jones Representative, House District 24 7713 Sierra Azul NE Albuquerque, NM 87110 (505) 379-0902 cell (505) 938-3141 work (505) 938-3160 fax -----Original Message----- From: John Brown To: peter Cc: 1st-Mile-NM <1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org> Sent: Mon, 23 Jun 2008 12:20 pm Subject: Re: [1st-mile-nm] Chicago firm to sell untapped Lamdarail fiber bandwidth whats interesting is that NLR and NM-NLR (two different entities) have pitched to various people around the state that Commercial use would be available for the NLR connection. County of Sandoval NM wanted (and still wants) to leverage the NLR connection for commercial economic development. Other local commercial companies have expressed interest. To date, the NM-NLR folks haven't figured out how to make that work. Even with commercial types willing to help the process. The question that I haven't ever been able to get answered from anyone at NM-NLR / UNM / CIRT, etc is: Ok, So I connect to LambdaRail in Albuquerque (or Intel or Santa Fe or ??), what is the other end of the connection ??? Does this guarantee that I have a connection to Sony Studios in Culver City?? or to ?? No one can actually articulate the technical process and path that packets will take once they are presented at the 505 Marquette location. Its a technical question and it requires a technical answer. To date its been glossed over by the technical people managing NM-NLR. It would be nice to see that well articulated answer on this list. At present NM-NLR is a $5,000,000 ""asset"" that really isn't seeing much use. Heck NMSU and NM Tech still are not connected, even after everyone said they where a year ago. John Brown, for himself the views expressed here are my personal views and do not represent any the views of any commercial interest. peter wrote: > I don't think that's the point Barney > > Let me lay out my train of thought for this posting in addition to the > voluminous emails I have received this morning. > > Internet 2 ( I2 )and National LambdaRail* *( LMDR ) have a fundamentally > different business model, based on the fact that I2 uses and leases its > systems whereas LMDR wants to OWN everything end to end with someone > else paying the tab.. The latter model doesn't even have a real business > plan (what university or government idea does?) and no idea of final > cost, except that its going to be huge $$$. I2/Abilene is following the > electrical power "honest broker" infrastructure model of different > entities controlling production, transmission and end supply to create > impartiality and prevent an end to end monopoly, especially important as > open access joins the ultra high bandwidth arena. LMDR wants to create > an absolute monopoly from end to end. The commercial companies spotted > this immediately and have been hammering at LMDR about the fact that > they could end up sitting on a trillion-dollar asset -- all created > under the feel good mantra of great research funded with public and > private donated dollars. > > When LMDR tried to swallow I2 last year part of the different attitudes > of both boards was the primary fact that it seemed LMDR was creating an > absolute monopoly and it was obvious to many sources that I have talked > to that LMDR was even then closely involved with commercial entities who > could make a pile of money out of this. Now we know it was Darkstrand. > I2 found this absolutely repellent to the very nature of the system and > so balked. Thats why the takeover failed. (If anyone has any more > details please post them.) Even go look at their websites and tell me > which one really understands the web at todays lowly level and who knows > where its headed (http://www.internet2.edu/ and http://www.nlr.net/). > I2's tagline "Member FOCUSED, member led" says it all. LMDR can now say > with a straight face "Using YOUR donated money to benefit our directors > and shareholders." > > Some of the mail I have received this morning makes me out to be a > Luddite / LMDR bigot, and for those who know me is laughable. No, I > simply do not like to see my tax and donation dollars extracted under > false pretenses. > > Back in about 2001, I served as senior technology adviser to the > Association of Commerce and Industry (ACI) in Albuquerque. Why me? > Well, read here http://www.ideapete.com/who.html. Frankly, i was trusted > and potential tech fund raisers were not. LMDR local CIRT / UNM > sponsors were trying to raise money for the local service connections > including the gigabit pop at 505 Marquette and its connection to UNM > CIRT, lobbying (mostly unsuccessfully) at all levels including state. No > one at ACI really understood what LMDR was and how it impacted business > and the economy, and so I was detailed to sort out all the technobabble > being thrown around and enlighten ACI members. At the time much had been > made of the fact that if business got behind the project, there would be > huge benefits to industry and we (the business community) would be a > primary cost efficient benefit user, and massive educational, health > benefits would accrue, and on and on. Lots and lots of blue sky thinking > and very little application outline and real rubber-meets-the-road > clearly defined objectives or clarity. I even heard from one senior > CIRT/LMDR source and he knows who he is ,when questioned about financial > cost planning " Heck this is too exciting to put a price tag on it, its > only money " I hope his mortgage company feels the same way. > > ACI delivered what we had been asked for and actively and successfully > lobbied for funds. Even then, we pointed out that "You (UNM / CIRT / > LMDR local) have made some huge assumptions but have not developed any > clear plans for deployment and application or prudent financial need. We > (ACI) can really help you to do that." In many of the conversations > over the years with research departments who were the nominally targeted > end users asking what do you really need now and what will you need in > the future, ( called usability engineering ) it became very apparent > that, with the massive transformation in data originating from the > evolution from API-local-machine to API-application-cloud -worldwide, a > whole different model of information distribution was evolving and many > departments were, bluntly, even questioning the need for CIRT with its > system control, uber-boss mentality and the need for another expensive > centralized fat pipe system. I, and some financial experts at our top > local banks and audit companies, also thought that the financing that > would be required for LMDR to really work had been grossly > underestimated -- purposely -- and, again, they had a plan with no cost > basis except for expensive VERY expensive. LMDR is in need of LOTS of > money because its basic premise and plan was totally non realistic. > Supercomputers now are being outperformed worldwide by very different > initiatives (such as Beowulf clusters) for faster smaller more flexible > systems (Google api's) so that, to the researchers' joy, a heck of a lot > more budget dollars are going directly to the project bottom line. > > I2 got real industrial strength financial planning support from the > get-go. hence their very different model. After the ACI successfully > lobbied for the first basic capital support, and even contributed, we > were basically told to F*#@ off. Seven years later, I still do not see > any evidence that any application needs analysis, business plan, > realistic cost analysis even exists at UNM - CIRT - LMDR ( local or > national ) even the blue sky buzzwords have not changed. > > Again, what are the main problems with the LMDR initiative: Well, it's > been used as a huge fund raising tool by multiple people in this state > and nationwide (some involved in fraud, like Sandoval Broadband) who, > frankly, could not not tell the difference between an Ethernet > connection and a light bulb socket. Thats now being turned on its head > into a commercially directed profit center > > I also expect to see many of the LMDR board members nationwide suddenly > appear on commercial boards (Darkstrand) making another ton of money, > which would lead one to suspect the fix was in from the start. > > Under the circumstances, I think it would be prudent to freeze all > future government (at all levels, including university associated > grants) investment in LMDR until its board and Darkstrand come > absolutely clean with its business plan (audited, and including real > applications not buzzwords) and show us who really benefits (again, > audited) and what they did with all the money. Or let Goggle buy them > out and fire everyone who played this game. > > This is the entire future of the US we are talking about, and looking at > the pattern evolving : LMDR with UNM / CIRT as its local agent thinks > it's the next AT&T > > Barney, how about posting a clear UNM / CIRT / LMDR business plan > initiative that is web active iterate (If you post PDFs and PowerPoints, > you have proved my point) online so everyone can see who's what and > where and who REALLY benefits (in real terms, not hyper)? > > I also see that the I2 project site at UNM is 404. Does that mean what I > think it does? > > For Clarity , I am not a member nor do I have any financial interest in > either I2 or LMDR. > > For all those on the list intent on sending and spreading vitriol about > me: " Bring it on! I was raised in Mugabe country." And if you want to > debate this and post the debate on Youtube, let's go. > > ( : ( : pete > > Peter Baston > > *IDEAS* > > /www.ideapete.com/ > > > > > > > > > Arthur Maccabe wrote: >> >> Darkstrand's deal with NRL is that they will maintain part of the >> infrastructure and provide an infusion of money to extend NLR's assets >> in exchange for being able to sell excess bandwidth to commercial >> entities. The partnership makes sense in that the universities that >> bought into NLR are not in a position to market the assets and, in >> wake of the failed I2 merger, NLR was in need of money for expansion >> and for maintenance. The assets that we own are still owned by the >> members of NLR. >> >> I2 may currently have a better business model than NLR; however, I2's >> business model has improved quite bit since the inception of NLR. >> Moreover, NLR continues to offer services that I2 cannot offer and, >> until recently, I2's governance model was fundamentally broken. >> >> >> >> >> On Jun 22, 2008, at 10:41 PM, peter wrote: >> >>> Ho boy, now a company is going to charge companies for using >>> Lamdarail after the same companies spent years ponying up and raising >>> money to build it. >>> >>> http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-thu-darkstrand-fiber-optic-njun05,0,4884560.story >>> >>> >>> Internet 2 / Abilene was and is a far better business model >>> >>> I haven't seen this sort of chicanery since ATT tried to bury packet >>> switching and Ethernet >>> >>> Proves my point LMDR was an academic money raising scheme from the >>> beginning >>> >>> Who's going to be the first brave person to ask LMDR committee "what >>> they did with all the money ? " >>> >>> I also hear that Level 3 "PASSED" on the deal having a "BETTER" >>> option, something is seriously wrong here >>> >>> ( : ( : pete >>> -- >>> Peter Baston >>> IDEAS >>> www.ideapete.com >>> >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> 1st-mile-nm mailing list >>> 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >>> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm >> > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm _______________________________________________ 1st-mile-nm mailing list 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Mon Jun 23 12:03:22 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:03:22 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Chicago firm to sell untapped Lamdarail fiber bandwidth In-Reply-To: <8CAA378085D4CBF-BAC-1C98@WEBMAIL-MC13.sysops.aol.com> References: <485F2964.30001@ideapete.com> <0A29080A-8FCC-4EE4-BA85-11734B384316@unm.edu> <485FE5D1.5030804@ideapete.com> <485FE98A.2030103@citylinkfiber.com> <8CAA378085D4CBF-BAC-1C98@WEBMAIL-MC13.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <485FF37A.1000504@ideapete.com> Hi Janice Count me in at the politico help level ( explain this thing technology mantra to all ) this is a huge issue for the NM economy and only with some very hard questions being asked from your level with any clarity ever evolve. Currently its a huge boondoggle money pit going nowhere. Its only when all the details and benefits are clearly undependable to all participants at all levels whatever technical skill sets or knowledge that these systems will ever work. Will help in any way i can Richard again this spells out what our listserve should really do " Use our technology to demonstrate our technology " because NLR / NM-NRL / CIRT - UNM sure cannot ( : ( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ Janice E. Arnold-Jones wrote: > While I don't comment often (hardly at all) I read every 1st mile > communication. The answer to John Brown's question continues to elude > me as well. It is time for some answers and a path forward that > yields functional results. If ever we needed this > list-servs' combined experience and insight, it is now! > > /"Real connectivity will help us overcome our geography, preserve our > environment, and enhance our economic prosperity!" > / > > Janice E. Arnold-Jones > Representative, House District 24 > 7713 Sierra Azul NE > Albuquerque, NM 87110 > (505) 379-0902 cell > (505) 938-3141 work > (505) 938-3160 fax > > > -----Original Message----- > From: John Brown > To: peter > Cc: 1st-Mile-NM <1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org> > Sent: Mon, 23 Jun 2008 12:20 pm > Subject: Re: [1st-mile-nm] Chicago firm to sell untapped Lamdarail > fiber bandwidth > > whats interesting is that NLR and NM-NLR (two different entities) have > pitched to various people around the state that Commercial use would be > available for the NLR connection. > > County of Sandoval NM wanted (and still wants) to leverage the NLR > connection for commercial economic development. > > Other local commercial companies have expressed interest. > > To date, the NM-NLR folks haven't figured out how to make that work. > Even with commercial types willing to help the process. > > The question that I haven't ever been able to get answered from anyone > at NM-NLR / UNM / CIRT, etc is: > > Ok, So I connect to LambdaRail in Albuquerque (or Intel or Santa Fe or > ??), what is the other end of the connection ??? Does this guarantee > that I have a connection to Sony Studios in Culver City?? or to ?? > > No one can actually articulate the technical process and path that > packets will take once they are presented at the 505 Marquette location. > > Its a technical question and it requires a technical answer. To date > its been glossed over by the technical people managing NM-NLR. > > It would be nice to see that well articulated answer on this list. > > At present NM-NLR is a $5,000,000 ""asset"" that really isn't seeing > much use. Heck NMSU and NM Tech still are not connected, even after > everyone said they where a year ago. > > > John Brown, for himself > the views expressed here are my personal views and do not represent any > the views of any commercial interest. > > > peter wrote: > > I don't think that's the point Barney > > > > Let me lay out my train of thought for this posting in addition to the > > voluminous emails I have received this morning. > > > > Internet 2 ( I2 )and National LambdaRail* *( LMDR ) have a fundamentally > > different business model, based on the fact that I2 uses and leases its > > systems whereas LMDR wants to OWN everything end to end with someone > > else paying the tab.. The latter model doesn't even have a real business > > plan (what university or government idea does?) and no idea of final > > cost, except that its going to be huge $$$. I2/Abilene is following the > > electrical power "honest broker" infrastructure model of different > > entities controlling production, transmission and end supply to create > > impartiality and prevent an end to end monopoly, especially important as > > open access joins the ultra high bandwidth arena. LMDR wants to create > > an absolute monopoly from end to end. The commercial companies spotted > > this immediately and have been hammering at LMDR about the fact that > > they could end up sitting on a trillion-dollar asset -- all created > > under the feel good mantra of great research funded with public and > > private donated dollars. > > > > When LMDR tried to swallow I2 last year part of the different attitudes > > of both boards was the primary fact that it seemed LMDR was creating an > > absolute monopoly and it was obvious to many sources that I have talked > > to that LMDR was even then closely involved with commercial entities who > > could make a pile of money out of this. Now we know it was Darkstrand. > > I2 found this absolutely repellent to the very nature of the system and > > so balked. Thats why the takeover failed. (If anyone has any more > > details please post them.) Even go look at their websites and tell me > > which one really understands the web at todays lowly level and who knows > > where its headed (http://www.internet2.edu/ and http://www.nlr.net/). > > I2's tagline "Member FOCUSED, member led" says it all. LMDR can now say > > with a straight face "Using YOUR donated money to benefit our directors > > and shareholders." > > > > Some of the mail I have received this morning makes me out to be a > > Luddite / LMDR bigot, and for those who know me is laughable. No, I > > simply do not like to see my tax and donation dollars extracted under > > false pretenses. > > > > Back in about 2001, I served as senior technology adviser to the > > Association of Commerce and Industry (ACI) in Albuquerque. Why me? > > Well, read here http://www.ideapete.com/who.html. Frankly, i was trusted > > and potential tech fund raisers were not. LMDR local CIRT / UNM > > sponsors were trying to raise money for the local service connections > > including the gigabit pop at 505 Marquette and its connection to UNM > > CIRT, lobbying (mostly unsuccessfully) at all levels including state. No > > one at ACI really understood what LMDR was and how it impacted business > > and the economy, and so I was detailed to sort out all the technobabble > > being thrown around and enlighten ACI members. At the time much had been > > made of the fact that if business got behind the project, there would be > > huge benefits to industry and we (the business community) would be a > > primary cost efficient benefit user, and massive educational, health > > benefits would accrue, and on and on. Lots and lots of blue sky thinking > > and very little application outline and real rubber-meets-the-road > > clearly defined objectives or clarity. I even heard from one senior > > CIRT/LMDR source and he knows who he is ,when questioned about financial > > cost planning " Heck this is too exciting to put a price tag on it, its > > only money " I hope his mortgage company feels the same way. > > > > ACI delivered what we had been asked for and actively and successfully > > lobbied for funds. Even then, we pointed out that "You (UNM / CIRT / > > LMDR local) have made some huge assumptions but have not developed any > > clear plans for deployment and application or prudent financial need. We > > (ACI) can really help you to do that." In many of the conversations > > over the years with research departments who were the nominally targeted > > end users asking what do you really need now and what will you need in > > the future, ( called usability engineering ) it became very apparent > > that, with the massive transformation in data originating from the > > evolution from API-local-machine to API-application-cloud -worldwide, a > > whole different model of information distribution was evolving and many > > departments were, bluntly, even questioning the need for CIRT with its > > system control, uber-boss mentality and the need for another expensive > > centralized fat pipe system. I, and some financial experts at our top > > local banks and audit companies, also thought that the financing that > > would be required for LMDR to really work had been grossly > > underestimated -- purposely -- and, again, they had a plan with no cost > > basis except for expensive VERY expensive. LMDR is in need of LOTS of > > money because its basic premise and plan was totally non realistic. > > Supercomputers now are being outperformed worldwide by very different > > initiatives (such as Beowulf clusters) for faster smaller more flexible > > systems (Google api's) so that, to the researchers' joy, a heck of a lot > > more budget dollars are going directly to the project bottom line. > > > > I2 got real industrial strength financial planning support from the > > get-go. hence their very different model. After the ACI successfully > > lobbied for the first basic capital support, and even contributed, we > > were basically told to F*#@ off. Seven years later, I still do not see > > any evidence that any application needs analysis, business plan, > > realistic cost analysis even exists at UNM - CIRT - LMDR ( local or > > national ) even the blue sky buzzwords have not changed. > > > > Again, what are the main problems with the LMDR initiative: Well, it's > > been used as a huge fund raising tool by multiple people in this state > > and nationwide (some involved in fraud, like Sandoval Broadband) who, > > frankly, could not not tell the difference between an Ethernet > > connection and a light bulb socket. Thats now being turned on its head > > into a commercially directed profit center > > > > I also expect to see many of the LMDR board members nationwide suddenly > > appear on commercial boards (Darkstrand) making another ton of money, > > which would lead one to suspect the fix was in from the start. > > > > Under the circumstances, I think it would be prudent to freeze all > > future government (at all levels, including university associated > > grants) investment in LMDR until its board and Darkstrand come > > absolutely clean with its business plan (audited, and including real > > applications not buzzwords) and show us who really benefits (again, > > audited) and what they did with all the money. Or let Goggle buy them > > out and fire everyone who played this game. > > > > This is the entire future of the US we are talking about, and looking at > > the pattern evolving : LMDR with UNM / CIRT as its local agent thinks > > it's the next AT&T > > > > Barney, how about posting a clear UNM / CIRT / LMDR business plan > > initiative that is web active iterate (If you post PDFs and PowerPoints, > > you have proved my point) online so everyone can see who's what and > > where and who REALLY benefits (in real terms, not hyper)? > > > > I also see that the I2 project site at UNM is 404. Does that mean what I > > think it does? > > > > For Clarity , I am not a member nor do I have any financial interest in > > either I2 or LMDR. > > > > For all those on the list intent on sending and spreading vitriol about > > me: " Bring it on! I was raised in Mugabe country." And if you want to > > debate this and post the debate on Youtube, let's go. > > > > ( : ( : pete > > > > Peter Baston > > > > *IDEAS* > > > > /www.ideapete.com/ > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Arthur Maccabe wrote: > >> > >> Darkstrand's deal with NRL is that they will maintain part of the > >> infrastructure and provide an infusion of money to extend NLR's assets > >> in exchange for being able to sell excess bandwidth to commercial > >> entities. The partnership makes sense in that the universities that > >> bought into NLR are not in a position to market the assets and, in > >> wake of the failed I2 merger, NLR was in need of money for expansion > >> and for maintenance. The assets that we own are still owned by the > >> members of NLR. > >> > >> I2 may currently have a better business model than NLR; however, I2's > >> business model has improved quite bit since the inception of NLR. > >> Moreover, NLR continues to offer services that I2 cannot offer and, > >> until recently, I2's governance model was fundamentally broken. > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> On Jun 22, 2008, at 10:41 PM, peter wrote: > >> > >>> Ho boy, now a company is going to charge companies for using > >>> Lamdarail after the same companies spent years ponying up and raising > >>> money to build it. > >>> > >>> http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-thu-darkstrand-fiber-optic-njun05,0,4884560.story > >>> > >>> > >>> Internet 2 / Abilene was and is a far better business model > >>> > >>> I haven't seen this sort of chicanery since ATT tried to bury packet > >>> switching and Ethernet > >>> > >>> Proves my point LMDR was an academic money raising scheme from the > >>> beginning > >>> > >>> Who's going to be the first brave person to ask LMDR committee "what > >>> they did with all the money ? " > >>> > >>> I also hear that Level 3 "PASSED" on the deal having a "BETTER" > >>> option, something is seriously wrong here > >>> > >>> ( : ( : pete > >>> -- > >>> Peter Baston > >>> IDEAS > >>> www.ideapete.com > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> _______________________________________________ > >>> 1st-mile-nm mailing list > >>> 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > >>> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > >> > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > _______________________________________________ > > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Get the Moviefone Toolbar > . > Showtimes, theaters, movie news, & more! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From john at citylinkfiber.com Mon Jun 23 12:19:03 2008 From: john at citylinkfiber.com (John Brown) Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:19:03 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] DoIT spending money it doesn't need to Re: Chicago firm to sell untapped Lamdarail fiber bandwidth In-Reply-To: <485FF37A.1000504@ideapete.com> References: <485F2964.30001@ideapete.com> <0A29080A-8FCC-4EE4-BA85-11734B384316@unm.edu> <485FE5D1.5030804@ideapete.com> <485FE98A.2030103@citylinkfiber.com> <8CAA378085D4CBF-BAC-1C98@WEBMAIL-MC13.sysops.aol.com> <485FF37A.1000504@ideapete.com> Message-ID: <485FF727.2020704@citylinkfiber.com> Yup, DoIT likes to spend money that it doesn't have to spend. Thus wasting our funds. As far as I'm concerned our State IT management has failed multiple "intelligence tests" and should be held accountable for it. Lets look at one of them......... Lambda Rail to NMCAC connection. The NMCAC RFP stated that the NMCAC is suppose to have, initially 1 10Gig pipe, with growth to a total of 4 10Gig pipes. NMCAC was housed at iNTEL in Rio Rancho (Sandoval County). Yet there is NO Lambda Rail connection at iNTEL or in Sandoval County. The state, via SGI (Sillicon Graphics Inc) cut a deal with a major carrier to provide a 10Gig Pipe from downtown ABQ to iNTEL. Price tag: approx $25,000 per month for 36 months $900,000 total According to SGI and The Gov's office, this link was suppose to be operational by March 3, 2008. Its Jun 23, 2008 and rumors have that its just now become """"operational"""". I know of a company that proposed to build a fiber network from downtown to iNTEL for the $900,000 and then GIVE TO THE STATE 48 strands of DARK FIBER. That translates to around 9600 times the amount of bandwidth needed by NMCAC. So 40Gig x 9600 == BUCKETS OF BANDWIDTH. The ongoing costs to the state after the 3rd year was less than $50k per year. The winners would have been: NMCAC / UNM / NM-NLR / CIRT / STATE of NM / iNTEL County of Sandoval (the iNTEL site could have become a carrier hotel for Sandoval County) Businesses and residential users along the route from downtown to iNTEL. DoIT's response, nothing. They went and supported spending money with a major carrier for a fraction of a fraction of the bandwidth. Personally I support NLR and the technical potential of NM-NLR. It could be a very BIG win for EVERYONE in our state, if only the management of NM-NLR would actually manage and come good on the various promises that have been made. There has been to much smoke and mirrors. I can not for the life of me figure out why it takes YEARS to turn up bandwidth on 2 strands of fiber. Just this last weekend I connected 4 x 10Gig waves across two strands of fiber. That included racking, powering up, configuring, splicing, termination of the fiber, etc. Sure .GOV moves slow, we all know that, but I've seen glaciers advance faster than this. (That particular glacier is located on the South Island of New Zealand. Its advancing at the rate of 2 meters per year) There are MULTIPLE events like the one described above. I suspect that DoIT has wasted multiple MILLIONS in dollars that it didn't need to spend. Just think what those MILLIONS would have done for other projects in the state. Say Libraries ???? peter wrote: > Hi Janice > > Count me in at the politico help level ( explain this thing technology > mantra to all ) this is a huge issue for the NM economy and only with > some very hard questions being asked from your level with any clarity > ever evolve. > > Currently its a huge boondoggle money pit going nowhere. > > Its only when all the details and benefits are clearly undependable to > all participants at all levels whatever technical skill sets or > knowledge that these systems will ever work. > > Will help in any way i can > > Richard again this spells out what our listserve should really do " Use > our technology to demonstrate our technology " because NLR / NM-NRL / > CIRT - UNM sure cannot > > ( : ( : pete > > Peter Baston > > *IDEAS* > > /www.ideapete.com/ > > > > > > > > > Janice E. Arnold-Jones wrote: >> While I don't comment often (hardly at all) I read every 1st mile >> communication. The answer to John Brown's question continues to elude >> me as well. It is time for some answers and a path forward that >> yields functional results. If ever we needed this list-servs' >> combined experience and insight, it is now! >> >> /"Real connectivity will help us overcome our geography, preserve our >> environment, and enhance our economic prosperity!" >> / >> >> Janice E. Arnold-Jones >> Representative, House District 24 >> 7713 Sierra Azul NE >> Albuquerque, NM 87110 >> (505) 379-0902 cell >> (505) 938-3141 work >> (505) 938-3160 fax >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: John Brown >> To: peter >> Cc: 1st-Mile-NM <1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org> >> Sent: Mon, 23 Jun 2008 12:20 pm >> Subject: Re: [1st-mile-nm] Chicago firm to sell untapped Lamdarail >> fiber bandwidth >> >> whats interesting is that NLR and NM-NLR (two different entities) have >> pitched to various people around the state that Commercial use would be >> available for the NLR connection. >> >> County of Sandoval NM wanted (and still wants) to leverage the NLR >> connection for commercial economic development. >> >> Other local commercial companies have expressed interest. >> >> To date, the NM-NLR folks haven't figured out how to make that work. >> Even with commercial types willing to help the process. >> >> The question that I haven't ever been able to get answered from anyone >> at NM-NLR / UNM / CIRT, etc is: >> >> Ok, So I connect to LambdaRail in Albuquerque (or Intel or Santa Fe or >> ??), what is the other end of the connection ??? Does this guarantee >> that I have a connection to Sony Studios in Culver City?? or to ?? >> >> No one can actually articulate the technical process and path that >> packets will take once they are presented at the 505 Marquette location. >> >> Its a technical question and it requires a technical answer. To date >> its been glossed over by the technical people managing NM-NLR. >> >> It would be nice to see that well articulated answer on this list. >> >> At present NM-NLR is a $5,000,000 ""asset"" that really isn't seeing >> much use. Heck NMSU and NM Tech still are not connected, even after >> everyone said they where a year ago. >> >> >> John Brown, for himself >> the views expressed here are my personal views and do not represent any >> the views of any commercial interest. >> >> >> peter wrote: >> > I don't think that's the point Barney >> > > Let me lay out my train of thought for this posting in addition to >> the >> > voluminous emails I have received this morning. >> > > Internet 2 ( I2 )and National LambdaRail* *( LMDR ) have a >> fundamentally >> > different business model, based on the fact that I2 uses and leases >> its >> > systems whereas LMDR wants to OWN everything end to end with someone >> > else paying the tab.. The latter model doesn't even have a real >> business >> > plan (what university or government idea does?) and no idea of final >> > cost, except that its going to be huge $$$. I2/Abilene is following the >> > electrical power "honest broker" infrastructure model of different >> > entities controlling production, transmission and end supply to create >> > impartiality and prevent an end to end monopoly, especially >> important as >> > open access joins the ultra high bandwidth arena. LMDR wants to create >> > an absolute monopoly from end to end. The commercial companies spotted >> > this immediately and have been hammering at LMDR about the fact that >> > they could end up sitting on a trillion-dollar asset -- all created >> > under the feel good mantra of great research funded with public and >> > private donated dollars. >> > > When LMDR tried to swallow I2 last year part of the different >> attitudes >> > of both boards was the primary fact that it seemed LMDR was creating an >> > absolute monopoly and it was obvious to many sources that I have talked >> > to that LMDR was even then closely involved with commercial entities >> who >> > could make a pile of money out of this. Now we know it was Darkstrand. >> > I2 found this absolutely repellent to the very nature of the system and >> > so balked. Thats why the takeover failed. (If anyone has any more >> > details please post them.) Even go look at their websites and tell me >> > which one really understands the web at todays lowly level and who >> knows >> > where its headed (http://www.internet2.edu/ and http://www.nlr.net/). >> > I2's tagline "Member FOCUSED, member led" says it all. LMDR can now say >> > with a straight face "Using YOUR donated money to benefit our directors >> > and shareholders." >> > > Some of the mail I have received this morning makes me out to be a >> > Luddite / LMDR bigot, and for those who know me is laughable. No, I >> > simply do not like to see my tax and donation dollars extracted under >> > false pretenses. >> > > Back in about 2001, I served as senior technology adviser to the >> > Association of Commerce and Industry (ACI) in Albuquerque. Why me? >> > Well, read here http://www.ideapete.com/who.html. Frankly, i was >> trusted >> > and potential tech fund raisers were not. LMDR local CIRT / UNM >> > sponsors were trying to raise money for the local service connections >> > including the gigabit pop at 505 Marquette and its connection to UNM >> > CIRT, lobbying (mostly unsuccessfully) at all levels including >> state. No >> > one at ACI really understood what LMDR was and how it impacted business >> > and the economy, and so I was detailed to sort out all the technobabble >> > being thrown around and enlighten ACI members. At the time much had >> been >> > made of the fact that if business got behind the project, there >> would be >> > huge benefits to industry and we (the business community) would be a >> > primary cost efficient benefit user, and massive educational, health >> > benefits would accrue, and on and on. Lots and lots of blue sky >> thinking >> > and very little application outline and real rubber-meets-the-road >> > clearly defined objectives or clarity. I even heard from one senior >> > CIRT/LMDR source and he knows who he is ,when questioned about >> financial >> > cost planning " Heck this is too exciting to put a price tag on it, its >> > only money " I hope his mortgage company feels the same way. >> > > ACI delivered what we had been asked for and actively and >> successfully >> > lobbied for funds. Even then, we pointed out that "You (UNM / CIRT / >> > LMDR local) have made some huge assumptions but have not developed any >> > clear plans for deployment and application or prudent financial >> need. We >> > (ACI) can really help you to do that." In many of the conversations >> > over the years with research departments who were the nominally >> targeted >> > end users asking what do you really need now and what will you need in >> > the future, ( called usability engineering ) it became very apparent >> > that, with the massive transformation in data originating from the >> > evolution from API-local-machine to API-application-cloud -worldwide, a >> > whole different model of information distribution was evolving and many >> > departments were, bluntly, even questioning the need for CIRT with its >> > system control, uber-boss mentality and the need for another expensive >> > centralized fat pipe system. I, and some financial experts at our top >> > local banks and audit companies, also thought that the financing that >> > would be required for LMDR to really work had been grossly >> > underestimated -- purposely -- and, again, they had a plan with no cost >> > basis except for expensive VERY expensive. LMDR is in need of LOTS of >> > money because its basic premise and plan was totally non realistic. >> > Supercomputers now are being outperformed worldwide by very different >> > initiatives (such as Beowulf clusters) for faster smaller more flexible >> > systems (Google api's) so that, to the researchers' joy, a heck of a >> lot >> > more budget dollars are going directly to the project bottom line. >> > > I2 got real industrial strength financial planning support from the >> > get-go. hence their very different model. After the ACI successfully >> > lobbied for the first basic capital support, and even contributed, we >> > were basically told to F*#@ off. Seven years later, I still do not see >> > any evidence that any application needs analysis, business plan, >> > realistic cost analysis even exists at UNM - CIRT - LMDR ( local or >> > national ) even the blue sky buzzwords have not changed. >> > > Again, what are the main problems with the LMDR initiative: Well, >> it's >> > been used as a huge fund raising tool by multiple people in this state >> > and nationwide (some involved in fraud, like Sandoval Broadband) who, >> > frankly, could not not tell the difference between an Ethernet >> > connection and a light bulb socket. Thats now being turned on its head >> > into a commercially directed profit center >> > > I also expect to see many of the LMDR board members nationwide >> suddenly >> > appear on commercial boards (Darkstrand) making another ton of money, >> > which would lead one to suspect the fix was in from the start. >> > > Under the circumstances, I think it would be prudent to freeze all >> > future government (at all levels, including university associated >> > grants) investment in LMDR until its board and Darkstrand come >> > absolutely clean with its business plan (audited, and including real >> > applications not buzzwords) and show us who really benefits (again, >> > audited) and what they did with all the money. Or let Goggle buy them >> > out and fire everyone who played this game. >> > > This is the entire future of the US we are talking about, and >> looking at >> > the pattern evolving : LMDR with UNM / CIRT as its local agent thinks >> > it's the next AT&T >> > > Barney, how about posting a clear UNM / CIRT / LMDR business plan >> > initiative that is web active iterate (If you post PDFs and >> PowerPoints, >> > you have proved my point) online so everyone can see who's what and >> > where and who REALLY benefits (in real terms, not hyper)? >> > > I also see that the I2 project site at UNM is 404. Does that mean >> what I >> > think it does? >> > > For Clarity , I am not a member nor do I have any financial >> interest in >> > either I2 or LMDR. >> > > For all those on the list intent on sending and spreading vitriol >> about >> > me: " Bring it on! I was raised in Mugabe country." And if you want to >> > debate this and post the debate on Youtube, let's go. >> > > ( : ( : pete >> > > Peter Baston >> > > *IDEAS* >> > > /www.ideapete.com/ >> >> > > > > > > > > > Arthur Maccabe wrote: >> >> >> >> Darkstrand's deal with NRL is that they will maintain part of the >> >> infrastructure and provide an infusion of money to extend NLR's assets >> >> in exchange for being able to sell excess bandwidth to commercial >> >> entities. The partnership makes sense in that the universities that >> >> bought into NLR are not in a position to market the assets and, in >> >> wake of the failed I2 merger, NLR was in need of money for expansion >> >> and for maintenance. The assets that we own are still owned by the >> >> members of NLR. >> >> >> >> I2 may currently have a better business model than NLR; however, I2's >> >> business model has improved quite bit since the inception of NLR. >> >> Moreover, NLR continues to offer services that I2 cannot offer and, >> >> until recently, I2's governance model was fundamentally broken. >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> On Jun 22, 2008, at 10:41 PM, peter wrote: >> >> >> >>> Ho boy, now a company is going to charge companies for using >> >>> Lamdarail after the same companies spent years ponying up and raising >> >>> money to build it. >> >>> >> >>> >> http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-thu-darkstrand-fiber-optic-njun05,0,4884560.story >> >> >>> >> >>> >> >>> Internet 2 / Abilene was and is a far better business model >> >>> >> >>> I haven't seen this sort of chicanery since ATT tried to bury packet >> >>> switching and Ethernet >> >>> >> >>> Proves my point LMDR was an academic money raising scheme from the >> >>> beginning >> >>> >> >>> Who's going to be the first brave person to ask LMDR committee "what >> >>> they did with all the money ? " >> >>> >> >>> I also hear that Level 3 "PASSED" on the deal having a "BETTER" >> >>> option, something is seriously wrong here >> >>> >> >>> ( : ( : pete >> >>> -- >>> Peter Baston >> >>> IDEAS >> >>> www.ideapete.com >> >>> >> >>> >> >>> >> >>> _______________________________________________ >> >>> 1st-mile-nm mailing list >> >>> 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >> >>> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm >> >> >> > > > >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> > > _______________________________________________ >> > 1st-mile-nm mailing list >> > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >> > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm >> _______________________________________________ >> 1st-mile-nm mailing list >> 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> Get the Moviefone Toolbar >> . >> Showtimes, theaters, movie news, & more! > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm From pete at ideapete.com Mon Jun 23 13:28:28 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2008 14:28:28 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] DoIT spending money it doesn't need to Re: Chicago firm to sell untapped Lamdarail fiber bandwidth In-Reply-To: <485FF727.2020704@citylinkfiber.com> References: <485F2964.30001@ideapete.com> <0A29080A-8FCC-4EE4-BA85-11734B384316@unm.edu> <485FE5D1.5030804@ideapete.com> <485FE98A.2030103@citylinkfiber.com> <8CAA378085D4CBF-BAC-1C98@WEBMAIL-MC13.sysops.aol.com> <485FF37A.1000504@ideapete.com> <485FF727.2020704@citylinkfiber.com> Message-ID: <4860076C.20005@ideapete.com> As well as spelling out very clearly what applications ( with realistic cost benefit analysis's ) are running on these pipes especially when the biggest most power IT company worldwide ( Google ) is running a very different model and its working. Most of the reason for this waste is simply the state cannot StateIT or DoIT period. plus the fact that they audit IT themselves ( take the pun however you wish ) There is far to much emphasis on hardware , pipes and boxes, when the whole purpose of the exercise is what the hardware enables an application to do, guess which should come first. An open source "Beoulf cluster " would out perform the Intel based NMCAC system five fold and would have cost a fraction but the expense accounts would shrink too, yuck.. It would be curious to see how many humongous salaries are buried in these projects, and why that data is not on line, especially for work that could be done by a freshman in a weekend Maybe part of the glacial movement is simply there is not network / system / application plan and its really grab the money for anything you can and keep overwhelming the legislature funders with paperwork. No plan, no can period I think its especially funny when all the position papers / rfps / other support data are all Pdfs straight from trees and NM state departments and DoIT are still arguing whether email and texting is an official form of communication, using it not saving it they have already figured out how not to do the later. THAT says everything.. John we have to change those TLA's I keep rolling over laughing ( : ( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ John Brown wrote: > Yup, DoIT likes to spend money that it doesn't have to spend. Thus > wasting our funds. > > As far as I'm concerned our State IT management has failed multiple > "intelligence tests" and should be held accountable for it. > > Lets look at one of them......... > > Lambda Rail to NMCAC connection. > > The NMCAC RFP stated that the NMCAC is suppose to have, initially 1 > 10Gig pipe, with growth to a total of 4 10Gig pipes. > > NMCAC was housed at iNTEL in Rio Rancho (Sandoval County). Yet there is > NO Lambda Rail connection at iNTEL or in Sandoval County. > > The state, via SGI (Sillicon Graphics Inc) cut a deal with a major > carrier to provide a 10Gig Pipe from downtown ABQ to iNTEL. > > Price tag: approx $25,000 per month for 36 months $900,000 total > > According to SGI and The Gov's office, this link was suppose to be > operational by March 3, 2008. Its Jun 23, 2008 and rumors have that > its just now become """"operational"""". > > I know of a company that proposed to build a fiber network from downtown > to iNTEL for the $900,000 and then GIVE TO THE STATE 48 strands of DARK > FIBER. That translates to around 9600 times the amount of bandwidth > needed by NMCAC. So 40Gig x 9600 == BUCKETS OF BANDWIDTH. > > The ongoing costs to the state after the 3rd year was less than $50k per > year. > > The winners would have been: > > NMCAC / UNM / NM-NLR / CIRT / STATE of NM / iNTEL > County of Sandoval (the iNTEL site could have become a carrier hotel for > Sandoval County) > Businesses and residential users along the route from downtown to iNTEL. > > > DoIT's response, nothing. They went and supported spending money with a > major carrier for a fraction of a fraction of the bandwidth. > > > Personally I support NLR and the technical potential of NM-NLR. It > could be a very BIG win for EVERYONE in our state, if only the > management of NM-NLR would actually manage and come good on the various > promises that have been made. > > There has been to much smoke and mirrors. I can not for the life of me > figure out why it takes YEARS to turn up bandwidth on 2 strands of > fiber. Just this last weekend I connected 4 x 10Gig waves across two > strands of fiber. That included racking, powering up, configuring, > splicing, termination of the fiber, etc. > > Sure .GOV moves slow, we all know that, but I've seen glaciers advance > faster than this. (That particular glacier is located on the South > Island of New Zealand. Its advancing at the rate of 2 meters per year) > > > There are MULTIPLE events like the one described above. I suspect that > DoIT has wasted multiple MILLIONS in dollars that it didn't need to spend. > > Just think what those MILLIONS would have done for other projects in the > state. > > Say Libraries ???? > > > > > > peter wrote: > >> Hi Janice >> >> Count me in at the politico help level ( explain this thing technology >> mantra to all ) this is a huge issue for the NM economy and only with >> some very hard questions being asked from your level with any clarity >> ever evolve. >> >> Currently its a huge boondoggle money pit going nowhere. >> >> Its only when all the details and benefits are clearly undependable to >> all participants at all levels whatever technical skill sets or >> knowledge that these systems will ever work. >> >> Will help in any way i can >> >> Richard again this spells out what our listserve should really do " Use >> our technology to demonstrate our technology " because NLR / NM-NRL / >> CIRT - UNM sure cannot >> >> ( : ( : pete >> >> Peter Baston >> >> *IDEAS* >> >> /www.ideapete.com/ >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> Janice E. Arnold-Jones wrote: >> >>> While I don't comment often (hardly at all) I read every 1st mile >>> communication. The answer to John Brown's question continues to elude >>> me as well. It is time for some answers and a path forward that >>> yields functional results. If ever we needed this list-servs' >>> combined experience and insight, it is now! >>> >>> /"Real connectivity will help us overcome our geography, preserve our >>> environment, and enhance our economic prosperity!" >>> / >>> >>> Janice E. Arnold-Jones >>> Representative, House District 24 >>> 7713 Sierra Azul NE >>> Albuquerque, NM 87110 >>> (505) 379-0902 cell >>> (505) 938-3141 work >>> (505) 938-3160 fax >>> >>> >>> -----Original Message----- >>> From: John Brown >>> To: peter >>> Cc: 1st-Mile-NM <1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org> >>> Sent: Mon, 23 Jun 2008 12:20 pm >>> Subject: Re: [1st-mile-nm] Chicago firm to sell untapped Lamdarail >>> fiber bandwidth >>> >>> whats interesting is that NLR and NM-NLR (two different entities) have >>> pitched to various people around the state that Commercial use would be >>> available for the NLR connection. >>> >>> County of Sandoval NM wanted (and still wants) to leverage the NLR >>> connection for commercial economic development. >>> >>> Other local commercial companies have expressed interest. >>> >>> To date, the NM-NLR folks haven't figured out how to make that work. >>> Even with commercial types willing to help the process. >>> >>> The question that I haven't ever been able to get answered from anyone >>> at NM-NLR / UNM / CIRT, etc is: >>> >>> Ok, So I connect to LambdaRail in Albuquerque (or Intel or Santa Fe or >>> ??), what is the other end of the connection ??? Does this guarantee >>> that I have a connection to Sony Studios in Culver City?? or to ?? >>> >>> No one can actually articulate the technical process and path that >>> packets will take once they are presented at the 505 Marquette location. >>> >>> Its a technical question and it requires a technical answer. To date >>> its been glossed over by the technical people managing NM-NLR. >>> >>> It would be nice to see that well articulated answer on this list. >>> >>> At present NM-NLR is a $5,000,000 ""asset"" that really isn't seeing >>> much use. Heck NMSU and NM Tech still are not connected, even after >>> everyone said they where a year ago. >>> >>> >>> John Brown, for himself >>> the views expressed here are my personal views and do not represent any >>> the views of any commercial interest. >>> >>> >>> peter wrote: >>> >>>> I don't think that's the point Barney >>>> >>>>> Let me lay out my train of thought for this posting in addition to >>>>> >>> the >>> >>>> voluminous emails I have received this morning. >>>> >>>>> Internet 2 ( I2 )and National LambdaRail* *( LMDR ) have a >>>>> >>> fundamentally >>> >>>> different business model, based on the fact that I2 uses and leases >>>> >>> its >>> >>>> systems whereas LMDR wants to OWN everything end to end with someone >>>> else paying the tab.. The latter model doesn't even have a real >>>> >>> business >>> >>>> plan (what university or government idea does?) and no idea of final >>>> cost, except that its going to be huge $$$. I2/Abilene is following the >>>> electrical power "honest broker" infrastructure model of different >>>> entities controlling production, transmission and end supply to create >>>> impartiality and prevent an end to end monopoly, especially >>>> >>> important as >>> >>>> open access joins the ultra high bandwidth arena. LMDR wants to create >>>> an absolute monopoly from end to end. The commercial companies spotted >>>> this immediately and have been hammering at LMDR about the fact that >>>> they could end up sitting on a trillion-dollar asset -- all created >>>> under the feel good mantra of great research funded with public and >>>> private donated dollars. >>>> >>>>> When LMDR tried to swallow I2 last year part of the different >>>>> >>> attitudes >>> >>>> of both boards was the primary fact that it seemed LMDR was creating an >>>> absolute monopoly and it was obvious to many sources that I have talked >>>> to that LMDR was even then closely involved with commercial entities >>>> >>> who >>> >>>> could make a pile of money out of this. Now we know it was Darkstrand. >>>> I2 found this absolutely repellent to the very nature of the system and >>>> so balked. Thats why the takeover failed. (If anyone has any more >>>> details please post them.) Even go look at their websites and tell me >>>> which one really understands the web at todays lowly level and who >>>> >>> knows >>> >>>> where its headed (http://www.internet2.edu/ and http://www.nlr.net/). >>>> I2's tagline "Member FOCUSED, member led" says it all. LMDR can now say >>>> with a straight face "Using YOUR donated money to benefit our directors >>>> and shareholders." >>>> >>>>> Some of the mail I have received this morning makes me out to be a >>>>> >>>> Luddite / LMDR bigot, and for those who know me is laughable. No, I >>>> simply do not like to see my tax and donation dollars extracted under >>>> false pretenses. >>>> >>>>> Back in about 2001, I served as senior technology adviser to the >>>>> >>>> Association of Commerce and Industry (ACI) in Albuquerque. Why me? >>>> Well, read here http://www.ideapete.com/who.html. Frankly, i was >>>> >>> trusted >>> >>>> and potential tech fund raisers were not. LMDR local CIRT / UNM >>>> sponsors were trying to raise money for the local service connections >>>> including the gigabit pop at 505 Marquette and its connection to UNM >>>> CIRT, lobbying (mostly unsuccessfully) at all levels including >>>> >>> state. No >>> >>>> one at ACI really understood what LMDR was and how it impacted business >>>> and the economy, and so I was detailed to sort out all the technobabble >>>> being thrown around and enlighten ACI members. At the time much had >>>> >>> been >>> >>>> made of the fact that if business got behind the project, there >>>> >>> would be >>> >>>> huge benefits to industry and we (the business community) would be a >>>> primary cost efficient benefit user, and massive educational, health >>>> benefits would accrue, and on and on. Lots and lots of blue sky >>>> >>> thinking >>> >>>> and very little application outline and real rubber-meets-the-road >>>> clearly defined objectives or clarity. I even heard from one senior >>>> CIRT/LMDR source and he knows who he is ,when questioned about >>>> >>> financial >>> >>>> cost planning " Heck this is too exciting to put a price tag on it, its >>>> only money " I hope his mortgage company feels the same way. >>>> >>>>> ACI delivered what we had been asked for and actively and >>>>> >>> successfully >>> >>>> lobbied for funds. Even then, we pointed out that "You (UNM / CIRT / >>>> LMDR local) have made some huge assumptions but have not developed any >>>> clear plans for deployment and application or prudent financial >>>> >>> need. We >>> >>>> (ACI) can really help you to do that." In many of the conversations >>>> over the years with research departments who were the nominally >>>> >>> targeted >>> >>>> end users asking what do you really need now and what will you need in >>>> the future, ( called usability engineering ) it became very apparent >>>> that, with the massive transformation in data originating from the >>>> evolution from API-local-machine to API-application-cloud -worldwide, a >>>> whole different model of information distribution was evolving and many >>>> departments were, bluntly, even questioning the need for CIRT with its >>>> system control, uber-boss mentality and the need for another expensive >>>> centralized fat pipe system. I, and some financial experts at our top >>>> local banks and audit companies, also thought that the financing that >>>> would be required for LMDR to really work had been grossly >>>> underestimated -- purposely -- and, again, they had a plan with no cost >>>> basis except for expensive VERY expensive. LMDR is in need of LOTS of >>>> money because its basic premise and plan was totally non realistic. >>>> Supercomputers now are being outperformed worldwide by very different >>>> initiatives (such as Beowulf clusters) for faster smaller more flexible >>>> systems (Google api's) so that, to the researchers' joy, a heck of a >>>> >>> lot >>> >>>> more budget dollars are going directly to the project bottom line. >>>> >>>>> I2 got real industrial strength financial planning support from the >>>>> >>>> get-go. hence their very different model. After the ACI successfully >>>> lobbied for the first basic capital support, and even contributed, we >>>> were basically told to F*#@ off. Seven years later, I still do not see >>>> any evidence that any application needs analysis, business plan, >>>> realistic cost analysis even exists at UNM - CIRT - LMDR ( local or >>>> national ) even the blue sky buzzwords have not changed. >>>> >>>>> Again, what are the main problems with the LMDR initiative: Well, >>>>> >>> it's >>> >>>> been used as a huge fund raising tool by multiple people in this state >>>> and nationwide (some involved in fraud, like Sandoval Broadband) who, >>>> frankly, could not not tell the difference between an Ethernet >>>> connection and a light bulb socket. Thats now being turned on its head >>>> into a commercially directed profit center >>>> >>>>> I also expect to see many of the LMDR board members nationwide >>>>> >>> suddenly >>> >>>> appear on commercial boards (Darkstrand) making another ton of money, >>>> which would lead one to suspect the fix was in from the start. >>>> >>>>> Under the circumstances, I think it would be prudent to freeze all >>>>> >>>> future government (at all levels, including university associated >>>> grants) investment in LMDR until its board and Darkstrand come >>>> absolutely clean with its business plan (audited, and including real >>>> applications not buzzwords) and show us who really benefits (again, >>>> audited) and what they did with all the money. Or let Goggle buy them >>>> out and fire everyone who played this game. >>>> >>>>> This is the entire future of the US we are talking about, and >>>>> >>> looking at >>> >>>> the pattern evolving : LMDR with UNM / CIRT as its local agent thinks >>>> it's the next AT&T >>>> >>>>> Barney, how about posting a clear UNM / CIRT / LMDR business plan >>>>> >>>> initiative that is web active iterate (If you post PDFs and >>>> >>> PowerPoints, >>> >>>> you have proved my point) online so everyone can see who's what and >>>> where and who REALLY benefits (in real terms, not hyper)? >>>> >>>>> I also see that the I2 project site at UNM is 404. Does that mean >>>>> >>> what I >>> >>>> think it does? >>>> >>>>> For Clarity , I am not a member nor do I have any financial >>>>> >>> interest in >>> >>>> either I2 or LMDR. >>>> >>>>> For all those on the list intent on sending and spreading vitriol >>>>> >>> about >>> >>>> me: " Bring it on! I was raised in Mugabe country." And if you want to >>>> debate this and post the debate on Youtube, let's go. >>>> >>>>> ( : ( : pete >>>>> Peter Baston >>>>> *IDEAS* >>>>> /www.ideapete.com/ >>>>> >>> >>> >>>>>>>>>>>> Arthur Maccabe wrote: >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>> Darkstrand's deal with NRL is that they will maintain part of the >>>>> infrastructure and provide an infusion of money to extend NLR's assets >>>>> in exchange for being able to sell excess bandwidth to commercial >>>>> entities. The partnership makes sense in that the universities that >>>>> bought into NLR are not in a position to market the assets and, in >>>>> wake of the failed I2 merger, NLR was in need of money for expansion >>>>> and for maintenance. The assets that we own are still owned by the >>>>> members of NLR. >>>>> >>>>> I2 may currently have a better business model than NLR; however, I2's >>>>> business model has improved quite bit since the inception of NLR. >>>>> Moreover, NLR continues to offer services that I2 cannot offer and, >>>>> until recently, I2's governance model was fundamentally broken. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Jun 22, 2008, at 10:41 PM, peter wrote: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> Ho boy, now a company is going to charge companies for using >>>>>> Lamdarail after the same companies spent years ponying up and raising >>>>>> money to build it. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>> http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-thu-darkstrand-fiber-optic-njun05,0,4884560.story >>> >>> >>>>>> Internet 2 / Abilene was and is a far better business model >>>>>> >>>>>> I haven't seen this sort of chicanery since ATT tried to bury packet >>>>>> switching and Ethernet >>>>>> >>>>>> Proves my point LMDR was an academic money raising scheme from the >>>>>> beginning >>>>>> >>>>>> Who's going to be the first brave person to ask LMDR committee "what >>>>>> they did with all the money ? " >>>>>> >>>>>> I also hear that Level 3 "PASSED" on the deal having a "BETTER" >>>>>> option, something is seriously wrong here >>>>>> >>>>>> ( : ( : pete >>>>>> -- >>> Peter Baston >>>>>> IDEAS >>>>>> www.ideapete.com >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>>> 1st-mile-nm mailing list >>>>>> 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >>>>>> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm >>>>>> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>> >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> >>>> 1st-mile-nm mailing list >>>> 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >>>> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm >>>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> 1st-mile-nm mailing list >>> 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >>> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm >>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>> Get the Moviefone Toolbar >>> . >>> Showtimes, theaters, movie news, & more! >>> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 1st-mile-nm mailing list >> 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm >> > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Mon Jun 23 17:11:49 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2008 18:11:49 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] ANOTHER film studio Message-ID: <48603BC5.8050807@ideapete.com> Just heard that an announcement is coming out re ANOTHER digital film studio in the new downtown Rio Rancho area that is going to use ultra ultra high speed connections to NM-National Lamdarail via Sandoval Broadband,, John is this more hype of the same especially in the light of what we discussed today Sounds like more fund raising going on in Local La La land I checked and its way past April 1st ( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From granoff at zianet.com Mon Jun 23 19:48:25 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2008 19:48:25 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Supreme Court agrees to review suit against AT&T Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20080623194628.01bdac60@zianet.com> FYI. From another list. >Supreme Court agrees to review suit against AT&T > >http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080623/apfn_scotus_internet.html?.v=1 > >WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court intervened Monday in a lawsuit by an >Internet service provider accusing AT&T of anti-competitive practices. > >AT&T had asked the justices to step into the dispute over wholesale prices >AT&T charges for high-speed service to Internet service providers who then >compete with AT&T for retail Internet customers. > >AT&T says it is under no obligation to deal with the Internet service >providers and that the lawsuit should be thrown out for failing to state a >valid legal claim. > >The plaintiff in the lawsuit, LinkLine Communications Inc., buys >high-speed service from AT&T, combines it with other services and then >sells Internet-access service that compete against AT&T. > >The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled against AT&T, >saying the telecom company was setting its wholesale prices so high that >the Internet service provider could not compete with the low prices AT&T >charged in the retail market. The appeals court said that federal courts >have recognized such price squeeze allegations for six decades. > >The Bush administration had urged the Supreme Court to take the case as >AT&T requested. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From john at citylinkfiber.com Mon Jun 23 18:46:12 2008 From: john at citylinkfiber.com (John Brown) Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2008 19:46:12 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] ANOTHER film studio In-Reply-To: <48603BC5.8050807@ideapete.com> References: <48603BC5.8050807@ideapete.com> Message-ID: <486051E4.1070201@citylinkfiber.com> I have heard rumor that a new studio is arriving in RR. At present Sandoval county has no connection to the NM-NLR or the NLR. Sandoval county did execute an agreement with NM-NLR about 1 to 2 years ago that was suppose to give them commercial access/use and a seat on the NM-NLR Board of Directors. Last I knew this has yet to be followed thru with on the NM-NLR side. Sandoval County will have a wireless network that will support 100Mb/s. The Phase 1 backbone will NOT be connecting to downtown RR. I think certain folks don't understand what bit rate means and thus have a hard time comprehending the difference (let alone the technical challenges) of 100,000,000 bits per second vs 1,000,000,000 bits per second. My personal view is that Sandoval County deserves a bunch of credit for continuing to work on getting a vision executed. This current cycle promises to be highly productive and I believe they will reach the phase 1 goals generally on schedule. A 100Mb/s link to Cuba HS and the community of Cuba is a VERY GOOD THING, IMHO. To realize the amount of bit rate that a movie studio will need, requires fiber optics, more specifically DARK FIBER. But given that I own the only Dark Fiber company in the state, I won't toot our horn about that on a list. The above data is what I believe to be current facts, minus the sugar coating. :) peter wrote: > Just heard that an announcement is coming out re ANOTHER digital film > studio in the new downtown Rio Rancho area that is going to use ultra > ultra high speed connections to NM-National Lamdarail via Sandoval > Broadband,, > > John is this more hype of the same especially in the light of what we > discussed today > > Sounds like more fund raising going on in Local La La land > > I checked and its way past April 1st > > ( : ( : pete > -- > > Peter Baston > > *IDEAS* > > /www.ideapete.com/ > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm From john at citylinkfiber.com Mon Jun 23 19:05:37 2008 From: john at citylinkfiber.com (John Brown) Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2008 20:05:37 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Sandoval County Broadband (wireless) project, version 2.0 Message-ID: <48605671.109@citylinkfiber.com> Just an unofficial note about the Sandoval County Broadband project. Having been a participant in the version 1.0 project, I can say that the version 2.0 edition is going much differently. Lots of good lessons where learned from 1.0, they are being applied to the 2.0 version. Debbie Hayes, County Manager, has always stated that the vision was to create a "living laboratory", something that we can learn from, something that will evolve over time. The County has stuck to its vision, even when the chips where down and they had auditors and others swarming around them. They should be commended for sticking to a vision and executing on it. The phase 1 backbone is going to provide a minimum of 100Mb/s, useful bandwidth, from the JC, to Placitas Firehouse, to Pajarito, to Cuba water tank, to downtown Cuba / Cuba HS. Later phases will connect spurs, or as one member on this list likes to call it (riblets) off of the backbone. Initially the link is designed to carry County related traffic. But from a technical perspective, it could easily carry other traffic as well. The new County IT director has been doing a darn good job of managing the project and keeping the contractors in line with respects to deliverables. Its been a bumpy road, but so far I think this iteration is worth watching and potentially duplicating elsewhere in the state. I think its pretty darn cool that Cuba HS will have more bandwidth than my house has in Albuquerque, by 100x. That should be a big plus for education, heath care and econ devel in Cuba. At times the negative words can over shadow the positive, and so I thought it might be worth the electrons to shine some positive light on something that is working. Remember that it took Edison 1000 tries to figure out that thing called a light-bulb :) From rl at 1st-mile.com Mon Jun 23 19:35:19 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2008 19:35:19 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Ground rules for more productive exchanges Message-ID: <20080623193519.q5zbgpes8w8o4wg4@www2.dcn.org> 1st-Milers, I, along with many others of you, greatly appreciate the concern and passion that issues such as the NLR and Darkstrand deal provoke. In my uncomfortable role as ?hall monitor? on this list, I wish to offer a few suggestions, however. This email list is the only place for online public discussion and exchange on broadband networking issues in this state (NM). As such, it was established in part, to share information resources, question presumptions, accurately address issues, and hopefully help change existing problems for the better, and for all. In addition to the recognizable active voices on this list, who care deeply, have experience and may be working on these efforts long-term, there are also some subscribers to this list, who are involved in statewide IT and telecom. decision-making and implementation, who care about ?getting it right?, and mostly read but do not post. There are some other states? and national, knowledgable participants on the list, as well. It is my intent that our online exchanges can be the impetus for the productive changes that we all want and need to have realized. To have a productive effect, however, requires some basic ?netiquette? ground rules. Factual information and references, please. Common courtesy and a degree good neighborliness (diplomacy). No inaccurate info., unsubstantiated insinuations or repeating of rumors. No personal (or organizational) character assaults, or vitriolic rants. Making enemies and promoting factionalism will defeat our purposes. Remember, those who really don?t care, are not subscribed to this list. Keep personal exchanges personal and off-list. None of these ?rules? should hamper our abilities to honestly and effectively address the issues and situations we encounter. Observing them may also provoke some informed ?lurkers? to come out and to join the conversation with productive offerings, without feeling like they may be assaulted. So, in the spirit of cooperation, constructive criticism and open civic deliberation: onward. Thanks everyone. RL -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Tue Jun 24 09:50:54 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2008 09:50:54 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] NLR & Darkstrand Message-ID: <20080624095054.78sylx39sco0084o@www2.dcn.org> Like some others of you that are keenly interested in the future of the LambdaRail Network in New Mexico (and nationwide), I am making contact with key individuals at the NLR and at Darkstrand. I will post updates to this list as I learn more. I hope that those involved with the NM LambdaRail, that are subscribed to this list, will help us to understand the issues, the opportunities and potential difficulties, accurately and openly. The following short note was just sent to me by Tom West, Pres. and CEO of the NLR: DARKSTRAND PURCHASED THE RIGHT TO 50% OF THE CIRCUIT CAPACITY ON THE NLR BACKBONE--NATIONWIDE--80/64 CIRCUITS ON EACH SEGMENT--64 ON ALBUQUERQUE TO EL PASO IS EXAMPLE. NLR RETAINS 64 OR TWICE ITS CURRENT CAPACITY ON THAT SAME SEGMENT. IT DOES NOT AFFECT NLR GOVERNANCE IN ANY WAY. A BUSINESS ALLIANCE NOT A MERGER OR A BUY INTO NLR. DARKSTRAND IS WORKING HARD TO WORK WITH REGIONAL MEMBERS. NEW MEXICO IS A PRIORITY. TOM -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From ggomes at soundviewnet.com Tue Jun 24 11:27:38 2008 From: ggomes at soundviewnet.com (Gary Gomes) Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2008 12:27:38 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] NLR & Darkstrand In-Reply-To: <20080624095054.78sylx39sco0084o@www2.dcn.org> References: <20080624095054.78sylx39sco0084o@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: <751B554DC68C449F8BBCDED36FC0D743@GARY> We may need to reframe or broaden the discussion. It seems to me the issue is primarily how we as a region can maximize the utilization of and benefits to be derived from the investment in NM-LR. At least in southern New Mexico, the biggest constraint is that other, that State Agencies (including the universities), we have to get to the NLR Pop via expensive commercial (read incumbent) facilities even though underutilized state/University owned capacity exists - thanks again HR 75! So while municipal, educational (K-12) and commercial use was envisioned (or at least "marketed") in the selling of the NM-LR investment, the realization of those benefits is being stifled. Alternatives to QWEST may exist in the Albuquerque area for metro connectivity and the Las Cruces area may (with a lot of work, time and luck) be able to create a regional consortium to access the El Paso POP; how about the rest of the state? It seems to me that in order to fully realize the promise and public benefit of Lambda Rail, I2, Wired New Mexico, etc. HR 75 needs to be repealed. Gary -----Original Message----- From: 1st-mile-nm-bounces+ggomes=soundviewnet.com at mailman.dcn.org [mailto:1st-mile-nm-bounces+ggomes=soundviewnet.com at mailman.dcn.org] On Behalf Of Richard Lowenberg Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2008 10:51 AM To: 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org Subject: [1st-mile-nm] NLR & Darkstrand Like some others of you that are keenly interested in the future of the LambdaRail Network in New Mexico (and nationwide), I am making contact with key individuals at the NLR and at Darkstrand. I will post updates to this list as I learn more. I hope that those involved with the NM LambdaRail, that are subscribed to this list, will help us to understand the issues, the opportunities and potential difficulties, accurately and openly. The following short note was just sent to me by Tom West, Pres. and CEO of the NLR: DARKSTRAND PURCHASED THE RIGHT TO 50% OF THE CIRCUIT CAPACITY ON THE NLR BACKBONE--NATIONWIDE--80/64 CIRCUITS ON EACH SEGMENT--64 ON ALBUQUERQUE TO EL PASO IS EXAMPLE. NLR RETAINS 64 OR TWICE ITS CURRENT CAPACITY ON THAT SAME SEGMENT. IT DOES NOT AFFECT NLR GOVERNANCE IN ANY WAY. A BUSINESS ALLIANCE NOT A MERGER OR A BUY INTO NLR. DARKSTRAND IS WORKING HARD TO WORK WITH REGIONAL MEMBERS. NEW MEXICO IS A PRIORITY. TOM -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. _______________________________________________ 1st-mile-nm mailing list 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm From josmon at rigozsaurus.com Tue Jun 24 12:32:25 2008 From: josmon at rigozsaurus.com (John Osmon) Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2008 13:32:25 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] NLR & Darkstrand In-Reply-To: <751B554DC68C449F8BBCDED36FC0D743@GARY> References: <20080624095054.78sylx39sco0084o@www2.dcn.org> <751B554DC68C449F8BBCDED36FC0D743@GARY> Message-ID: <20080624193225.GD13269@rigozsaurus.com> On Tue, Jun 24, 2008 at 12:27:38PM -0600, Gary Gomes wrote: [...] > Alternatives to QWEST may exist in the Albuquerque area for metro > connectivity and the Las Cruces area may (with a lot of work, time and luck) > be able to create a regional consortium to access the El Paso POP; how about > the rest of the state? There are some alternatives -- but they still aren't cheap. It's not that hard to build a shared infrastructure hub in any given city in New Mexico, and then buy a single backhaul. Everyone attaching to that hub gets to collectively share in the backhaul costs. It can be built on the incumbents network, and gets a first step in place. There is at least one commercial entity that has built such a network, and can currently deliver MPLS/IP connectivity to 20+ cities around New Mexico. Their pricing also includes the costs to manage the hub equipment, monitor the network, etc. They'll even give you Internet access along with the transport around the state. It's all based on available TDM services, but if enough people would buy from them, they'd be happy to scale things up. They'll also sell ethernet connectivity if you want to work with them to find a way to deliver it locally. I know that they would be willing to build and manage fiber from the hub to your premise if it made financial sense Alternatives exsit if people will work together. So find some neighbors and businesses that want to share the cost of building fiber! Get the connectivity going in some small areas, and then interconnect them when the opportunity is right -- it doesn't have to be done all at once... From granoff at zianet.com Wed Jun 25 08:34:29 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2008 09:34:29 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: GigaLaw.com Daily News, June 25, 2008 Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20080625093324.01cdf2a0@mail.zianet.com> From another list. FYI. >Group Pushes for Affordable National Broadband Policy > In response to concerns that cable and telecom companies aren't > doing enough to build out broadband access in the U.S., public interest > and business groups have formed a new initiative to push for a national > broadband policy. The new InternetforEveryone.org organization aims to > ensure that all Americans have affordable access to high-speed Internet > service. > Read more: http://www.internetnews.com/infra/article.php/3755041 > From rl at 1st-mile.com Wed Jun 25 10:46:06 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2008 10:46:06 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Public Invited to Review FCC Strategic Plan Message-ID: <20080625104606.j6d60nsy044s8o48@www2.dcn.org> Forwarded from another list: The FCC has released its Strategic Plan for the next five years. It includes a section on Broadband, and other areas that will be of interest to 1st-Mile subscribers. rl PUBLIC INVITED TO REVIEW FCC STRATEGIC PLAN [SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission] The Federal Communications Commission announced that the public is welcome to review and comment on a draft of its revised Strategic Plan for 2009-2014. The revised draft Strategic Plan is a "work in progress" that is complete enough to allow review and comment on the strategic direction the Commission intends to follow in the coming years. Commenters are asked to focus specifically on: 1. The strategic direction proposed in the document as embodied in the general goals and objectives; 2. Providing additional contextual information not covered in the document's text; and 3. The means and strategies that the Commission should undertake to accomplish its goals. Those wishing to review the revised draft plan can find it on the Commission's website at: . Comments should be sent to walter.boswell at fcc.gov no later than July 24, 2008. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Wed Jun 25 11:17:07 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2008 11:17:07 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: PRC to discuss "Truth in Billing" docket tomorrow Message-ID: <20080625111707.r620kr50ggss0go8@www2.dcn.org> ----- Forwarded message from BHarris at nmag.gov ----- Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2008 12:10:23 -0600 From: "Harris, Brian, WEU NMAGO" Subject: PRC to discuss "Truth in Billing" docket tomorrow On June 26th, the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission will discuss Case No. 08-00006-UT. 08-00006-UT IN THE MATTER OF NOTICE OF INQUIRY INTO BILLING AND MARKETING PRACTICES FOR TELEPHONE LOCAL EXCHANGE SERVICES ("TRUTH IN BILLING"). I'm sure the decision makers would be interested in hearing from businesses and individuals in the industry. They have a very full agenda tomorrow (it's available on the website) so it's impossible to say exactly when this might occur, but public participation is very important. Brian Harris Assistant Attorney General 827-7479 ----- End forwarded message ----- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From granoff at zianet.com Wed Jun 25 11:56:23 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2008 12:56:23 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Public Invited to Review FCC Strategic Plan In-Reply-To: <20080625104606.j6d60nsy044s8o48@www2.dcn.org> References: <20080625104606.j6d60nsy044s8o48@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20080625125426.01cbb7a0@mail.zianet.com> Since the next President has the power to appoint new FCC commissioners, any plan that this Commission puts in place is "subject to change". :) Marianne At 10:46 AM 6/25/2008 -0700, Richard Lowenberg wrote: >Forwarded from another list: >The FCC has released its Strategic Plan for the next five years. >It includes a section on Broadband, and other areas that will be of >interest to >1st-Mile subscribers. >rl > >PUBLIC INVITED TO REVIEW FCC STRATEGIC PLAN >[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission] > >The Federal Communications Commission announced that the public is >welcome to review and comment on a draft of its revised Strategic Plan >for 2009-2014. The revised draft Strategic Plan is a "work in >progress" that is complete enough to allow review and comment on the >strategic direction the Commission intends to follow in the coming >years. Commenters are asked to focus specifically on: 1. The strategic >direction proposed in the document as embodied in the general goals >and objectives; 2. Providing additional contextual information not >covered in the document's text; and 3. The means and strategies that >the Commission should undertake to accomplish its goals. Those wishing >to review the revised draft plan can find it on the Commission's >website at: . Comments should be >sent to walter.boswell at fcc.gov no later than July 24, 2008. > > > > >-- >Richard Lowenberg >1st-Mile Institute >P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 >505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell >rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com > > >---------------------------------------------------------------- >This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. >_______________________________________________ >1st-mile-nm mailing list >1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > >No virus found in this incoming message. >Checked by AVG. >Version: 8.0.101 / Virus Database: 270.4.1/1518 - Release Date: 6/25/2008 >9:46 AM From BHarris at nmag.gov Wed Jun 25 11:55:29 2008 From: BHarris at nmag.gov (Harris, Brian, WEU NMAGO) Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2008 12:55:29 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Public Invited to Review FCC Strategic Plan In-Reply-To: <6.1.2.0.2.20080625125426.01cbb7a0@mail.zianet.com> Message-ID: But that's always true, look at the twisted fortunes of the UNE rules. Brian -----Original Message----- From: 1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org [mailto:1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org] On Behalf Of Marianne Granoff Sent: Wednesday, June 25, 2008 12:56 PM To: Richard Lowenberg; 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org Subject: Re: [1st-mile-nm] Public Invited to Review FCC Strategic Plan Since the next President has the power to appoint new FCC commissioners, any plan that this Commission puts in place is "subject to change". :) Marianne At 10:46 AM 6/25/2008 -0700, Richard Lowenberg wrote: >Forwarded from another list: >The FCC has released its Strategic Plan for the next five years. >It includes a section on Broadband, and other areas that will be of >interest to >1st-Mile subscribers. >rl > >PUBLIC INVITED TO REVIEW FCC STRATEGIC PLAN >[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission] > >The Federal Communications Commission announced that the public is >welcome to review and comment on a draft of its revised Strategic Plan >for 2009-2014. The revised draft Strategic Plan is a "work in >progress" that is complete enough to allow review and comment on the >strategic direction the Commission intends to follow in the coming >years. Commenters are asked to focus specifically on: 1. The strategic >direction proposed in the document as embodied in the general goals >and objectives; 2. Providing additional contextual information not >covered in the document's text; and 3. The means and strategies that >the Commission should undertake to accomplish its goals. Those wishing >to review the revised draft plan can find it on the Commission's >website at: . Comments should be >sent to walter.boswell at fcc.gov no later than July 24, 2008. > > > > >-- >Richard Lowenberg >1st-Mile Institute >P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 >505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell >rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com > > >---------------------------------------------------------------- >This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. >_______________________________________________ >1st-mile-nm mailing list >1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > >No virus found in this incoming message. >Checked by AVG. >Version: 8.0.101 / Virus Database: 270.4.1/1518 - Release Date: 6/25/2008 >9:46 AM _______________________________________________ 1st-mile-nm mailing list 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm From granoff at zianet.com Thu Jun 26 14:11:28 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2008 15:11:28 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Article on PRC Nominee Jerome Black Jr. Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20080626150726.01fc0ec0@mail.zianet.com> This article appeared in the Santa Fe Reporter on 6-25-2008. Jerome Block Jr. is the son of long-time PRC Commissioner Jerome Block Sr. There has been some speculation that at least some voters thought they were voting for the former Commissioner. FYI. > >http://sfreporter.com/articles/publish/outtake-062508-failure-to-appear.php > >NEWS >Failure to Appear >By Dave Maass > >Published: June 25, 2008 > >Jerome Block Jr.'s legal history includes missing court dates. > >Aggravated DWI, unlawful riding, urinating in public, ditching out on >court-ordered child-support mediation and breach of contract???these are >the charges that Jerome Block Jr., the Democratic nominee to represent >District 3 on the Public Regulation Commission, has faced in court over >the last decade, SFR has discovered. > > >Several attempts were made to reach Jerome Block Jr. for this story. File >Photo > >Block missed an interview appointment he set with SFR to discuss his >record and did not return repeated phone calls prior to deadline. > >Each election cycle, the Albuquerque Journal asks candidates in every race >a series of standard questions, including whether they have been arrested. > >Block told the Journal he had been arrested in 1998 for ???suspicion of >DUI??? and had been found ???not guilty.??? > >However, in investigating Block???s legal history, both criminal and >civil, SFR has uncovered several facts in discordance with Block???s >public statement. > >At 31, Block???s official criminal record is clean. However, despite his >claims to the Journal, he was not found ???not guilty??? by a court for >his drunk driving arrest. > >Not only was his explanation of his exoneration inaccurate, but he failed >to disclose a second DWI-related arrest a year later, to which he pleaded >guilty. Furthermore, Block???s record shows a history of missing court >dates, including two failure to appear charges tied to a citation for >urinating in public and three skipped court-ordered mediations for a >child-support case. > >According to the police report filed by the Albuquerque Police Department, >on June 26, 1998, an officer witnessed Block drive through a red light >into an intersection, then back up. After being pulled over, Block >allegedly failed the field sobriety test and told the officer he had >consumed two beers and a Long Island Iced Tea. He was arrested and >underwent a breath test, which established his blood alcohol content at >0.17, more than double the legal limit, the report says. > >Block was charged with aggravated DWI, an offense that currently comes >with a mandatory jail sentence. The then-21-year-old pleaded not guilty. >The court records show the case was temporarily dismissed with the note, >???State not prepared,??? which typically means the arresting officer was >unavailable to attend the hearing. > >A week later, on Aug. 9, 1998, Block was cited by APD again, this time for >???disorderly conduct,??? during the city???s annual Summerfest. According >to the police report, Block was caught urinating on a bush on APD >property, five yards from the crowded foot traffic on Civic Plaza. > >Albuquerque Metropolitan Court handled both cases separately. Block >received two failure to appear charges after missing court dates in the >disorderly conduct case. All three charges were abandoned; the records of >why have since been destroyed. > >Although prosecutors reopened the aggravated DWI case, the charge was >dropped under a rule that said that if a defendant isn???t adjudicated >within six months, the court must dismiss the case. > >???Anybody worth their salt???defense attorneys, prosecutors or >judges???will tell you it???s a game,??? Linda Atkinson, executive >director of the DWI Resource Center in Albuquerque, tells SFR. ???Defense >attorneys generally knew that if you did delays and you made motions for >pre-trial discovery and one of the biggest ones that gets to be a problem >is the interview with the police officer, you could just play this waiting >game because the minute somebody didn???t show up, they could claim the >six-month rule and that???s how it gets dismissed.??? > >Since 1999, the Second Judicial District Attorney???s Office, now headed >by Kari Brandenburg, has tightened up the law so fewer cases fall through >these cracks. > >???We???ve just adopted new policies on discovery, pretrial interviews and >the six-month rules,??? Brandenburg tells SFR. ???Now we can ask the court >for an extension.??? > >Nevertheless, Brandenburg says that because the case never went to trial, >no judge or jury ever determined guilt one way or another, despite >Block???s claim to the Journal. > >Block also told the Journal: ???I am in full support of DUI laws in New >Mexico, and I applaud all efforts taken to stop people from drinking and >driving. I have learned from that experience from my youth, and I will >make sure the event does not repeat itself.??? > >However, Santa Fe County jail and Santa Fe Police Department records show >that Block had a second arrest on DWI-related charges one year after the first. > >On July 7, 1999, Block was taken into custody for ???unlawful riding.??? >SFPD Sgt. Gillian Alessio tells SFR this is a charge reserved for >passengers who should have reasonably known the driver was too intoxicated >to get behind the steering wheel. > >According to the SFPD report, officers had responded to a domestic >violence call and, upon arriving, saw a car driven by Robert Martinez, >(listed on the report as Block???s brother), speed away from the scene. >Officers caught up to the vehicle and arrested Block and Martinez. The >latter had a blood-alcohol content of 0.21. > >Municipal Court records show Block pleaded guilty to the offense of >unlawful riding and was assigned one-year probation, 24 hours of community >service and alcohol and drug testing. He completed these requirements and >the charge was subsequently cleared from his record. > >Over the years that followed, Block picked up two speeding tickets, which >were both dismissed. > >In 2004, however, Block was again in the court system when the mother of >one of his children filed motions to set child support and child custody >guidelines. > >The child was born in November 2002 to Kimberley Gonzales, almost exactly >nine months after Block filed for a marriage license with his current >wife, Stephanie Block. > >The court records show that Block failed to appear at all three mediation >hearings set by the court, leading Gonzales??? attorney, Caroline Bass, to >file a letter with the court accusing Block of intentionally impeding the >process. > >Soon after, Block retained lawyer Kathrin Kinzer-Ellington, who >represented Block while the court set the child support. A year later, >when Gonzales filed for an increase in child support, Kinzer-Ellington >withdrew from the case. The record shows that Kinzer-Ellington was unable >to inform Block directly of her withdrawal and instead notified his >father, former Public Regulation Commissioner Jerome Block Sr. > >According to Bass, this was typical throughout the case; process servers >found it difficult to locate Block, who uses multiple addresses in >official records. > >Block also was unresponsive in his most recent case. > >Throughout his primary campaign, Block was involved in a legal dispute >brought by First Community Bank, which claimed that Block had defaulted on >two loans totaling $8,150. On Feb. 4, 2008, with no response filed or >appearances made by Block, the Bernalillo District Court awarded the bank $430. > >Two days later, Block paid up. > >Block won the six-way June 3 Democratic primary election for the PRC with >22.8 percent of the vote. While there is no Republican challenger, the New >Mexico Green Party nominated activist Rick Lass to run for the seat in the >general election. > > >?? Copyright 2000?2007 by the Santa Fe Reporter > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Fri Jun 27 07:43:10 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2008 07:43:10 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: Regional Broadband Infrastructure Meeting Message-ID: <20080627074310.kisvcwejmso0sk84@www2.dcn.org> The following, which some of you may be interested in attending next Tuesday, came without the agenda attachment. I will include the agenda in another email to this list, if I get can it. rl ----- TELECOMMUNICATION NEEDS ? RIO ARRIBA, TAOS, SANTA FE, AND LOS ALAMOS COUNTIES As you may be aware, the Regional Economic Development Initiative (REDI) is working with community leaders and local citizens to develop and implement an effective strategy for short and long-term needs in telecommunications infrastructure. Every community has special needs to upgrade their telecommunications systems in order to meet the growth of their community. I would like to invite you to attend a workshop at the College of Santa Fe on Tuesday July 1st, 2008 between 9:00 am and 12:00 noon to help us develop a plan on Telecommunication priorities. The meeting will be held at the offices of North Central Economic Development District. Your attendance is critical if we are to create a plan that includes your specific needs. The plan will focus on the needs of the counties of Taos, Rio Arriba, Los Alamos, and Santa Fe (and all of the communities and Pueblos within those counties). As with all of the work done by REDI, the outcomes will be presented to the regional stakeholders who have commissioned it - our local units of government. Please mark your calendars and see if you can rearrange your schedule and join us for this important meeting. In order to avoid duplication of any previous work you have been involved in, we will first start off by reviewing existing plans, or plans that are currently underway. Feel free to bring copies of any plans you have been working on, and be prepared to discuss those plans. Attached is a copy of the agenda for our first meeting. The agenda includes directions to the NCNMEDD offices and a phone number in the event you have difficulty finding the place. Please join us. Gustavo ?Gus? Cordova Infrastructure Team -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From granoff at zianet.com Fri Jun 27 08:46:07 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2008 09:46:07 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: 6.27.08 Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20080627094017.01c62390@mail.zianet.com> Edited for interest. FYI. >U.S. Broadband Cannot Be Fixed Until You Tackle Corruption - Editorial: >broadband cheerleading and Ivy League round tables aren't enough , dslreports >An eclectic and disjointed mix of businesses, consumer advocacy >organizations, politicians and technologists this week banded together >under the "Internet For Everyone" banner to promote, well, Internet for >everyone. The group's long list of strange bedfellows includes the ACLU, >Google, Consumer's Union, Internet2, OpenDNS, Free Press, the Writers >Guild of America, the Nancy Drew fan fiction club and many more -- though >I think they fail to directly tackle this industry's most pressing >problem. According to the group's website, the organization has four >primary principles: > >http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/US-Broadband-Cannot-Be-Fixed-Until-You-Tackle-Corruption-95609 > > >ICANN Board Approves Sweeping Overhaul of Top-level Domains, CircleID >The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has just >approved the relaxation of the rules for the introduction of new Top-Level >Domains -- a move that could drastically change the Internet. The new >decision -- some calling it of historic importance and others predictable >-- will allow companies to register their brands as generic top-level >domain names (TLDs). For instance, Microsoft could apply to have a TLD >such as '.msn' and Apple apply for '.mac'. > >http://www.circleid.com/posts/86269_icann_approves_overhaul_top_level_domains/ > > >Feds Ready for IPv6 D-Day, CircleID >On June 30, U.S. federal government officials expect to declare an early >victory on the IPv6 front. But they admit that meeting their much-heralded >June 30 deadline for IPv6 compatibility is just the opening salvo of a >long-term battle to get their networks ready for the Internet of the >future. Under a White House policy issued in August 2005, all federal >agencies must demonstrate the ability to pass IPv6 packets across their >backbone networks by this deadline > http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/062608-ipv6-federal-government.html > > >Senate Vote On Telco Immunity Pushed Back, Techdirt >While the initial reports on the so-called "compromise" bill on FISA >suggested that it would breeze through Congress, it appears that public >outrage over this issue may have some Senators thinking twice. While the >House did pass it, concern from some Senators has now delayed a vote on >the bill until sometime after July 7th. That would suggest that a few >Senators were serious about filibustering the bill unless telco immunity >was taken out -- and those in favor of letting telcos off the hook didn't >have enough votes to kill the > http://techdirt.com/articles/20080626/2320191531.shtml > > >GAO-08-607, Critical Infrastructure Protection: Further Efforts Needed to >Integrate Planning for and Response to Disruptions on Converged Voice and >Data Networks, June 26, 2008, GAO >Technological advances have led to an increasing convergence of previously >separate networks used to transmit voice and data communications. While >the benefits of this convergence are enormous, such interconnectivity also >poses significant challenges to our nation's ability to respond to major >disruptions. Two operations centers--managed by the Department of Homeland >Security's (DHS) National Communications System and National Cyber Security ... > http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08607.pdf?source=ra From granoff at zianet.com Fri Jun 27 08:48:37 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2008 09:48:37 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: GigaLaw.com Daily News, June 27, 2008 Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20080627094725.0e2cd0a0@mail.zianet.com> FYI. From another list. >Anti-Spam Group Pushes Best Practices for ISPs > A major antispam organization is pushing a set of new best practices > for ISPs to stop increasing volumes of spam from botnets. The guidelines, > from the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group, were drawn up at a meeting > in Germany and deal with forwarded e-mail and e-mail that is sent from > dynamic IP addresses. Read more: http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/06/26/Antispam_group_outlines_defenses_to_block_botnet_spam-IDGNS_1.html From pete at ideapete.com Fri Jun 27 09:57:24 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2008 10:57:24 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: Regional Broadband Infrastructure Meeting In-Reply-To: <20080627074310.kisvcwejmso0sk84@www2.dcn.org> References: <20080627074310.kisvcwejmso0sk84@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: <48651BF4.2040206@ideapete.com> Any idea where in CSF this is ? ( :( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ Richard Lowenberg wrote: > The following, which some of you may be interested in attending next Tuesday, > came without the agenda attachment. I will include the agenda in another > email to this list, if I get can it. rl > ----- > > TELECOMMUNICATION NEEDS -- RIO ARRIBA, TAOS, SANTA FE, AND LOS ALAMOS COUNTIES > > As you may be aware, the Regional Economic Development Initiative (REDI) is > working with community leaders and local citizens to develop and implement an > effective strategy for short and long-term needs in telecommunications > infrastructure. Every community has special needs to upgrade their > telecommunications systems in order to meet the growth of their community. > > I would like to invite you to attend a workshop at the College of Santa Fe on > Tuesday July 1st, 2008 between 9:00 am and 12:00 noon to help us develop a plan > on Telecommunication priorities. The meeting will be held at the offices of > North Central Economic Development District. Your attendance is critical if we > are to create a plan that includes your specific needs. The plan will focus on > the needs of the counties of Taos, Rio Arriba, Los Alamos, and Santa Fe (and all > of the communities and Pueblos within those counties). As with all of the work > done by REDI, the outcomes will be presented to the regional stakeholders who > have commissioned it - our local units of government. > > Please mark your calendars and see if you can rearrange your schedule and join > us for this important meeting. In order to avoid duplication of any previous > work you have been involved in, we will first start off by reviewing existing > plans, or plans that are currently underway. Feel free to bring copies of any > plans you have been working on, and be prepared to discuss those plans. > > Attached is a copy of the agenda for our first meeting. The agenda includes > directions to the NCNMEDD offices and a phone number in the event you have > difficulty finding the place. > > Please join us. > > Gustavo "Gus" Cordova > Infrastructure Team > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > Richard; > > Great to hear from. We would love to have you join us, and share the > State's broadband infrastructure plans. If you can get the word out > to other people, that would be great. Attached is a copy of our flyer > announcing the workshop. > > > > Gus > > > > *TELECOMMUNICATION NEEDS -- RIO ARRIBA, TAOS, SANTA FE, AND LOS ALAMOS > COUNTIES* > > > > As you may be aware, the Regional Economic Development Initiative > (REDI) is working with community leaders and local citizens to develop > and implement an effective strategy for short and long-term needs in > telecommunications infrastructure. Every community has special needs > to upgrade their telecommunications systems in order to meet > the growth of their community. > > > > *_I would like to invite you to attend a workshop at the College of > Santa Fe on _**_Tuesday July 1st, 2008 between 9:00 am and 12:00 > noon_**_ to help us develop a plan on Telecommunication > priorities._* The meeting will be held at the offices of North > Central Economic Development District. Your attendance is critical if > we are to create a plan that includes your specific needs. The plan > will focus on the needs of the counties of Taos, Rio Arriba, Los > Alamos, and Santa Fe (and all of the communities and Pueblos within > those counties). As with all of the work done by REDI, the outcomes > will be presented to the regional stakeholders who have commissioned > it - our local units of government. > > > > Please mark your calendars and see if you can rearrange your schedule > and join us for this important meeting. In order to avoid duplication > of any previous work you have been involved in, we will first start > off by reviewing existing plans, or plans that are currently > underway. Feel free to bring copies of any plans you have been > working on, and be prepared to discuss those plans. > > > > Attached is a copy of the agenda for our first meeting. The agenda > includes directions to the NCNMEDD offices and a phone number in the > event you have difficulty finding the place. > > > > Please join us. > > > > Gustavo "Gus" Cordova > > Infrastructure Team > > > --- On *Thu, 6/26/08, Richard Lowenberg //* wrote: > > From: Richard Lowenberg > Subject: State Broadband Infrastructure > To: cordovamgmtsvcs at yahoo.com > Date: Thursday, June 26, 2008, 8:36 PM > > Gus Cordova, > Hello. I attended a REDI meeting in Espanola today, and heard that you > will be facilitating a regional telecom. infrastructure meeting next Tues., > July 1 at the SFCC. I would like to attend. I tried contacting you via > email and phone in the recent past, with no response. I direct the 1st-Mile > Institute, and its NM 'broadband to all' initiative, which includes a > listserve > that many of the states broadband decisionmakers and interested parties > subscribe to and communicate on. I have also, in coordination with Tom Bowles > and other State agency heads, just submitted a proposal and recommendations to > the Governor, for a "New Mexico Integrated Strategic Broadband > Initiative". > No telling how it will turn out, but as you know, this is an area that needs > focused attention and support. Please respond, and let me know if you'd > like > me to post an announcement of next weeks meeting on the 1st-Mile list, so that > more people may attend. I look forward to hearing from you, and to meeting. > Richard > > -- > Richard Lowenberg > 1st-Mile Institute > P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 > 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell > rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com > > ---------------------------------------------------------------- > This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Fri Jun 27 10:13:13 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2008 11:13:13 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: Regional Broadband Infrastructure Meeting In-Reply-To: <20080627074310.kisvcwejmso0sk84@www2.dcn.org> References: <20080627074310.kisvcwejmso0sk84@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: <48651FA9.5050808@ideapete.com> Answered my own question location is here http://www.ncnmedd.com/directions.htm ( : ( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ Richard Lowenberg wrote: > The following, which some of you may be interested in attending next Tuesday, > came without the agenda attachment. I will include the agenda in another > email to this list, if I get can it. rl > ----- > > TELECOMMUNICATION NEEDS -- RIO ARRIBA, TAOS, SANTA FE, AND LOS ALAMOS COUNTIES > > As you may be aware, the Regional Economic Development Initiative (REDI) is > working with community leaders and local citizens to develop and implement an > effective strategy for short and long-term needs in telecommunications > infrastructure. Every community has special needs to upgrade their > telecommunications systems in order to meet the growth of their community. > > I would like to invite you to attend a workshop at the College of Santa Fe on > Tuesday July 1st, 2008 between 9:00 am and 12:00 noon to help us develop a plan > on Telecommunication priorities. The meeting will be held at the offices of > North Central Economic Development District. Your attendance is critical if we > are to create a plan that includes your specific needs. The plan will focus on > the needs of the counties of Taos, Rio Arriba, Los Alamos, and Santa Fe (and all > of the communities and Pueblos within those counties). As with all of the work > done by REDI, the outcomes will be presented to the regional stakeholders who > have commissioned it - our local units of government. > > Please mark your calendars and see if you can rearrange your schedule and join > us for this important meeting. In order to avoid duplication of any previous > work you have been involved in, we will first start off by reviewing existing > plans, or plans that are currently underway. Feel free to bring copies of any > plans you have been working on, and be prepared to discuss those plans. > > Attached is a copy of the agenda for our first meeting. The agenda includes > directions to the NCNMEDD offices and a phone number in the event you have > difficulty finding the place. > > Please join us. > > Gustavo "Gus" Cordova > Infrastructure Team > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > Richard; > > Great to hear from. We would love to have you join us, and share the > State's broadband infrastructure plans. If you can get the word out > to other people, that would be great. Attached is a copy of our flyer > announcing the workshop. > > > > Gus > > > > *TELECOMMUNICATION NEEDS -- RIO ARRIBA, TAOS, SANTA FE, AND LOS ALAMOS > COUNTIES* > > > > As you may be aware, the Regional Economic Development Initiative > (REDI) is working with community leaders and local citizens to develop > and implement an effective strategy for short and long-term needs in > telecommunications infrastructure. Every community has special needs > to upgrade their telecommunications systems in order to meet > the growth of their community. > > > > *_I would like to invite you to attend a workshop at the College of > Santa Fe on _**_Tuesday July 1st, 2008 between 9:00 am and 12:00 > noon_**_ to help us develop a plan on Telecommunication > priorities._* The meeting will be held at the offices of North > Central Economic Development District. Your attendance is critical if > we are to create a plan that includes your specific needs. The plan > will focus on the needs of the counties of Taos, Rio Arriba, Los > Alamos, and Santa Fe (and all of the communities and Pueblos within > those counties). As with all of the work done by REDI, the outcomes > will be presented to the regional stakeholders who have commissioned > it - our local units of government. > > > > Please mark your calendars and see if you can rearrange your schedule > and join us for this important meeting. In order to avoid duplication > of any previous work you have been involved in, we will first start > off by reviewing existing plans, or plans that are currently > underway. Feel free to bring copies of any plans you have been > working on, and be prepared to discuss those plans. > > > > Attached is a copy of the agenda for our first meeting. The agenda > includes directions to the NCNMEDD offices and a phone number in the > event you have difficulty finding the place. > > > > Please join us. > > > > Gustavo "Gus" Cordova > > Infrastructure Team > > > --- On *Thu, 6/26/08, Richard Lowenberg //* wrote: > > From: Richard Lowenberg > Subject: State Broadband Infrastructure > To: cordovamgmtsvcs at yahoo.com > Date: Thursday, June 26, 2008, 8:36 PM > > Gus Cordova, > Hello. I attended a REDI meeting in Espanola today, and heard that you > will be facilitating a regional telecom. infrastructure meeting next Tues., > July 1 at the SFCC. I would like to attend. I tried contacting you via > email and phone in the recent past, with no response. I direct the 1st-Mile > Institute, and its NM 'broadband to all' initiative, which includes a > listserve > that many of the states broadband decisionmakers and interested parties > subscribe to and communicate on. I have also, in coordination with Tom Bowles > and other State agency heads, just submitted a proposal and recommendations to > the Governor, for a "New Mexico Integrated Strategic Broadband > Initiative". > No telling how it will turn out, but as you know, this is an area that needs > focused attention and support. Please respond, and let me know if you'd > like > me to post an announcement of next weeks meeting on the 1st-Mile list, so that > more people may attend. I look forward to hearing from you, and to meeting. > Richard > > -- > Richard Lowenberg > 1st-Mile Institute > P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 > 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell > rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com > > ---------------------------------------------------------------- > This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tom at jtjohnson.com Fri Jun 27 10:54:33 2008 From: tom at jtjohnson.com (Tom Johnson) Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2008 11:54:33 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Our interests and collaboration with "Clearly New Mexico" Message-ID: Folks: Here is yet another New Mexico issues-centric communications tool that we might want to connect with to leverage our position. -tj ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Alicia Lueras Maldonado Date: Fri, Jun 27, 2008 at 9:32 AM Subject: Thanks for your participation! Tremendous response! To: Tom Johnson Dear Tom, *Thank you for participating in the Clearly New Mexico issues survey.* The response has far exceeded our most optimistic projections! As you know, it was an extensive questionnaire. Yet as of this morning, *1,319 folks from all across New Mexico had donated their time to take the survey*. We at ClearlyNewMexico.com will use this information to make our website a better, more effective tool for issue advocacy and on-line organizing. *These are your tools* ClearlyNewMexico.com provides you with easy-to-use tools - tools that enable you to start organizing on-line. *It's called "the netroots" and you're part of it!* What tools does ClearlyNewMexico.com provide? Come to the website and you can: ... start *your own blog.* ... join the conversation by *adding a comment to a blog*. ... start *your own on-line discussion group* of like-minded folks around an issue or topic of your choosing. ... *contact your legislator* with the email tool. ... write an *on-line letter-to-the-editor* to your local newspaper. ... use our *on-line events calendar* to announce and publicize your own meet-ups, rallies or press conferences. *Ordinary Tools, Extraordinary Effects* Across the nation, some important fights for change have been won by the netroots. It's only just beginning. I love this quote from Clay Shirky's book, *Here Comes Everybody - The Power of Organizing without Organizations.* *Social (networking) tools don't create collective action - they merely remove the obstacles to it.* So if you haven't already signed up on the ClearlyNewMexico network, *there's no time like right now!* Here's the *link *. And if you have already set up an account, please let your friends know about ClearlyNM and the growing power of the netroots in New Mexico. *It's time to get CONNECTED and start ORGANIZING! * Sincerely, Alicia Lueras Maldonado and the Clearly New Mexico staff ClearlyNewMexico.com Clearly New Mexico is working to advance socially responsible public policies in New Mexico. We believe that a stronger democracy is the best path to addressing the challenges facing our state and our nation. ------------------------------ (c) 2008 ClearlyNewMexico.com. All rights reserved. This email was sent to: tom at jtjohnson.com To unsubscribe, go to: http://clearlynewmexico.com/unsubscribe -- ========================================== J. T. Johnson Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA www.analyticjournalism.com 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) http://www.jtjohnson.com tom at jtjohnson.com "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." -- Buckminster Fuller ========================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Mon Jun 30 11:15:28 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 11:15:28 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] REDI-NCNMEDD Telecom Infrastructure Meeting: Tues. 7/1 Message-ID: <20080630111528.jiwx31k0dcko8008@www2.dcn.org> Following up on the posting sent last week, here's the Northern New Mexico Regional Economic Development Initiative: Telecommunications Infrastructure meeting agenda and directions. rl ----- TELECOMMUNICATIONS AGENDA July 1, 2008 9:00 am Welcome and Introductions. Gustavo Cordova, Team Leader Barbara Deaux, Executive Director, NCNMEDD 9:15 am Background on the Regional Economic Development Initiative. ?Its purpose, scope of work, priority initiative and industry clusters? Gustavo Cordova, Team Leader 9:30 am The future of Information Technology in New Mexico ?A briefing on activities and plans on telecommunications by the State? Roy Soto, Secretary Department of Information Technology 9:45 am "New Mexico Integrated Strategic Broadband Initiative". ?A briefing on the proposal and recommendations to the Governor? Richard Lowenberg, 1st Mile Institute 10:00 am What currently exists? What is planned by Qwest? ?A briefing on telecom plans by Qwest in the four county area? Leo Baca and Dennis Pappas, Qwest Communications 10:15 am What currently exists? What is planned by Windstream? ?A briefing on telecom plans by Windstream in the four county area? Bill Garcia, Windstream Communications 10:30 am Wireless Communications Infrastructure plans ?A briefing by Verizon on how wireless telecom is changing? Susan Darby and Steve Cahn, Verizon Communications 10:45 am BREAK 11:00 am A Tribal Government Perspective on Telecommunications ?A briefing on activities and plans on telecom by San Ildefonso Pueblo? Laurence Pena, Tewa.Com Enterprise 11:15 am Santa Fe Regional Telecom Coalition ?A briefing on the activities and plans of the Coalition? Tony Flores and David Breecker, City of Santa Fe 11:30 am Recommendations for Legislative Session or further study ?Workgroup identifies legislative priorities based on regional criteria? Gustavo Cordova, Team Leader 12:00 am Closing comments ? Future workshop schedule ---- The easiest way to find the NCNMEDD offices is to take Siringo Road going west, turn right on Yucca unto the College of Santa Fe. There will be two stop signs, after you pass the second stop sign the road dead ends in a large parking lot. The NCNMEDD offices will be on your left. It is an old army barracks building. Go in the front door and they will show you to the conference room. The meeting starts promptly at 9:00 am, so be there a few minutes early. They will have coffee for you. ---- >From the REDI web site: REDI is one of Los Alamos County?s Progress through Partnering initiatives, and is funded by increased gross receipts tax revenue from the change in Los Alamos National Laboratory?s contractor status. REDI?s geographic area includes Los Alamos, Rio Arriba, Santa Fe and Taos counties. Through a Regional Economic Development Strategic Plan, REDI will identify and begin to implement concrete economic development projects that will improve the economy and quality of life in the four-county region over the next 25 years. Los Alamos County has signed cooperative agreements with the county and city governments in the four-county region for Progress through Partnering initiatives. The Regional Development Corporation (RDC) has been selected as the contractor for the project, and is partnering with the North Central NM Economic Development District (NCNMEDD). -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Wed Jul 2 14:47:26 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:47:26 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Bandwidth - How Much is Enough? Message-ID: <20080702144726.6k4tllx1k4g8o084@www2.dcn.org> Bandwidth: How much is enough? Jul 1, 2008, By Jonathan Hurd, Altman Vilandrie & Company http://telephonyonline.com/access/commentary/how-much-bandwidth-0701/ Verizon?s June announcement that it will expand availability of its 50 megabit per second (Mbps) FiOS broadband service has prompted some to ask, ?How much bandwidth could a household need?? To estimate the demand, various analysts have attempted to calculate a household?s future maximum peak bandwidth requirements, using an approach like this (e.g., for an IPTV triple play provider): * Video: Each of 3 TVs is consuming a live high definition (HD) video stream, while 2 DVRs are recording 2 additional HD streams, with each stream at roughly 8 Mbps. * Broadband: Meanwhile, the household is surfing the web?let?s allocate 10Mbps downstream and 10Mbps upstream. * Voice: IP voice is negligible (perhaps depressing for Telephony readers, but true in this rough analysis). So, with five 8 Mbps HD streams, plus Internet surfing and voice, the analyst would estimate 50 Mbps downstream and 10 Mbps upstream. How much more could a household ever need? The answer is much more, when downloading files to a portable media player is considered. Let?s say you want to load your portable media player with a few HD movies (even handheld screens will look much better with HD) to watch in your car, on a friend?s TV, at the beach, etc. How long are you willing to wait to download an HD movie to your portable player? 30 seconds? 5 minutes? 2 hours? Putting aside the costs required to supply bandwidth and the prices consumers are willing to pay, I?ll make the assumption that?over time?consumers? desired time to download media is proportional to their cost to store it. (?I?ve got space in my portable player?I want to fill it up.?) Let?s see how this plays out: * In 2000, an affluent household with bandwidth of about 1 Mbps, could download an 8-song MP3 album (25 megabytes) in about 2 minutes, to a hard disk costing about $10 per gigabyte. * Today, storage costs 25 cents per gigabyte (40 times less than in 2000), so it?s not surprising that download speeds of 40 Mbps are already desired by affluent households. * By 2015, storage will cost a penny per gigabyte. (It?s hard to believe, but a $100 computer-based hard disk will hold 10 terabytes, enough for more than 3 million MP3s or 400 Blu-Ray disc-quality movies.) A 25 gigabyte movie will cost the same to store on a hard disk as a 25 megabyte 8-song album did in 2000. By 2015, you?d want to be able to download that 25 gigabyte movie in about 2 minutes, implying bandwidth of 1 Gbps. Add live HD video streams and uploads, and the desired household bandwidth is even higher. But even that?s not the limit. As I indicated in a January Telephony article, there is virtually no end in sight to the video quality consumers will demand?or to the size of the video files they will want to download. Is there an actual upper limit on desired bandwidth? Not as long as storage keeps getting cheaper, media files keep getting bigger, and consumers keep downloading. Altman Vilandrie & Company is one of the only pure play strategy consulting groups in North America that focuses exclusively on the communications, media and related technology and investor sectors. Jonathan Hurd can be reached at jhurd at altvil.com . -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From ggomes at soundviewnet.com Wed Jul 2 15:00:04 2008 From: ggomes at soundviewnet.com (Gary Gomes) Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2008 16:00:04 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Bandwidth - How Much is Enough? In-Reply-To: <20080702144726.6k4tllx1k4g8o084@www2.dcn.org> References: <20080702144726.6k4tllx1k4g8o084@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: <5E6093378AF14D169C5907C7315BDD98@GARY> I must be missing something; while I am a strong FTTP proponent, I cannot fathom any value in a statement of "demand" that has no "cost" associated with the resource. "Putting aside the costs required to supply bandwidth and the prices consumers are willing to pay..." The demand for many things is very, very large if there is no cost of acquisition and consumption. Gary -----Original Message----- From: 1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org [mailto:1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org] On Behalf Of Richard Lowenberg Sent: Wednesday, July 02, 2008 3:47 PM To: 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Bandwidth - How Much is Enough? Bandwidth: How much is enough? Jul 1, 2008, By Jonathan Hurd, Altman Vilandrie & Company http://telephonyonline.com/access/commentary/how-much-bandwidth-0701/ Verizon?s June announcement that it will expand availability of its 50 megabit per second (Mbps) FiOS broadband service has prompted some to ask, ?How much bandwidth could a household need?? To estimate the demand, various analysts have attempted to calculate a household?s future maximum peak bandwidth requirements, using an approach like this (e.g., for an IPTV triple play provider): * Video: Each of 3 TVs is consuming a live high definition (HD) video stream, while 2 DVRs are recording 2 additional HD streams, with each stream at roughly 8 Mbps. * Broadband: Meanwhile, the household is surfing the web?let?s allocate 10Mbps downstream and 10Mbps upstream. * Voice: IP voice is negligible (perhaps depressing for Telephony readers, but true in this rough analysis). So, with five 8 Mbps HD streams, plus Internet surfing and voice, the analyst would estimate 50 Mbps downstream and 10 Mbps upstream. How much more could a household ever need? The answer is much more, when downloading files to a portable media player is considered. Let?s say you want to load your portable media player with a few HD movies (even handheld screens will look much better with HD) to watch in your car, on a friend?s TV, at the beach, etc. How long are you willing to wait to download an HD movie to your portable player? 30 seconds? 5 minutes? 2 hours? Putting aside the costs required to supply bandwidth and the prices consumers are willing to pay, I?ll make the assumption that?over time?consumers? desired time to download media is proportional to their cost to store it. (?I?ve got space in my portable player?I want to fill it up.?) Let?s see how this plays out: * In 2000, an affluent household with bandwidth of about 1 Mbps, could download an 8-song MP3 album (25 megabytes) in about 2 minutes, to a hard disk costing about $10 per gigabyte. * Today, storage costs 25 cents per gigabyte (40 times less than in 2000), so it?s not surprising that download speeds of 40 Mbps are already desired by affluent households. * By 2015, storage will cost a penny per gigabyte. (It?s hard to believe, but a $100 computer-based hard disk will hold 10 terabytes, enough for more than 3 million MP3s or 400 Blu-Ray disc-quality movies.) A 25 gigabyte movie will cost the same to store on a hard disk as a 25 megabyte 8-song album did in 2000. By 2015, you?d want to be able to download that 25 gigabyte movie in about 2 minutes, implying bandwidth of 1 Gbps. Add live HD video streams and uploads, and the desired household bandwidth is even higher. But even that?s not the limit. As I indicated in a January Telephony article, there is virtually no end in sight to the video quality consumers will demand?or to the size of the video files they will want to download. Is there an actual upper limit on desired bandwidth? Not as long as storage keeps getting cheaper, media files keep getting bigger, and consumers keep downloading. Altman Vilandrie & Company is one of the only pure play strategy consulting groups in North America that focuses exclusively on the communications, media and related technology and investor sectors. Jonathan Hurd can be reached at jhurd at altvil.com . -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. _______________________________________________ 1st-mile-nm mailing list 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm From rl at 1st-mile.com Wed Jul 2 15:29:46 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:29:46 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Bandwidth - How Much is Enough? In-Reply-To: <5E6093378AF14D169C5907C7315BDD98@GARY> References: <20080702144726.6k4tllx1k4g8o084@www2.dcn.org> <5E6093378AF14D169C5907C7315BDD98@GARY> Message-ID: <20080702152946.omhdzux8g4844c8w@www2.dcn.org> You are absolutely correct, Gary. The issue of bandwidth demand and provision cannot be separated from pricing structures. I simply posted the article to note the growing applications-based (HD media) needs for greater bandwidth, than most providers presently consider offering. Opening high-bandwidth networks to competitive services provision, is part of the solution to reduce pricing to subscribers. Richard Quoting Gary Gomes : > I must be missing something; while I am a strong FTTP proponent, I cannot > fathom any value in a statement of "demand" that has no "cost" associated > with the resource. > > "Putting aside the costs required to supply bandwidth and the prices > consumers are willing to pay..." > > The demand for many things is very, very large if there is no cost of > acquisition and consumption. > > Gary > -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From ggomes at soundviewnet.com Wed Jul 2 15:40:54 2008 From: ggomes at soundviewnet.com (Gary Gomes) Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2008 16:40:54 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Bandwidth - How Much is Enough? In-Reply-To: <20080702152946.omhdzux8g4844c8w@www2.dcn.org> References: <20080702144726.6k4tllx1k4g8o084@www2.dcn.org><5E6093378AF14D169C5907C7315BDD98@GARY> <20080702152946.omhdzux8g4844c8w@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: <48AECE11C3654DDF82A0FF1B9A11710F@GARY> Richard, I replied to the post because it bore the same heading as an article published last week that gave some "challenging" statistics on users' satisfaction with current service levels (high) and their unwillingness to pay any significant premium ($10.00 per month)for higher bandwidth service. In order to justify capital investment for FTTP in the presence of established Telco and Cable competitors, these "challenges" need to be addressed. Gary -----Original Message----- From: Richard Lowenberg [mailto:rl at 1st-mile.com] Sent: Wednesday, July 02, 2008 4:30 PM To: Gary Gomes Cc: 1st-mile-nm at crank.dcn.davis.ca.us Subject: RE: [1st-mile-nm] Bandwidth - How Much is Enough? You are absolutely correct, Gary. The issue of bandwidth demand and provision cannot be separated from pricing structures. I simply posted the article to note the growing applications-based (HD media) needs for greater bandwidth, than most providers presently consider offering. Opening high-bandwidth networks to competitive services provision, is part of the solution to reduce pricing to subscribers. Richard Quoting Gary Gomes : > I must be missing something; while I am a strong FTTP proponent, I cannot > fathom any value in a statement of "demand" that has no "cost" associated > with the resource. > > "Putting aside the costs required to supply bandwidth and the prices > consumers are willing to pay..." > > The demand for many things is very, very large if there is no cost of > acquisition and consumption. > > Gary > -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From john at citylinkfiber.com Wed Jul 2 15:51:10 2008 From: john at citylinkfiber.com (John Brown) Date: Wed, 02 Jul 2008 16:51:10 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Bandwidth - How Much is Enough? In-Reply-To: <48AECE11C3654DDF82A0FF1B9A11710F@GARY> References: <20080702144726.6k4tllx1k4g8o084@www2.dcn.org><5E6093378AF14D169C5907C7315BDD98@GARY> <20080702152946.omhdzux8g4844c8w@www2.dcn.org> <48AECE11C3654DDF82A0FF1B9A11710F@GARY> Message-ID: <486C065E.7040203@citylinkfiber.com> two ways of improving the balance sheet. increase revenue decrease costs I hate to say it but, IMHO, many of the providers out there today like to quote inflated costs to the regulatory world to help support rates. Maybe I just don't get it and will learn someday that its the right way to do it ;) much of the inflated costs could also be attrib'd to sloppier practices and not running as tight of a ship as possible...... John Brown, CTO CityLink Fiber Holdings, Inc. Albuquerque's first FTTH provider Gary Gomes wrote: > Richard, > > I replied to the post because it bore the same heading as an article > published last week that gave some "challenging" statistics on users' > satisfaction with current service levels (high) and their unwillingness to > pay any significant premium ($10.00 per month)for higher bandwidth service. > > In order to justify capital investment for FTTP in the presence of > established Telco and Cable competitors, these "challenges" need to be > addressed. > > Gary > -----Original Message----- > From: Richard Lowenberg [mailto:rl at 1st-mile.com] > Sent: Wednesday, July 02, 2008 4:30 PM > To: Gary Gomes > Cc: 1st-mile-nm at crank.dcn.davis.ca.us > Subject: RE: [1st-mile-nm] Bandwidth - How Much is Enough? > > You are absolutely correct, Gary. > The issue of bandwidth demand and provision cannot be separated from pricing > structures. I simply posted the article to note the growing > applications-based > (HD media) needs for greater bandwidth, than most providers presently > consider > offering. Opening high-bandwidth networks to competitive services > provision, > is part of the solution to reduce pricing to subscribers. > Richard > > > Quoting Gary Gomes : > >> I must be missing something; while I am a strong FTTP proponent, I cannot >> fathom any value in a statement of "demand" that has no "cost" associated >> with the resource. >> >> "Putting aside the costs required to supply bandwidth and the prices >> consumers are willing to pay..." >> >> The demand for many things is very, very large if there is no cost of >> acquisition and consumption. >> >> Gary >> > From pete at ideapete.com Wed Jul 2 17:08:20 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Wed, 02 Jul 2008 18:08:20 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Bandwidth - How Much is Enough? In-Reply-To: <486C065E.7040203@citylinkfiber.com> References: <20080702144726.6k4tllx1k4g8o084@www2.dcn.org><5E6093378AF14D169C5907C7315BDD98@GARY> <20080702152946.omhdzux8g4844c8w@www2.dcn.org> <48AECE11C3654DDF82A0FF1B9A11710F@GARY> <486C065E.7040203@citylinkfiber.com> Message-ID: <486C1874.7050807@ideapete.com> Bluntly i think the whole question is disingenuous and just another how can we charge more for XX mantra without doing diddly except change the calculations 10 years ago we called this the French fry question Extract here ::: /The next component that you add to make CONNECTIVITY work is TRUST. / /Those of you who stopped at McDonalds this morning trusted that you could get breakfast including coffee for about $4. That's how McDonalds makes money: anticipating customers' needs and meeting them. What would you do if one morning the same McDonalds offered you a single French fry for $10 and when you complained they haggled the price down to $7.50? I know this sounds silly but bear with me. You would think that they had gone nuts! And you would be right. Trust would have broken down and you would go elsewhere for your breakfast. / /This is what has happened in the connectivity market. The basic infrastructure vendors, whom you trusted to anticipate your most basic business need (CONNECTIVITY), are now in haggle mode. They are focused on how many French fries you want instead of looking for the right price and quality of your breakfast. This is what US West and their partner in crime, AT&T, are doing with connectivity. / /One thing I hear all the time is "How much connectivity do you really need?" I call this "the French fry question." 1 megabit (1 fry)? 10 megabit (fries)? How much are you prepared to pay? Or even worse with DSL/ISDN, "How much of a piece of a French fry do you want?" People keep trying to set a ceiling on an unknown need and then work backwards. If you stick a "this is a large box of French fries" label on one French fry, what do you have? Still one French fry! If you stick a Ferrari label on a tortoise you do not get a faster, or more valuable, tortoise. / Full text here http://www.ideapete.com/leapfrog.html DT in their Qwest US West endeavor calculated that they would need to supply the following and this was in 2000 Extract here: 1. /Homes want video on demand. So, calculate the number of NM homes X 35 meg (that's megaBYTE, not megaBIT) per second (streaming video speed). / 2. /Business will need approximately 300% more than homes. That's 100 meg per second X the number of New Mexico businesses. / 3. /Government and research labs and are ultra high speed users that require 1 gig per second. Multiply the number X 1 gig. / /All these speeds are basic inside buildings, so why not between buildings? Therefore the infrastructure demand map of NM is a representation of the above calculations and where the different categories of users are. SIMPLE! But apparently the major incumbent telecom and consultants want excess millions of dollars to work this out. / I don't know of anyone who uses an electronic system for speed, what they use are services which are mostly hampered by the lack of it and thats piss poor engineering. We run bandwidth monitors on all our systems and although we pay for 6 meg a second down ( really .75 megabytes ) but rarely see 60% even on forced traffic that collapses at the weekends and after 6. . We recently had the snake oil salesmen trying to sell us 10 meg services ( really 1.25 megabyte ) and we said fine lets see your SLA and he was dumbfounded that anyone would want one after we explained what it as Whats happening here is that some nice political promises are being made to raise taxes without really doing anything but frustrate the user. Anyone in IT knows is you supply a meg a meg will be used same with a gig and onward up to pet and those are bytes not bits Service application need always drives components and speed not vice versa Use goes up cost goes down EXCEPT with bandwidth ( : ( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ John Brown wrote: > two ways of improving the balance sheet. > > increase revenue > > decrease costs > > I hate to say it but, IMHO, many of the providers out there today like > to quote inflated costs to the regulatory world to help support rates. > Maybe I just don't get it and will learn someday that its the right way > to do it ;) > > much of the inflated costs could also be attrib'd to sloppier practices > and not running as tight of a ship as possible...... > > > John Brown, CTO > CityLink Fiber Holdings, Inc. > Albuquerque's first FTTH provider > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From editorsteve at gmail.com Wed Jul 2 18:35:41 2008 From: editorsteve at gmail.com (Steve Ross) Date: Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:35:41 -0400 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Bandwidth - How Much is Enough? In-Reply-To: <486C1874.7050807@ideapete.com> References: <20080702144726.6k4tllx1k4g8o084@www2.dcn.org><5E6093378AF14D169C5907C7315BDD98@GARY> <20080702152946.omhdzux8g4844c8w@www2.dcn.org> <48AECE11C3654DDF82A0FF1B9A11710F@GARY> <486C065E.7040203@citylinkfiber.com> <486C1874.7050807@ideapete.com> Message-ID: <486C2CED.6040701@gmail.com> Qwest, AT&T and all large cable companies have to be in haggle mode. The "all you can eat for a fixed price" model doesn't work if your network can't handle the demand -- a demand that Verizon and 600 small companies that collectively serve a quarter of the fiber in the US have helped create. A $10 French fry will sell if there is a shortage of French fries. This is not entirely obvious, but the academics and network builders seem to be coming to the conclusion that to make the most money, you allow a multiplicity of specialized services -- meaning services only perhaps 1 to 5 percent (or less) of the customers connected might want -- to "ride your network," and that no one company can maximize profits with a walled garden. The garden's owner will do well by handling billing and QoS issues, and taking 30-50% of the gross. Even Verizon can't think of everything, and originators of things like the I-See-Pet and remote piano teaching software find pure web marketing too costly. The "triple play" services become increasingly commoditized, so although everyone will eventually take them, there's not going to be much margin. If you insist on keeping the price high without delivering better/more services, sooner or later someone will overbuild you, or (perhaps worse) re-regulate you. Also, companies like Verizon are already talking about renting access on muni nets, and the nets of smaller ILECs and CLECs. People will want reciprocity over time. Hard to imagine in "Qwest country," but Verizon last month started overbuilding three AT&T U-verse communities in Texas with FiOS -- 60,000 homes to be passed. They only need to sign up 12,000 to make money. Mark Gaynor, a Boston University prof, has a book on this that is particularly accessible to non-geeks (Addison-Wesley). we had him write for us in December (see www.broadbandproperties.com/2007issues/december07/Dec_EcoDevopment.pdf) Steven S. Ross Editor-in-Chief Broadband Properties steve at broadbandproperties.com www.bbpmag.com SKYPE: editorsteve +1 781-284-8810 +1 646-216-8030 fax +1 201-456-5933 mobile peter wrote: > Bluntly i think the whole question is disingenuous and just another how > can we charge more for XX mantra without doing diddly except change the > calculations > > 10 years ago we called this the French fry question > > Extract here ::: > > /The next component that you add to make CONNECTIVITY work is TRUST. / > > /Those of you who stopped at McDonalds this morning trusted that you > could get breakfast including coffee for about $4. That?s how McDonalds > makes money: anticipating customers? needs and meeting them. What would > you do if one morning the same McDonalds offered you a single French fry > for $10 and when you complained they haggled the price down to $7.50? I > know this sounds silly but bear with me. You would think that they had > gone nuts! And you would be right. Trust would have broken down and you > would go elsewhere for your breakfast. / > > /This is what has happened in the connectivity market. The basic > infrastructure vendors, whom you trusted to anticipate your most basic > business need (CONNECTIVITY), are now in haggle mode. They are focused > on how many French fries you want instead of looking for the right price > and quality of your breakfast. This is what US West and their partner in > crime, AT&T, are doing with connectivity. / > > /One thing I hear all the time is ?How much connectivity do you really > need?? I call this ?the French fry question.? 1 megabit (1 fry)? 10 > megabit (fries)? How much are you prepared to pay? Or even worse with > DSL/ISDN, ?How much of a piece of a French fry do you want?? People keep > trying to set a ceiling on an unknown need and then work backwards. If > you stick a ?this is a large box of French fries? label on one French > fry, what do you have? Still one French fry! If you stick a Ferrari > label on a tortoise you do not get a faster, or more valuable, tortoise. > / > > Full text here http://www.ideapete.com/leapfrog.html > > DT in their Qwest US West endeavor calculated that they would need to > supply the following and this was in 2000 > > Extract here: > > 1. /Homes want video on demand. So, calculate the number of NM homes > X 35 meg (that's megaBYTE, not megaBIT) per second (streaming > video speed). / > 2. /Business will need approximately 300% more than homes. That?s 100 > meg per second X the number of New Mexico businesses. / > 3. /Government and research labs and are ultra high speed users that > require 1 gig per second. Multiply the number X 1 gig. / > > /All these speeds are basic inside buildings, so why not between > buildings? Therefore the infrastructure demand map of NM is a > representation of the above calculations and where the different > categories of users are. SIMPLE! But apparently the major incumbent > telecom and consultants want excess millions of dollars to work this out. > / > > I don't know of anyone who uses an electronic system for speed, what > they use are services which are mostly hampered by the lack of it and > thats piss poor engineering. > > We run bandwidth monitors on all our systems and although we pay for 6 > meg a second down ( really .75 megabytes ) but rarely see 60% even on > forced traffic that collapses at the weekends and after 6. . We recently > had the snake oil salesmen trying to sell us 10 meg services ( really > 1.25 megabyte ) and we said fine lets see your SLA and he was > dumbfounded that anyone would want one after we explained what it as > > Whats happening here is that some nice political promises are being made > to raise taxes without really doing anything but frustrate the user. > > Anyone in IT knows is you supply a meg a meg will be used same with a > gig and onward up to pet and those are bytes not bits > > Service application need always drives components and speed not vice versa > > Use goes up cost goes down EXCEPT with bandwidth > > ( : ( : pete > > Peter Baston > > *IDEAS* > > /www.ideapete.com/ > > > > > > > > > John Brown wrote: >> two ways of improving the balance sheet. >> >> increase revenue >> >> decrease costs >> >> I hate to say it but, IMHO, many of the providers out there today like >> to quote inflated costs to the regulatory world to help support rates. >> Maybe I just don't get it and will learn someday that its the right way >> to do it ;) >> >> much of the inflated costs could also be attrib'd to sloppier practices >> and not running as tight of a ship as possible...... >> >> >> John Brown, CTO >> CityLink Fiber Holdings, Inc. >> Albuquerque's first FTTH provider >> >> > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm From dlc at lampinc.com Wed Jul 2 23:04:19 2008 From: dlc at lampinc.com (Dale Carstensen) Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2008 00:04:19 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Bandwidth - How Much is Enough? In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:35:41 EDT." <486C2CED.6040701@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200807030604.m6364JMc019218@lampinc.com> I'm looking for a URL about a speech given in England sometime since last October, about how traffic at a single home will exceed all current backbone internet traffic by some date in the near future. The speaker was a manager at a US telecom company. Maybe AT&T, maybe Verizon, maybe Qwest. I guess those are the only three, and how long will it be before there's just one again?? I haven't found that yet, but I did find an amazing review, which appears to have been written around 1999 (the web page is dated Oct 18, 2002), about a paper written at Bell Labs in 1961 predicting telecom traffic demands for the year 2012. The title is "Through a Glass Darkly". In addition to that entertaining digression, I'll mention that I think it's pretty silly to keep installing copper when fiber is cheaper. And with fiber, the question is not on the order of kilobytes, it's on the order of gigabytes and tens of gigabytes, and it won't be long before it's terabytes. Per second. Now, I think it is also silly to ship hundreds of copies of the same huge file (a movie, for instance, or updates to Microsoft Windows or Apple Mac OS or Linux) to the same small city from a centralized data center several states away. But maybe if "the phone company" began thinking it's in the communications carrier business instead of something it did decades ago. That is, the advertising, billing, satellite TV, "bundling" or other marketing schemes and string between tin cans business seems to be what they think they do. Maybe if they concentrated on being communications carriers, the incredible bandwidth of fiber, that wouldn't cost as much as the copper they're still installing, would handle the delivery of those duplicative huge files, and the demise of theaters and television could proceed, the same way cell phones have just about eliminated pay phones. Or, the remnants of the Bell system can just disappear when some other company does what they should have done. If I find that URL about the coming exaflood, I'll pass it along, too. Oh, searching for exaflood on google will yield some related reading, too, I'm sure. Mr. Dale From editorsteve at gmail.com Thu Jul 3 04:39:39 2008 From: editorsteve at gmail.com (Steve Ross) Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2008 07:39:39 -0400 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Bandwidth - How Much is Enough? In-Reply-To: <200807030604.m6364JMc019218@lampinc.com> References: <200807030604.m6364JMc019218@lampinc.com> Message-ID: <486CBA7B.90901@gmail.com> Great link. Haven't found the UK one, but here's one of ours from 2006, predicting 30 Gbps to the home by 2030. www.broadbandproperties.com/2006issues/sep06issues/george_sep.pdf It comes from John George at OFS. Steven S. Ross Editor-in-Chief Broadband Properties steve at broadbandproperties.com www.bbpmag.com SKYPE: editorsteve +1 781-284-8810 +1 646-216-8030 fax +1 201-456-5933 mobile Dale Carstensen wrote: > I'm looking for a URL about a speech given in England sometime since > last October, about how traffic at a single home will exceed all > current backbone internet traffic by some date in the near future. > The speaker was a manager at a US telecom company. Maybe AT&T, > maybe Verizon, maybe Qwest. I guess those are the only three, > and how long will it be before there's just one again?? > > I haven't found that yet, but I did find an amazing review, which > appears to have been written around 1999 (the web page is dated > Oct 18, 2002), about a paper written at Bell Labs in 1961 predicting > telecom traffic demands for the year 2012. The title is "Through a > Glass Darkly". > > > > In addition to that entertaining digression, I'll mention that I > think it's pretty silly to keep installing copper when fiber is > cheaper. And with fiber, the question is not on the order of > kilobytes, it's on the order of gigabytes and tens of gigabytes, > and it won't be long before it's terabytes. Per second. > > Now, I think it is also silly to ship hundreds of copies of the > same huge file (a movie, for instance, or updates to Microsoft > Windows or Apple Mac OS or Linux) to the same small city from a > centralized data center several states away. But maybe if "the > phone company" began thinking it's in the communications carrier > business instead of something it did decades ago. That is, the > advertising, billing, satellite TV, "bundling" or other marketing > schemes and string between tin cans business seems to be what they > think they do. > > Maybe if they concentrated on being communications carriers, > the incredible bandwidth of fiber, that wouldn't cost as much as > the copper they're still installing, would handle the delivery of > those duplicative huge files, and the demise of theaters and > television could proceed, the same way cell phones have just > about eliminated pay phones. > > Or, the remnants of the Bell system can just disappear when some > other company does what they should have done. > > If I find that URL about the coming exaflood, I'll pass it along, too. > Oh, searching for exaflood on google will yield some related reading, > too, I'm sure. > > Mr. Dale > > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > From christopher at ilsr.org Thu Jul 3 06:20:52 2008 From: christopher at ilsr.org (Christopher Mitchell) Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2008 08:20:52 -0500 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Bandwidth - How Much is Enough? In-Reply-To: <486CBA7B.90901@gmail.com> References: <200807030604.m6364JMc019218@lampinc.com> <486CBA7B.90901@gmail.com> Message-ID: <486CD234.9060103@ilsr.org> Though I think it is great to talk about how much bandwidth some of us will need in 5,10,x years I wanted to note a problem that some of us have been developing. I was at a discussion recently and a person from the MN Dept Commerce was saying that not everyone needs that much more bandwidth. That many people are happy with 2mbps. While I think that most of us recognize 2mbps will not be sufficient for what we want to do, there are millions of people on dialup right now who think they are doing alright. So I think we need to avoid talking about what everyone will *need* and talk about what should be available for those who *need* it. I think people are more receptive if it is clear that we need to move to a world where they will have a choice between their slow 2Mbps if they want for rather cheap even though much faster is necessary for others in the community, especially schools, businesses and whatever. My point is that if we are not nuanced and we talk about what everyone will *need* in x years, we will enable those who oppose us to drag the discussion in whether some grandparent will need to download HD movies in minutes. Though it is an argument I believe we can win, we need to avoid getting sidetracked into that and focus on the real goal, which is giving everyone an actual choice of whether they want fast broadband or the DSL crap they are used to. Christopher Mitchell Director, Telecommunications as Commons Initiative Institute for Local Self-Reliance http://www.newrules.org/info/ 612-379-3815 x209 Steve Ross wrote: > Great link. Haven't found the UK one, but here's one of ours > from 2006, predicting 30 Gbps to the home by 2030. > > www.broadbandproperties.com/2006issues/sep06issues/george_sep.pdf > > It comes from John George at OFS. > > Steven S. Ross > Editor-in-Chief > Broadband Properties > steve at broadbandproperties.com > www.bbpmag.com > SKYPE: editorsteve > +1 781-284-8810 > +1 646-216-8030 fax > +1 201-456-5933 mobile > > Dale Carstensen wrote: >> I'm looking for a URL about a speech given in England sometime since >> last October, about how traffic at a single home will exceed all >> current backbone internet traffic by some date in the near future. >> The speaker was a manager at a US telecom company. Maybe AT&T, >> maybe Verizon, maybe Qwest. I guess those are the only three, >> and how long will it be before there's just one again?? >> >> I haven't found that yet, but I did find an amazing review, which >> appears to have been written around 1999 (the web page is dated >> Oct 18, 2002), about a paper written at Bell Labs in 1961 predicting >> telecom traffic demands for the year 2012. The title is "Through a >> Glass Darkly". >> >> >> >> In addition to that entertaining digression, I'll mention that I >> think it's pretty silly to keep installing copper when fiber is >> cheaper. And with fiber, the question is not on the order of >> kilobytes, it's on the order of gigabytes and tens of gigabytes, >> and it won't be long before it's terabytes. Per second. >> >> Now, I think it is also silly to ship hundreds of copies of the >> same huge file (a movie, for instance, or updates to Microsoft >> Windows or Apple Mac OS or Linux) to the same small city from a >> centralized data center several states away. But maybe if "the >> phone company" began thinking it's in the communications carrier >> business instead of something it did decades ago. That is, the >> advertising, billing, satellite TV, "bundling" or other marketing >> schemes and string between tin cans business seems to be what they >> think they do. >> >> Maybe if they concentrated on being communications carriers, >> the incredible bandwidth of fiber, that wouldn't cost as much as >> the copper they're still installing, would handle the delivery of >> those duplicative huge files, and the demise of theaters and >> television could proceed, the same way cell phones have just >> about eliminated pay phones. >> >> Or, the remnants of the Bell system can just disappear when some >> other company does what they should have done. >> >> If I find that URL about the coming exaflood, I'll pass it along, too. >> Oh, searching for exaflood on google will yield some related reading, >> too, I'm sure. >> >> Mr. Dale >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 1st-mile-nm mailing list >> 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm >> > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > > From editorsteve at gmail.com Thu Jul 3 07:00:40 2008 From: editorsteve at gmail.com (Steve Ross) Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2008 10:00:40 -0400 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Bandwidth - How Much is Enough? In-Reply-To: <486CD234.9060103@ilsr.org> References: <200807030604.m6364JMc019218@lampinc.com> <486CBA7B.90901@gmail.com> <486CD234.9060103@ilsr.org> Message-ID: <486CDB88.8010702@gmail.com> Chris makes a great point. Just remember that you don't really want to lay new copper, which has little headroom for more bandwidth growth, when fiber is roughly equivalent in first cost, even for the 2 Mbps, and lower in opex. BUT operators can save a bundle (roughly half the cost of setting up a customer) by cheating on the home's internal network, and using various network geometry strategies to cut the cost of OLTs (lighting only what you need). Also, never ignore the power of word-of-mouth, even in a Facebook age. My mother (who lives independently at age 89) started downloading Netflix over her "6 Mbps" Comcast hookup (I upgraded her from the slower but more reliable Verizon DSL). She actually averages 3 Mbps on Comcast over the time she's downloading a video. When FiOS comes to her town, in about a year, I'll go back to Verizon there. No one else in her complex (a pleasant warren of state-mandated, state-subsidized low-rise housing aimed at elderly, built by a developer 30 years ago so he could build to a higher density nearby) thought they needed that kind of bandwidth a year ago. Since then, my mother ("My son is an expert on these things... he edits a magazine") has had me set up a half-dozen neighbors the same way -- and others had their own kids and grandkids do the trivial job (connecting to a TV if they have a new one, or buying a bigger monitor for their desktop or laptop). The complex's site manager says she thinks almost everyone now has that kind of bandwidth. I was out at the pool with mom two night ago (yes, state-subsidized housing in Massachusetts sometimes has a pool) and half the people there said they were waiting for a download to finish. One guy was watching the Red Sox game on his laptop via slingbox (there's no hotspot -- his wifi router was in his apartment just 20 feet away). I had set up his place -- he had none of this stuff a year ago. The drivers are clearly Netflix and video VoIP (usually Skype) for "visits" with the grandkids. Telemedicine is not far behind. My mother complains about the Skype image. "Steven... it's television...why is the image so fuzzy?" Can't really get the idea across that it's because the upload speeds aren't as good as the download speeds. BTW, Verizon uses flat-screen TV giveaways when it markets FiOS in Massachusetts. Cheaper for them that trying to hook up an old TV, I guess. No market survey would have caught any of this. Steven S. Ross Editor-in-Chief Broadband Properties steve at broadbandproperties.com www.bbpmag.com SKYPE: editorsteve +1 781-284-8810 +1 646-216-8030 fax +1 201-456-5933 mobile Christopher Mitchell wrote: > Though I think it is great to talk about how much bandwidth some of us > will need in 5,10,x years I wanted to note a problem that some of us > have been developing. > > I was at a discussion recently and a person from the MN Dept Commerce > was saying that not everyone needs that much more bandwidth. That many > people are happy with 2mbps. > > While I think that most of us recognize 2mbps will not be sufficient for > what we want to do, there are millions of people on dialup right now who > think they are doing alright. > > So I think we need to avoid talking about what everyone will *need* and > talk about what should be available for those who *need* it. I think > people are more receptive if it is clear that we need to move to a world > where they will have a choice between their slow 2Mbps if they want for > rather cheap even though much faster is necessary for others in the > community, especially schools, businesses and whatever. > > My point is that if we are not nuanced and we talk about what everyone > will *need* in x years, we will enable those who oppose us to drag the > discussion in whether some grandparent will need to download HD movies > in minutes. Though it is an argument I believe we can win, we need to > avoid getting sidetracked into that and focus on the real goal, which is > giving everyone an actual choice of whether they want fast broadband or > the DSL crap they are used to. > > Christopher Mitchell > Director, Telecommunications as Commons Initiative > Institute for Local Self-Reliance > http://www.newrules.org/info/ > 612-379-3815 x209 > > Steve Ross wrote: >> Great link. Haven't found the UK one, but here's one of ours >> from 2006, predicting 30 Gbps to the home by 2030. >> >> www.broadbandproperties.com/2006issues/sep06issues/george_sep.pdf >> >> It comes from John George at OFS. >> >> Steven S. Ross >> Editor-in-Chief >> Broadband Properties >> steve at broadbandproperties.com >> www.bbpmag.com >> SKYPE: editorsteve >> +1 781-284-8810 >> +1 646-216-8030 fax >> +1 201-456-5933 mobile >> >> Dale Carstensen wrote: >>> I'm looking for a URL about a speech given in England sometime since >>> last October, about how traffic at a single home will exceed all >>> current backbone internet traffic by some date in the near future. >>> The speaker was a manager at a US telecom company. Maybe AT&T, >>> maybe Verizon, maybe Qwest. I guess those are the only three, >>> and how long will it be before there's just one again?? >>> >>> I haven't found that yet, but I did find an amazing review, which >>> appears to have been written around 1999 (the web page is dated >>> Oct 18, 2002), about a paper written at Bell Labs in 1961 predicting >>> telecom traffic demands for the year 2012. The title is "Through a >>> Glass Darkly". >>> >>> >>> >>> In addition to that entertaining digression, I'll mention that I >>> think it's pretty silly to keep installing copper when fiber is >>> cheaper. And with fiber, the question is not on the order of >>> kilobytes, it's on the order of gigabytes and tens of gigabytes, >>> and it won't be long before it's terabytes. Per second. >>> >>> Now, I think it is also silly to ship hundreds of copies of the >>> same huge file (a movie, for instance, or updates to Microsoft >>> Windows or Apple Mac OS or Linux) to the same small city from a >>> centralized data center several states away. But maybe if "the >>> phone company" began thinking it's in the communications carrier >>> business instead of something it did decades ago. That is, the >>> advertising, billing, satellite TV, "bundling" or other marketing >>> schemes and string between tin cans business seems to be what they >>> think they do. >>> >>> Maybe if they concentrated on being communications carriers, >>> the incredible bandwidth of fiber, that wouldn't cost as much as >>> the copper they're still installing, would handle the delivery of >>> those duplicative huge files, and the demise of theaters and >>> television could proceed, the same way cell phones have just >>> about eliminated pay phones. >>> >>> Or, the remnants of the Bell system can just disappear when some >>> other company does what they should have done. >>> >>> If I find that URL about the coming exaflood, I'll pass it along, too. >>> Oh, searching for exaflood on google will yield some related reading, >>> too, I'm sure. >>> >>> Mr. Dale >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> 1st-mile-nm mailing list >>> 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >>> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> 1st-mile-nm mailing list >> 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm >> >> > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > From rl at 1st-mile.com Thu Jul 3 16:06:04 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:06:04 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] NM DoIT FY10 IT Strategic Plan Message-ID: <20080703160604.w3bdcl1uq04scwgc@www2.dcn.org> Yesterday, July 2nd, the New Mexico IT Commission approved the DoIT New Mexico FY10 IT Strategic Plan. A .pdf of the Plan can be found on the DoIT web site at: www.doit.state.nm.us/itplan_guide.html It is the third item down, under References. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From jdg at changefactors.com Fri Jul 4 08:36:32 2008 From: jdg at changefactors.com (John Goekler) Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2008 09:36:32 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Smart Local Networks Message-ID: <109005D805764EA9AA4F584565525275@Cedrick> A piece from my favorite security wonk - John Robb of Global Guerillas http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/ Global Guerrillas RESILIENT COMMUNITY: Smart Local Networks Posted: 01 Jul 2008 02:29 PM CDT One of richest pathways towards improving the level of community coordination in the event of disaster/disconnection, is through the > use of community Web sites that provide actionable information (here's an example of how this worked in San Diego during the recent fires) and reverse 911 data-sharing. Unfortunately, community emergency Web sites as well as basic data services are extremely vulnerable to disconnection. What's needed are smart local networks. Smart Local Networks (a local Internet or community Intranet) Most of the local loops (from telco fiber to cable company coaxial) currently in place and/or being installed in the US are dumb (I suspect it is the same globally). They simply route data from local customers to regionally clustered corporate server farms and then outwards/back. This means that any disconnection (physical or logical fault) between local customers and these remote systems will result in a complete cessation of service. To correct this deficiency, communities need to start to think more like a corporation: security of data services are considered central to a company's survival. So, as part of future negotiations with cable/telcos, communities should request that companies allow them to piggyback on their "dumb" networks to create a smart local loops. This would entail: a.. A high availability local network for emergencies. A local emergency network that connects all homes and business in the area by accessing the local aggregation nodes of cable/telco operators (which is actually a relatively trivial/inexpensive network exercise). It should become the default network if access to the greater Internet fails. Optimally, the network should sit astride both cable and telco services to provide a seamless community "footprint." b.. High availability servers (computers that host Web sites) in the local loop. Servers that are on the community network and located within the communities environs. Back-up power should be provided to ensure that these servers maintain high up time. c.. (futures) Community coordination software to sit on these servers. Easy to use and edit social software: blogs, wikis, etc. If the market is large enough, there will be software packages (hopefully open source) that replicate the functionality of a fully functional emergency response system (i.e. locally cached Google maps, etc.). In terms of operating this software, most communities could ask schools/boy scouts/etc. to maintain the software, even during an emergency (young people are much more likely to have the skill sets to do this w/o specific training). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From john at citylinkfiber.com Mon Jul 7 18:37:45 2008 From: john at citylinkfiber.com (John Brown) Date: Mon, 07 Jul 2008 19:37:45 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] [Fwd: Interesting call from Qwest] Message-ID: <4872C4E9.2010205@citylinkfiber.com> I find this disturbing and wonder why my customer would even receive such a phone call. Whats really interesting is that this customers number was ported AWAY from Qwest some years ago and moved over to a competitor's T1 PRI. Not even a reseller. I complete standalone CLEC.... Comments ??? -------- Original Message -------- From: - Mon Jul 07 12:54:43 2008 Subject: Interesting call from Qwest Date: Mon, 7 Jul 2008 11:53:23 -0700 From: REMOVED To: Return-Path: REMOVED X-OriginalArrivalTime: 07 Jul 2008 18:53:29.0510 (UTC) FILETIME=[BEF36C60:01C8E062] Saying my main number (505-84X-XXXX) was ?listed as being with a reseller? and they had had some rate changes that might make it worth my while to switch it back to Qwest. I just laughed, but thought you might be interested to know that they?re going after their own reseller?s customers trying to get them back into the fold. From dlc at lampinc.com Tue Jul 8 09:42:29 2008 From: dlc at lampinc.com (Dale Carstensen) Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 10:42:29 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Bandwidth - How Much is Enough? In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 03 Jul 2008 10:00:40 EDT." <486CDB88.8010702@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200807081642.m68GgUev025079@lampinc.com> Found it. A search for "cicconi internet capacity" seems to give some good hits. Also "westminster eforum web 2.0 2008" has some other interesting ones on the first page, including one from valleywag (via technorati) with the headline the same as the last element of this URL: And that reminds me of a Cleavon Little scene in "Blazing Saddles". Here's a sentence from valleywag that summarizes what I kept reading over and over back in late April: Jim Cicconi, AT&T's vice president of legislative affairs, surely doesn't believe that "in three years' time, 20 typical households will generate more traffic than the entire Internet today," as he told Westminster eForum attendees in London. Mr. Dale >Steve Ross wrote: >Chris makes a great point. Just remember that you don't >really want to lay new copper, which has little headroom for >more bandwidth growth, when fiber is roughly equivalent in >first cost, even for the 2 Mbps, and lower in opex. > >BUT operators can save a bundle (roughly half the cost of >setting up a customer) by cheating on the home's internal >network, and using various network geometry strategies to >cut the cost of OLTs (lighting only what you need). > >Also, never ignore the power of word-of-mouth, even in a >Facebook age. > >My mother (who lives independently at age 89) started >downloading Netflix over her "6 Mbps" Comcast hookup (I >upgraded her from the slower but more reliable Verizon DSL). >She actually averages 3 Mbps on Comcast over the time she's >downloading a video. > >When FiOS comes to her town, in about a year, I'll go back >to Verizon there. > >No one else in her complex (a pleasant warren of >state-mandated, state-subsidized low-rise housing aimed at >elderly, built by a developer 30 years ago so he could build >to a higher density nearby) thought they needed that kind of >bandwidth a year ago. Since then, my mother ("My son is an >expert on these things... he edits a magazine") has had me >set up a half-dozen neighbors the same way -- and others had >their own kids and grandkids do the trivial job (connecting >to a TV if they have a new one, or buying a bigger monitor >for their desktop or laptop). > >The complex's site manager says she thinks almost everyone >now has that kind of bandwidth. I was out at the pool with >mom two night ago (yes, state-subsidized housing in >Massachusetts sometimes has a pool) and half the people >there said they were waiting for a download to finish. One >guy was watching the Red Sox game on his laptop via slingbox >(there's no hotspot -- his wifi router was in his apartment >just 20 feet away). I had set up his place -- he had none of >this stuff a year ago. > >The drivers are clearly Netflix and video VoIP (usually >Skype) for "visits" with the grandkids. Telemedicine is not >far behind. My mother complains about the Skype image. >"Steven... it's television...why is the image so fuzzy?" > >Can't really get the idea across that it's because the >upload speeds aren't as good as the download speeds. > >BTW, Verizon uses flat-screen TV giveaways when it markets >FiOS in Massachusetts. Cheaper for them that trying to hook >up an old TV, I guess. > >No market survey would have caught any of this. > >Steven S. Ross >Editor-in-Chief >Broadband Properties >steve at broadbandproperties.com >www.bbpmag.com >SKYPE: editorsteve >+1 781-284-8810 >+1 646-216-8030 fax >+1 201-456-5933 mobile > >Christopher Mitchell wrote: >> Though I think it is great to talk about how much bandwidth some of us >> will need in 5,10,x years I wanted to note a problem that some of us >> have been developing. >> >> I was at a discussion recently and a person from the MN Dept Commerce >> was saying that not everyone needs that much more bandwidth. That many >> people are happy with 2mbps. >> >> While I think that most of us recognize 2mbps will not be sufficient for >> what we want to do, there are millions of people on dialup right now who >> think they are doing alright. >> >> So I think we need to avoid talking about what everyone will *need* and >> talk about what should be available for those who *need* it. I think >> people are more receptive if it is clear that we need to move to a world >> where they will have a choice between their slow 2Mbps if they want for >> rather cheap even though much faster is necessary for others in the >> community, especially schools, businesses and whatever. >> >> My point is that if we are not nuanced and we talk about what everyone >> will *need* in x years, we will enable those who oppose us to drag the >> discussion in whether some grandparent will need to download HD movies >> in minutes. Though it is an argument I believe we can win, we need to >> avoid getting sidetracked into that and focus on the real goal, which is >> giving everyone an actual choice of whether they want fast broadband or >> the DSL crap they are used to. >> >> Christopher Mitchell >> Director, Telecommunications as Commons Initiative >> Institute for Local Self-Reliance >> http://www.newrules.org/info/ >> 612-379-3815 x209 >> >> Steve Ross wrote: >>> Great link. Haven't found the UK one, but here's one of ours >>> from 2006, predicting 30 Gbps to the home by 2030. >>> >>> www.broadbandproperties.com/2006issues/sep06issues/george_sep.pdf >>> >>> It comes from John George at OFS. >>> >>> Steven S. Ross >>> Editor-in-Chief >>> Broadband Properties >>> steve at broadbandproperties.com >>> www.bbpmag.com >>> SKYPE: editorsteve >>> +1 781-284-8810 >>> +1 646-216-8030 fax >>> +1 201-456-5933 mobile >>> >>> Dale Carstensen wrote: >>>> I'm looking for a URL about a speech given in England sometime since >>>> last October, about how traffic at a single home will exceed all >>>> current backbone internet traffic by some date in the near future. >>>> The speaker was a manager at a US telecom company. Maybe AT&T, >>>> maybe Verizon, maybe Qwest. I guess those are the only three, >>>> and how long will it be before there's just one again?? >>>> >>>> I haven't found that yet, but I did find an amazing review, which >>>> appears to have been written around 1999 (the web page is dated >>>> Oct 18, 2002), about a paper written at Bell Labs in 1961 predicting >>>> telecom traffic demands for the year 2012. The title is "Through a >>>> Glass Darkly". >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> In addition to that entertaining digression, I'll mention that I >>>> think it's pretty silly to keep installing copper when fiber is >>>> cheaper. And with fiber, the question is not on the order of >>>> kilobytes, it's on the order of gigabytes and tens of gigabytes, >>>> and it won't be long before it's terabytes. Per second. >>>> >>>> Now, I think it is also silly to ship hundreds of copies of the >>>> same huge file (a movie, for instance, or updates to Microsoft >>>> Windows or Apple Mac OS or Linux) to the same small city from a >>>> centralized data center several states away. But maybe if "the >>>> phone company" began thinking it's in the communications carrier >>>> business instead of something it did decades ago. That is, the >>>> advertising, billing, satellite TV, "bundling" or other marketing >>>> schemes and string between tin cans business seems to be what they >>>> think they do. >>>> >>>> Maybe if they concentrated on being communications carriers, >>>> the incredible bandwidth of fiber, that wouldn't cost as much as >>>> the copper they're still installing, would handle the delivery of >>>> those duplicative huge files, and the demise of theaters and >>>> television could proceed, the same way cell phones have just >>>> about eliminated pay phones. >>>> >>>> Or, the remnants of the Bell system can just disappear when some >>>> other company does what they should have done. >>>> >>>> If I find that URL about the coming exaflood, I'll pass it along, too. >>>> Oh, searching for exaflood on google will yield some related reading, >>>> too, I'm sure. >>>> >>>> Mr. Dale From rl at 1st-mile.com Tue Jul 8 18:45:53 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 18:45:53 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Telecoms Sue Over High-Speed Links Message-ID: <20080708184553.hatxw6ifr4wsgc0k@www2.dcn.org> The article below, from the current National Law Journal, in addition to its primary content, cites a Qwest vs. City of Santa Fe legal suit. I have added a brief note at the end of this posting, for further information on the 2004 case. I will also note that the (OSPN) Open Service Provider Network model, of local deployment and ownership of (fiber) infrastructure, without providing commercial services, but rather opening the network to competitive service providers, including incumbents, circumvents the unfair practices issues, while also fostering more financially viable public-private partnerships to achieve 'true broadband for all'. rl -------- Telecoms Sue Over High-Speed Links www.law.com/jsp/legaltechnology/pubArticleLT.jsp?id=1202422769174&rss=ltn Peter Page The National Law Journal July 07, 2008 Telecommunications companies are suing cities around the nation to stop the construction of publicly owned fiber optic systems to bring high-speed Internet, telephone and cable television to communities far from metropolitan centers. Attorneys for cities say the telecommunications suits, whether brought under state law, the Federal Telecommunications Act or other laws, are veiled attempts to stop construction of competing public systems providing an essential utility in the digital age. "It's a national playbook. The longer they [telecom companies] delay things, the better for them," said Patrick Ottinger, general counsel for Lafayette, La. The city's plans for a $125 million municipal broadband system were delayed by suits brought by BellSouth and Cox Communications Inc. One suit resulted in the city holding a referendum to approve the bond sale. The other was resolved when the city amended the bond ordinance adopted after the referendum to conform with an unfavorable appellate decision. BellSouth Telcoms. Inc. v. City of Lafayette, 919 So. 2d 844 (La. 3d Ct. App.). Attorneys for telecommunications companies say the litigation is needed because municipalities with the ability to borrow money cheaply -- and not hobbled by the need to return a profit -- have unfair competitive advantages. "Our position has never been that it is unlawful for cities to do this, but you can't use your powers as a city to create an uneven playing field," said David Goodnight in Stoel Rives' Seattle office, who has represented Qwest Communications International Inc. against cities in numerous suits since 2000. Two pivotal cases Goodnight won upended the telecommunications ordinances in Berkeley, Calif., and Sante Fe, N.M. Qwest v. City of Berkeley, 433 F.3d 1253 (9th Cir. 2006); Qwest v. City of Santa Fe, 380 F.3d 1258 (10th Cir.). A FIGHT IN UTAH Goodnight cited an association of Utah cities formed to promote the construction of a broadband networks in smaller cities and rural areas. "What we found during discovery was that the cities were providing facilities and personnel at no cost, interest-free loans and, in some instances, outright cash infusions," he said. Steve Allread, a solo practitioner in Salt Lake City who represents the Utah association, countered that "[I]f the private sector had been more responsive, there would not have been a need for the project. This litigation was an attempt [by Qwest] to recreate the old monopolistic system." The suit settled in 2006. Qwest Corp v. Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency, No. 2:05-cv-00471 PGC (D. Utah.). Jim Baller of the Baller Herbst Law Group in Washington has participated in many of the suits and is an advocate for policies favoring municipal broadband networks. "It is common for the affected cable company to sue over these initiatives," Baller said. "This is similar to electrification a century ago when small towns and rural areas were left behind, so they formed their own authorities." Many involved in the issue see a typical clash of viewpoints in the litigation embroiling Monticello, Minn., a town near Minneapolis, and TDS Telecom, a subsidiary of Bridgewater Telephone Co. The city, complaining that neither TDS nor its competitor Charter Communications Inc. would bring fiber cable to every home and business, won a 74 percent majority in a referendum to build a municipal system. TDS sued on the eve of a city council meeting to finalize the plan. "The municipal system will be in direct competition with private companies," said David Johnson of Sidley Austin in Chicago, who is representing TDS. "The city is construing public convenience so broadly it would allow the city of Monticello to go into competition with any business in the city if it didn't like the prices or services, and they could do it with tax-free financing with no need to make a profit." John Baker of Greene Espel in Minneapolis, who represents the city, said cities across the state had used the broadly worded state law to sell bonds backed by anticipated revenues to build water parks, ambulance services, ski areas and Internet services. "TDS is trying to take the open-ended authority of Minnesota municipalities to issue revenue bonds for public convenience and define 'public convenience' right out of existence," Baker said. A motion for dismal is scheduled to be argued on July 18. Bridgewater Telephone Co. v. Monticello, No. 86-CV-08-4555. ------ Note: Qwest Corporation v. City of Santa Fe, 380 F.3d 1258 (10th Cir. 2004). Rejected Qwest's Section 1983 claims and claim that right-of-way fees were limited to costs, but held that a substantial increase in the fee was a prima facie showing of prohibition. Joseph Van Eaton represented the City. http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F3/380/380.F3d.1258.02-2269.02-2258.html ----------------- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From granoff at zianet.com Wed Jul 9 16:21:22 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Wed, 09 Jul 2008 17:21:22 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] MS DNS patch snuffs net connection for ZoneAlarm users Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20080709171854.0dc66ec0@mail.zianet.com> FYI. From another list. >MS DNS patch snuffs net connection for ZoneAlarm users >By John Leyden >9 Jul 2008 10:05 >A cure worse than the disease > >Updated Microsoft released four patches - all rated important - as >part of its regular Patch Tuesday update cycle, one of which left >ZoneAlarm users locked out the internet. > >The most significant of the quartet fixes a flaw in Windows' >implementations of the Domain Name System protocol (MS08-037.mspx). >Multiple vendors are subject to the DNS-spoofing vulnerability, >which stems from a fundamental weakness involving a lack of entropy >in DNS queries rather than a specific security bug. Successfully >exploiting the flaw could allow hackers to spoof DNS replies, >creating a means to redirect network traffic or to mount man-in-the- >middle attacks. > >Unfortunately Microsoft's fix creates problems in itself, leaving >users of the popular ZoneAlarm firewall unable to access the >internet after they apply the patch. > >The experiences of Reg reader Steve seem typical. "I woke up this >morning to no internet at all and on calling my ISP's tech support I >was told there was an issue with the latest patches and Zone Alarm," >he reports. "I have uninstalled Zone Alarm and everything now works >fine. Not sure who is to blame on this one but it has been a pain." > >ZoneAlarm has published a list of recommended workarounds to dealing >for the glitch here. > >Microsoft's three other patches cover vulnerabilities in Exchange >server and SQL Server and, on the desktop, bugs in Windows Explorer. >The Explorer vuln potentially creates a means for hackers to inject >malware onto vulnerable systems running Windows Vista. This flaw - >along with cross-site scripting vulnerabilities in Outlook for Web >Access that affect MS Exchange and information disclosure bugs in >SQL Server - are all rated "important" by Redmond but "critical" by >security watchers at the SANS Institute's Internet Storm centre. From granoff at zianet.com Thu Jul 10 09:03:45 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 10:03:45 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: GigaLaw.com Daily News, July 10, 2008 Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20080710100251.01bb4ec0@mail.zianet.com> FYI. From another list. >Security Researchers Find Big Flaw on Internet > Security researchers said they had discovered an enormous flaw that > could let hackers steer most people using corporate computer networks to > malicious websites of their own devising. > Read more: > http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-techblog9-2008jul09,0,540429.story From pete at ideapete.com Fri Jul 11 11:27:16 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:27:16 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Couple of interesting links Message-ID: <4877A604.5040201@ideapete.com> First one is a diagram of the worlds submarine cables between continents The interesting segment is the incremental increase in bandwidth for the next 6 years to 51 terrabits especially how its targeting specific application use ( Imagine how even I2 and NLR look poorly in comparison ) Simple issue if we are doing this under hostile ocean environment why cant we do this on land Technology Review: New Oceans of Data http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/20928/?a=f Next bit is an article on Internet congestion, I posted this simply because its one of the most logical articles without technogobbledegook and buried in it is one of the clearest illustrations of issues with TCP protocol and innovative ways around the problems and also sadly how they could be misused. http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?ch=specialsections&sc=futurebiz&id=20919&a= Its an absolute must read for our legislatures and politicians to get them grounded ( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Sat Jul 12 17:43:43 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2008 18:43:43 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] TerraSAR-X Hot & New Message-ID: <48794FBF.3000109@ideapete.com> How about this to solve all our first mile data problems in Santa Fe http://www.dlr.de/tsx/start_en.htm TerraSAR-X laser -- Speed its moving at = 15,000 mph -- Distance its transmitting = 3000 miles ---Symmetrical Data Rate average - 5,5gig ( Thats only on its first iteration it has exchanged 50gig signals with USMD and Cheyenne Mountain) I want one but I cannot find it on amazon ( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Sun Jul 13 12:53:02 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2008 12:53:02 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] CityLink Fiber in Albuquerque Message-ID: <20080713125302.8xdfr509wkkoww4s@www2.dcn.org> Following an initial posting on this list, the following article is in the current issue of Broadband Properties Magazine . rl ------ New Open Access Network in New Mexico CityLink Telecommunications emerged from stealth mode last month to host a ?sneak peek? at its new fiber-to-the-home services. The services were displayed during the grand opening of Albuquerque?s new Emerald Building, a commercial site to which CityLink supplies dark fiber. CityLink?s new residential service will start out providing Internet access at 50 Mbps symmetrical for about $70 per month plus installation, or 100 Mbps symmetrical for about $130 per month plus installation. Voice services will also be available, and the company is testing video services. Working with developers, CityLink has already connected more than 150 new condos and loft apartments in downtown Albuquerque, and expects to expand the deployment throughout much of the downtown area, potentially to tens of thousands of residents. In a conversation with Broadband Properties, CityLink president John Brown explained that his company bought a metro fiber network out of bankruptcy in 2005 and has been working since then to upgrade it, including installing Active Ethernet equipment from Occam Networks. It is now deploying residential and commercial services as a competitive provider. The number of commercial buildings connected to the network has been increased from 19 when the network was purchased to more than 50 today. Two noteworthy aspects of the CityLink fiber network: ? The network is completely open access. Although City-Link is providing services, other carriers are welcome tolease the fiber access to homes (Active Ethernet technology makes open access easier to manage) and also dark fiber to enterprises. ? The carrier whose assets CityLink purchased had deployed fiber optics through the sewer system using robotic technology, and CityLink is continuing to use this approach, which Brown says is faster than traditional trenching and boring. Part of the assets purchase includes right-of-way agreements in 50 markets across the US, and CityLink is now actively pursuing deployments in several markets in New Mexico and other southwestern states. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Mon Jul 14 17:04:42 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:04:42 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] CWA Letter: Broadband Mapping Advocacy Message-ID: <20080714170442.jhrp0d7m8co840ok@www2.dcn.org> Telecom. infrastructure mapping is one part of a decision-support process to bring true broadband to all; to address bandwidth and pricing; to consider public-private partnerships; and to promote the pplications that will support lives and livelihoods. A few states have taken on this challenge. Here's the text of a letter from the CWA, in support of a national initiative. There are growing calls to do undertake a broadband mapping initiative in NM, from the public sector and some telcos, as well. rl ------ Broadband Mapping ? Letter from the CWA (Communications Workers of America) July 11, 2008 The Honorable Daniel K. Inouye, Chairman Senate Commerce Committee Washington, D.C. 20510 The Honorable John D. Dingell, Chairman, House Committee on Energy and Commerce Washington, D.C. 20515 The Honorable Ted Stevens, Vice Chairman Senate Commerce Committee Washington, D.C. 20510 The Honorable Joe Barton, Ranking Member House Committee on Energy and Commerce Washington, D.C. 20515 Dear Chairman Inouye, Vice Chairman Stevens, Chairman Dingell and Ranking Member Barton: The undersigned organizations write to express our strong support for Congressional action to promote greater availability and adoption of broadband high-speed Internet services. The leading bills pending before Congress (S. 1492, the Broadband Data Improvement Act and H.R. 3919, the Broadband Census of America Act of 2007) would improve information-gathering about current broadband deployment and assist in targeting resources to areas in need of such services. A recent FCC order requires more focused broadband data collection from broadband providers but does not address other important broadband mapping elements contained in the pending legislation. We believe Congress should adopt legislation this year that provides federal government support for state initiatives using public-private partnerships to identify gaps in broadband coverage and to develop both the supply of and demand for broadband in those areas. The ability to accelerate deployment and adoption by bringing together government, broadband providers, business, labor, farm organizations, librarians, educators, and consumer groups in public-private partnerships is greater than the ability of these diverse players standing alone. Adopting a national policy to stimulate subscription where it is already available, and deployment where it is not, could have dramatic and far-reaching economic impacts. For example, a Connected Nation study released February 2008 estimated the total annual economic impact of accelerating broadband across the nation to be more than $134 billion. In addition to the $134 billion total benefit, the study found that increasing broadband adoption by another seven percent could result in: ? $92 billion through an additional 2.4 million jobs per year created or retained; ? $662 million saved per year in reduced healthcare costs; ? $6.4 billion per year in mileage savings from unnecessary driving; ? $18 million in carbon credits associated with 3.2 billion fewer pounds of CO2 emissions per year in the United States; and ? $35.2 billion in value from 3.8 billion more hours saved per year from accessing broadband at home. We cannot afford to let another year go by without adopting policies that will stimulate the economy in such ways, while expanding use of the networks that are already deployed and providing broadband in previously underserved areas. That is why we urge you to work in a bipartisan, bicameral way to enact federal legislation this year. Thank you for your timely consideration of this important issue. Sincerely, AT&T Alliance for Public Technology American Association of People with Disabilities American Library Association Cablevision Charter Communications The Children?s Partnership Comcast Communications Workers of America Connected Nation Cox Communications EDUCAUSE Embarq Independent Telephone & Telecommunications Alliance Information Technology Industry Council International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Internet Innovation Alliance NIC, Inc. National Cable and Telecommunications Association National Farmers Union The National Grange National Rural Health Association Organization for the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies Qwest Time Warner Cable U.S. Cattlemen?s Association U.S. Chamber of Commerce United States Telecom Association Verizon Western Telecommunications Association Windstream cc: The Honorable Harry Reid The Honorable Mitch McConnell The Honorable Richard J. Durbin The Honorable Jon Kyl The Honorable Nancy Pelosi The Honorable Steny H. Hoyer The Honorable John A. Boehner The Honorable Edward J. Markey The Honorable Cliff Stearns -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From carroll at cagleandassociates.com Tue Jul 15 07:05:43 2008 From: carroll at cagleandassociates.com (Carroll Cagle) Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 08:05:43 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] [NMIPA] Azulstar finally out in Rio Rancho Message-ID: <20080715140559.C7CBF2BD5@velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us> Azulstar Equipment To Be Disconnected Albuquerque Journal July 15, 2008 The Rio Rancho city staff says it will take immediate action to pull the plug on wireless company Azulstar and its problem-plagued Internet service. A city crew will begin disconnecting power to Azulstar's network equipment as soon as work can be scheduled, said Steve Ruger, the city's contract administrator. Ruger sent a letter last week giving Azulstar 30 days to remove its equipment from city property. Failing that, Rio Rancho will consider the equipment abandoned and will remove it and take possession. The city is seeking reimbursement from Azulstar for $51,320 in charges for electricity supplied to the network since 2005 that the city has already paid. Last week's letter follows more than a year of warnings and extended deadlines by the city in response to complaints from customers and requests by Azulstar for more time to improve its service. City staff warned Azulstar last year that it had breached the contract by failing to complete the network, maintain insurance coverage and provide satisfactory service. Ruger said city staff has received no communications, other than the invoices, from Azulstar since April -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dlc at lampinc.com Tue Jul 15 08:40:32 2008 From: dlc at lampinc.com (Dale Carstensen) Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 09:40:32 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] CWA Letter: Broadband Mapping Advocacy In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:04:42 PDT." <20080714170442.jhrp0d7m8co840ok@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: <200807151540.m6FFeWs1003756@lampinc.com> Well, there's an idea, a union, such as CWA, or maybe a professional society, such as IEEE, could actually do something instead of just interfere with progress by seeking preferences for its members (or try to keep its collective knowledge secret). Well, IEEE does develop and publish standards, and I'm sure CWA members are grateful for the raises their union got them over the years, and the jobs their union preserved for them. Hmm, is CWA offering fiber training for dead-end copper workers? Mr. Dale >From: Richard Lowenberg >Telecom. infrastructure mapping is one part of a decision-support process to >bring true broadband to all; to address bandwidth and pricing; to consider >public-private partnerships; and to promote the pplications that will support >lives and livelihoods. A few states have taken on this challenge. Here's >the text of a letter from the CWA, in support of a national initiative. Ther >e >are growing calls to do undertake a broadband mapping initiative in NM, from t >he >public sector and some telcos, as well. >rl ... snip ... From carroll at cagleandassociates.com Tue Jul 15 08:54:06 2008 From: carroll at cagleandassociates.com (Carroll Cagle) Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 09:54:06 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] CWA Letter: Broadband Mapping Advocacy In-Reply-To: <200807151540.m6FFeWs1003756@lampinc.com> References: Your message of "Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:04:42 PDT."<20080714170442.jhrp0d7m8co840ok@www2.dcn.org> <200807151540.m6FFeWs1003756@lampinc.com> Message-ID: <084A2D2149F14047869F9AC5D530A57C@yourfsyly0jtwn> Although the CWA may have begun modifying its stance, in recent years another union, the IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers) has tended to have a more progressive stance -- as advocate for "open" municipal networks, etc. (Whereas the CWA, previously at least, tended to side with their employers which tend to be the large incumbent companies.) However, if both are now so inclined, why not? -----Original Message----- From: 1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org [mailto:1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org] On Behalf Of Dale Carstensen Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2008 9:41 AM To: 1st-mile-nm at crank.dcn.davis.ca.us Subject: Re: [1st-mile-nm] CWA Letter: Broadband Mapping Advocacy Well, there's an idea, a union, such as CWA, or maybe a professional society, such as IEEE, could actually do something instead of just interfere with progress by seeking preferences for its members (or try to keep its collective knowledge secret). Well, IEEE does develop and publish standards, and I'm sure CWA members are grateful for the raises their union got them over the years, and the jobs their union preserved for them. Hmm, is CWA offering fiber training for dead-end copper workers? Mr. Dale >From: Richard Lowenberg >Telecom. infrastructure mapping is one part of a decision-support process to >bring true broadband to all; to address bandwidth and pricing; to consider >public-private partnerships; and to promote the pplications that will support >lives and livelihoods. A few states have taken on this challenge. Here's >the text of a letter from the CWA, in support of a national initiative. Ther >e >are growing calls to do undertake a broadband mapping initiative in NM, from t >he >public sector and some telcos, as well. >rl ... snip ... _______________________________________________ 1st-mile-nm mailing list 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Tue Jul 15 11:47:59 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:47:59 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] [NMIPA] Azulstar finally out in Rio Rancho In-Reply-To: <20080715140559.C7CBF2BD5@velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us> References: <20080715140559.C7CBF2BD5@velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us> Message-ID: <487CF0DF.90607@ideapete.com> I really hate to be right about these things and at least stopped the city getting in over its head but what is so difficult, before these projects start, to plan and map out requirements This industry is crazy it just like a builder promising to build an unlimited house / building with an unlimited budget not using any architectural or design or planning services with a " we will work it out brick by brick as we go ", totally nuts On average a project is divided up into two pieces 1. Soft costs = Planning - Design - Financing etc 2. Hard Costs = Equipment - - Applications software - Services - Management - Operations etc ( deployment rubber meets the road stuff ) Normally on an MISIT project type 1 costs need to be kept below 25% ( pref 10 - 15% ) with 75% going into the real project In the real world when type 1 costs go over 40 - 50% the project is bankrupt Azulstar spent about 75% on soft costs ( Type 1 ) and still did not supply any type 1 services, Sandoval County Broadband spent over 92% on soft costs thats why there was nothing left to do the real work on both projects and a lot of people paid to do and or produce nothing ( : ( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ Carroll Cagle (by way of Marianne Granoff ) wrote: > *Azulstar Equipment To Be Disconnected > ** > */Albuquerque// Journal > July 15, 2008 > / > > The Rio Rancho city staff says it will take immediate action to > pull the plug on wireless company Azulstar and its problem-plagued > Internet service. > A city crew will begin disconnecting power to Azulstar's network > equipment as soon as work can be scheduled, said Steve Ruger, the > city's contract administrator. > Ruger sent a letter last week giving Azulstar 30 days to remove its > equipment from city property. Failing that, Rio Rancho will consider > the equipment abandoned and will remove it and take possession. > The city is seeking reimbursement from Azulstar for $51,320 in > charges for electricity supplied to the network since 2005 that the > city has already paid. > Last week's letter follows more than a year of warnings and > extended deadlines by the city in response to complaints from > customers and requests by Azulstar for more time to improve its > service. City staff warned Azulstar last year that it had breached the > contract by failing to complete the network, maintain insurance > coverage and provide satisfactory service. > Ruger said city staff has received no communications, other than > the invoices, from Azulstar since April > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From carroll at cagleandassociates.com Thu Jul 17 05:32:39 2008 From: carroll at cagleandassociates.com (Carroll Cagle) Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 06:32:39 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Money dispute stalls Qwest's CyberCenter Message-ID: <5FB9A633F2C84744ABC6CDC5AA86820E@yourfsyly0jtwn> Kudos to State Department of Information Technology for its efforts. Not only does the Qwest proposal go outside the AFOR plan's desired outcomes, it also would amount to a subsidized effort against existing companies Big Byte and Oso Grande. Carroll Cagle Money Dispute Stalls Qwest's 'CyberCenter' Albuquerque Journal - front page Thursday, July 17, 2008 By Andrew Webb Journal Staff Writer Qwest Corp. hopes to build a $40 million "CyberCenter" in Albuquerque, a project company officials say will make New Mexico more attractive to high-tech businesses and could even give the state a better shot at landing the Air Force Cyber Command Center. But there's a glitch. The company wants $10 million of the money it would invest in the project to count against the $255 million it is required to spend to pay off commitments to the state, and two opponents of the plan say that shouldn't be allowed. The 40,000-square-foot center would allow Qwest's corporate customers to store computer equipment and backup data in a secure, controlled environment with direct hookups to major communications backbones. It would be housed in a former call center space at Qwest's Downtown Albuquerque office building. Qwest says time is of the essence. Officials for the Denver-based company said this week a big customer is waiting in the wings, and the project will likely go elsewhere if it doesn't get the blessing of the Public Regulation Commission soon. Company officials say the $10 million will make or break the deal. The money is subject to a 2006 agreement between Qwest and the state, called the Second Amended Settlement Agreement, or SASA. It was reached after the Public Regulation Commission found Qwest had failed to meet previous infrastructure investment targets that were contemplated in the rates the company was allowed to charge. The agreement calls for investing $255 million by 2010 for various projects. These include nearly doubling the provision of high-speed Internet access in rural areas, upgrades to existing systems and the expenditure of at least $50 million on advanced technology services throughout its service territory. Qwest says it is meeting the specific goals and wants the $10 million for the CyberCenter to count toward the general improvement requirements. If it builds the CyberCenter, the company expects to spend the $40 million to improve ventilation, utilities and other infrastructure in five floors of its office building to house the center. The center would provide backup and other data in an environment safe from natural disasters such as floods and tornadoes and reduce their costs for housing computer equipment. The space was formerly used for about 300 sales and directory service employees, which have been trimmed over the years as Qwest dealt with rapidly changing communications trends and technologies, such as the switch from traditional land-line telephones to wireless. Although the project has the backing of the city and business groups, some, including the state's Department of Information Technology and the PRC staff itself, question whether the $10 million investment would serve the original agreement's purpose - to improve telephone and high-speed Internet service and availability, especially in rural and underserved areas. Furthermore, they argue, at least two other companies already offer similar service in Albuquerque. Qwest is expected to present the proposal to the PRC and ask for an expedited decision today in Santa Fe. Normally, the company would make the investments and report them later as expenditures allowed under the $255 million SASA agreement. But in this case, Qwest decided to seek the PRC's go-ahead before proceeding, lest questions be raised later, New Mexico president Loretta Armenta said. "We'd like to get started as soon as possible" on the project, Armenta said. "We have this customer really waiting to hear back from us .... We've really been champing at the bit to get this." The customer could not be named, she said. Qwest proposed the center to PRC staff about six months ago, and asked the commission to expedite its response. The center would be one of more than a dozen nationwide. If the use of the funds is not approved, "the business case for the CyberCenter will collapse, and Qwest cannot make this investment," attorneys for Qwest wrote. Armenta also said a CyberCenter of this size could be important in New Mexico's bid to lure the Air Force Cyber Command - a goal of Gov. Bill Richardson. But the New Mexico Department of Information Technology said the CyberCenter proposal does not fall under the SASA limitations or goals of network improvement. "The SASA funds are not designed as a substitute or subsidy for a business case for building of (a) Qwest CyberCenter," the department said. "They are designed to make up for Qwest's previous failures to invest in its telecommunications network. "The CyberCenters themselves, while no doubt useful and beneficial to Qwest, do not improve the New Mexico telecommunications network." The department also noted two similar Albuquerque businesses, Big Byte and Oso Grande, that operate data storage and computer equipment collocation centers. PRC staff, noting the reservations of the Department of Information Technology, asked the PRC to deny Qwest's requests for a quick decision and instead schedule hearings and request more evidence the project would fall under the SASA guidelines. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.gif Type: image/gif Size: 862 bytes Desc: not available URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Thu Jul 17 12:51:45 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 12:51:45 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Palo Alto, CA: Open Fiber Network News Message-ID: <20080717125145.bjbfcet6bs4cwgok@www2.dcn.org> Palo Alto has been attempting to deploy various fiber networking initiatives over many years. Last year we reported that the City had selected a proposal from PacketFront and 180 Connect, though it has taken until very recently for all parties to come to terms on a workable plan. The latest version of the proposed 'open service provider network' fiber system includes Axia Net Media, a Canadian content and services provider, which has promised to 'put up the money'. With this proposal, the City of Palo also does not have to use public funds or bonding to pay for the deployment. More below. RL ----- Palo Alto Daily News Tuesday Jul 15 Council approves ultra-high-speed broadband plan Business plan bypassed By Kristina Peterson / Daily News Staff Writer The Palo Alto City Council late Monday night approved expediting a proposal to bring ultra-high-speed broadband Internet access to the city. Rather than waiting to develop a full business plan, the council voted to direct city staff to start working on a less detailed letter of intent that would nail down only general concepts with the companies who have proposed to build, operate and manage the open network. Under the conceptual plan approved Monday, a consortium of companies - broadband specialist Packet Front, network installer 180 Connect and major investor Axia Net Media - will build a high-speed, network-neutral fiber infrastructure over the next three years that will stretch across the city. The city, which won't have to make a monetary contribution, will provide some city assets, including part of its dark fiber ring, its basic fiber network. In 25 years, the city can purchase the entire system for $1. The council's decision ended nearly a decade of unsuccessful efforts to bring ultra-high-speed Internet to local homes and businesses. "Nobody's going to criticize the city of Palo Alto for rushing into this," joked Michael Eager, past president of the Palo Alto Fiber Net group. In fact, the council's two youngest members, Sid Espinosa and Yiaway Yeh pressed their colleagues to take the slower, more traditional route of fleshing out a full business plan before proceeding. "There are significant risks we're taking on," Espinosa said. "The health of our partner in this venture is critical." But Mayor Larry Klein argued that the project's structure permits the involved companies to keep some of their business ideas confidential. "It's not for us to second guess because they're putting in their money," he said. A motion drafted by Klein and Council Member Yoriko Kishimoto to move forward without a business plan but bring on additional legal staff and technical consultants ultimately proved more successful, earning unanimous approval, except from Council Member Jack Morton, who recused himself. At least a dozen residents spoke in favor of the proposal at Monday's meeting, including many locals who have been lobbying for fiber to the home for nearly a decade. Senior center Avenidas board member Richard Adler said the proposal could help bring remote health care to aging baby boomers, as well as encourage independent living for longer. "This is very exciting for Palo Alto's older residents," he said. Eager said the plan met the shared hopes of the local tech community for an ultra-high-speed, open data network. "This is what we asked for," he said. But several local businessmen whose companies use the city's dark fibers expressed reservations about plans to cede management of their contracts to the new network operators. "It's kind of alarming to hand the dark fiber contracts to the (consortium)," said Geoff Dale, vice president of engineering at Neapolitan Networks, one of the city's dark fiber customers. "There's always a chance something might happen." Though the details will be hammered out in the upcoming negotiations, the council Monday approved paying the network operators a fee for managing its dark fiber customers after the city's fixed costs have been recovered. City staff will bring an estimated budget for consultants and attorneys to the Aug. 4 council meeting and the detailed letter of intent is expected to be ready by September. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Thu Jul 17 13:40:19 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:40:19 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Qwest Data Center Hearing at PRC Message-ID: <20080717134019.8n9bqb92go088ogk@www2.dcn.org> This morning, Carroll Cagle forwarded an article from the Alb. Journal regarding the PRC hearing today, about Qwest's proposed Data Center, and its request to use $10 million of the AFOR Settlement Agreement fund for this. The article provides additional background information. I ran over to attend. Qwest and NM DoIT representatives made brief counter presentations and remarks. The question is whether this is a legal and otherwise appropriate use of AFOR Settlement funds, or not. Representatives of Qwest competitors, Big Byte, Oso Grande and NMIPA, were not in attendence today. No decisions made today. The PRC decided to move quickly, and to hold an Evidentiary Hearing on Mon. the 28th, 9:30; and Oral Arguements on the 29th. Decisions to follow. If anyone on this list has more detailed (or correcting) information, please keep us posted. Richard -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From Mike.Ripperger at state.nm.us Thu Jul 17 14:44:31 2008 From: Mike.Ripperger at state.nm.us (Ripperger, Michael, PRC) Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:44:31 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Qwest Data Center Hearing at PRC In-Reply-To: <20080717134019.8n9bqb92go088ogk@www2.dcn.org> References: <20080717134019.8n9bqb92go088ogk@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: <0018F48A404E174982905690CB56097D061C3961@CEXMB2.nmes.lcl> Richard, Thanks for posting this issue on the list. There will probably be a quick intervention deadline, and an opportunity at a minimum for public comment at the hearing. However, public comment is not considered evidence, but intervention and testimony will. I will forward the Commission order once I can find it, which should contain the relevant details. Michael Ripperger Telecommunications Bureau Chief New Mexico Public Regulation Commission Marian Hall 224 East Palace Ave Santa Fe, NM 87501 Phone 1-505-827-6902 Fax 1-505-827-4402 -----Original Message----- From: 1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org [mailto:1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org] On Behalf Of Richard Lowenberg Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2008 2:40 PM To: 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org Subject: Re: [1st-mile-nm] Qwest Data Center Hearing at PRC This morning, Carroll Cagle forwarded an article from the Alb. Journal regarding the PRC hearing today, about Qwest's proposed Data Center, and its request to use $10 million of the AFOR Settlement Agreement fund for this. The article provides additional background information. I ran over to attend. Qwest and NM DoIT representatives made brief counter presentations and remarks. The question is whether this is a legal and otherwise appropriate use of AFOR Settlement funds, or not. Representatives of Qwest competitors, Big Byte, Oso Grande and NMIPA, were not in attendence today. No decisions made today. The PRC decided to move quickly, and to hold an Evidentiary Hearing on Mon. the 28th, 9:30; and Oral Arguements on the 29th. Decisions to follow. If anyone on this list has more detailed (or correcting) information, please keep us posted. Richard -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. _______________________________________________ 1st-mile-nm mailing list 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm ______________________________________________________________________ This inbound email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. ______________________________________________________________________ Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail, including all attachments is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited unless specifically provided under the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender and destroy all copies of this message. -- This email has been scanned by the Sybari - Antigen Email System. From Mike.Ripperger at state.nm.us Fri Jul 18 13:12:38 2008 From: Mike.Ripperger at state.nm.us (Ripperger, Michael, PRC) Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:12:38 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Qwest Data Center Hearing at PRC References: <20080717134019.8n9bqb92go088ogk@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: <0018F48A404E174982905690CB56097D061C3DAF@CEXMB2.nmes.lcl> Attached is the Commission order on this issue. There is no specific intervention date in the order. If you are interested in making public comment or intervening, please call the Commission and ask for general counsel. I did not mean to downplay the importance of public comment, the Commission is very interested in hearing from interested parties. Commission Staff will be sponsoring a witness or two. Michael Ripperger Telecommunications Bureau Chief New Mexico Public Regulation Commission Marian Hall 224 East Palace Ave Santa Fe, NM 87501 Phone 1-505-827-6902 Fax 1-505-827-4402 -----Original Message----- From: Ripperger, Michael, PRC Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2008 3:45 PM To: 'Richard Lowenberg'; 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org Subject: RE: [1st-mile-nm] Qwest Data Center Hearing at PRC Richard, Thanks for posting this issue on the list. There will probably be a quick intervention deadline, and an opportunity at a minimum for public comment at the hearing. However, public comment is not considered evidence, but intervention and testimony will. I will forward the Commission order once I can find it, which should contain the relevant details. Michael Ripperger Telecommunications Bureau Chief New Mexico Public Regulation Commission Marian Hall 224 East Palace Ave Santa Fe, NM 87501 Phone 1-505-827-6902 Fax 1-505-827-4402 -----Original Message----- From: 1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org [mailto:1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org] On Behalf Of Richard Lowenberg Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2008 2:40 PM To: 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org Subject: Re: [1st-mile-nm] Qwest Data Center Hearing at PRC This morning, Carroll Cagle forwarded an article from the Alb. Journal regarding the PRC hearing today, about Qwest's proposed Data Center, and its request to use $10 million of the AFOR Settlement Agreement fund for this. The article provides additional background information. I ran over to attend. Qwest and NM DoIT representatives made brief counter presentations and remarks. The question is whether this is a legal and otherwise appropriate use of AFOR Settlement funds, or not. Representatives of Qwest competitors, Big Byte, Oso Grande and NMIPA, were not in attendence today. No decisions made today. The PRC decided to move quickly, and to hold an Evidentiary Hearing on Mon. the 28th, 9:30; and Oral Arguements on the 29th. Decisions to follow. If anyone on this list has more detailed (or correcting) information, please keep us posted. Richard -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. _______________________________________________ 1st-mile-nm mailing list 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm ______________________________________________________________________ This inbound email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. ______________________________________________________________________ Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail, including all attachments is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited unless specifically provided under the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender and destroy all copies of this message. -- This email has been scanned by the Sybari - Antigen Email System. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: PRS20087151DOC.pdf Type: application/octet-stream Size: 534676 bytes Desc: PRS20087151DOC.pdf URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Mon Jul 21 21:03:41 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:03:41 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] NATOA Calls for National Broadband Strategy Message-ID: <20080721210341.rz5kje4ym8wwsk04@www2.dcn.org> I continue to worry about the many calls for a national broadband strategy. Given the complex politics and powerful industry vested-interests and influence, I fear that what we may get will be far from what we ought to achieve. I'm an advocate of local and state initiatives setting examples over the next few years, to influence national strategies. NATOA represents many loval CIOs and others involved in municipal, county and state telecommunications. Their following principles are on the mark. rl -------- NATOA ANNOUNCES ADOPTION OF BROADBAND PRINCIPLES, PARTNERSHIP INITIATIVES AND ACTIONS July 18, 2008 Alexandria VA. (July 18, 2008) ? The National Association of Telecommunications Officers & Advisors (NATOA) has adopted and released formal Broadband Principles encouraging the immediate development of a National Broadband Strategy. The ten Broadband Principles, created by a task force of NATOA members, outline the critical need for widespread deployment of next-generation broadband networks and necessary steps to achieve this goal: * NATOA calls for the immediate nationwide deployment of advanced broadband networks. * True broadband requires high capacity bandwidth in both directions. * Fiber to the premises is the preferred broadband option. * High capacity broadband connectivity must be affordable and widely accessible. * High capacity broadband requires open access networks. * Network neutrality is vital to the future of the Internet. * All networks and users have the right and obligation to non?discriminatory interconnection. * Local governments must be involved to ensure that local needs and interests are met. * Local governments must be allowed to build and operate broadband networks. * A variety of options must be considered to cover deployment costs. ?NATOA has dedicated extensive time and resources to national broadband interests,? noted Libby Beaty, NATOA Executive Director. ?Our Broadband Principles partnerships and actions are the culmination of these efforts. We are thrilled to be involved in the evolution and progression of so many opportunities sustaining public interest.? http://www.natoa.org/2008/07/natoa-announces-adoption-of-br.html -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From granoff at zianet.com Tue Jul 22 07:57:16 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 07:57:16 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: A note from Dan Kaminsky, Researcher of the DNS issue, for ISPs Message-ID: <20080722134938.D2E742B3C@velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us> For the last several weeks Dan and others have been urging folks to upgrade. Dan is putting something out now, because the vulnerability was brought out in public. >Dear ISP: > >As you have probably read, a large collection of DNS vendors, software >publishers, and researchers published an update to their DNS servers and >clients. There is now publication of the details of vulnerability which >means exploit is more likely. > >The root cause of the vulnerability is a lack of entropy (randomness if >you will) in the UDP ports used by DNS. The updates randomize the ports >that are used by DNS. > >However, there is an issue (http://blogs.iss.net/archive/dnsnat.html) >that some NAT devices undo the randomization of the ports and re-write >the ports in a sequential number. This in effect re-introduces the >vulnerability to customers. Many customers are behind these devices >and customers using a low-end device are far less likely to understand >the issues compare to customers behind a more powerful router or >firewall device. Obviously consumers are a likely group to be in this >situation, but so are SOHOs and other small and medium business >customers. > >While the NAT device manufactures evaluate the situation and determine >what their response should be, there is one strong workaround. It >involves setting up your DNS in the way described here >(http://www.isc.org/sw/bind/docs/forwarding.php). This means that >the customer is relying on the ISP's server to be >updated. > >Therefore I am urging all ISPs to make sure they update their servers, >and encourage their users to update their systems. > >For more information you can go to my research page: >http://www.doxpara.com/ > > >Dan Kaminsky >IO Active > > >-- > > > >No virus found in this incoming message. >Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com >Version: 8.0.138 / Virus Database: 270.5.3/1565 - Release Date: >7/21/2008 6:36 PM -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From granoff at zianet.com Wed Jul 23 15:57:05 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:57:05 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Hearing Monday the 28th on Qwest Cybercebter Message-ID: <20080723225701.1C032690B59@mx.dcn.davis.ca.us> There is a NM Public Regulation Commission (PRC) hearing on Monday, July 28, 2008 at 9:30 am in the PERA Building regarding whether Qwest can or cannot use $40 million dollars of the $270 million that was allocated under the Second Amended (AFOR) Settlement Agreement (SASA) to build a CyberCenter in Albuquerque. This is about 15% of the SASA money. The case number is 07-00184. The SASA stated that Qwest was to spend $270 million over a 42 month period in five critical areas (see below) with some of the money to be spent over a shorter time frame. It also stipulated that $15 million be returned to Qwest's customers as credits on their phone bills within 120 days of the March 2007 effective date. The PRC usually asks for public comment at the beginning of a hearing. While public comment is not "evidence" and is not included in the "record" of the hearing, Commissioners are usually sensitive to the wishes of their constituents. Because several of you have to travel unusually long distances to provide public comment, I have asked the PRC Associate General Counsel, Allen Ferguson, if he would be amenable to setting up a "conference call bridge" for people who wished to give public comment to be able to dial into. He has made such arrangements with the concurrence of the Commissioners. That bridge will be available to anyone who wants to provide public comment on this issue, but they must notify Cecilia Rios at the PRC General Counsel's office by Friday at 4:00 pm that they will be using the bridge so she can plan for it appropriately. You must call Cecilia at 505 827-4501 or send her email at cecilia.rios at state.nm.us with your name, address, and phone number if you want to call in and make some public comments on this issue. The bridge will be available at 9:40 AM on Monday the 28th for a short while to allow people (who notify Cecilia Rios first) from all areas of the state to provide input to the Commissioners on this specific issue. I.E. 1) yes - Qwest should get to use the money for the Cybercenter in Albuquerque since we do not need Qwest to spend that money on Qwest's network or 2) no - Qwest should spend the money on their network, especially in rural areas, not on another Cybercenter in Albuquerque. Please do not bring up any other issue during this particular meeting unless it is relevant to this discussion. The telephone number for the bridge is 1-866-295-5950. The PIN is 5754422 and then a # on your phone keypad. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions. You may forward this email to others who may be interested in providing public comment. Marianne Granoff Chair, Public Affairs Committee New Mexico Internet Professionals Association 505 980-7919 The Second Amended Settlement Agreement is here: http://www.nmprc.state.nm.us/utility/telecommunications/pdf/qwestafor/amendedsettlementagreementclean1215063.pdf The SASA had five project areas for investment. Below is a very simple review of those five areas: 1) High Speed Internet Access Project - where Qwest would provision high speed Internet (DSL) to 83% of Qwest's New Mexico Working Living Units in Qwest's service area. "Qwest will provide 90% of its Working Qualified Living Units in New Mexico with speed(s) of at least 512kbps upload and from 512kbps to 1.5mbps download. Internet access speeds are not constant and service is subject to the terms and conditions of applicable tariffs and published customer service agreements. A "Working Living Unit" is a customer (residential or business) that has at least one working Qwest landline. A "Working Qualified Living Unit" is a Working Living Unit that is located within the operational distance, for Qwest, of a DSLAM and has a working Qwest landline capable (i.e. free of load coils, other inhibitors and disturbers) of providing High Speed Internet Access to the customer." Estimated cost $81,300,000 2) Redundant and Diverse Routes Project. "Except as specifically provided or excepted below, Qwest shall upgrade all of Qwest's wire centers throughout its New Mexico territory so that each wire center is connected to Qwest's network by both redundant and diverse routes, using fiber cable or other standard technologies appropriate for the geography and existing network components." Estimated cost $23,100,000, plus additional estimated costs for the wire centers as specified below. (The following wire centers only shall be excluded from those wire centers to be served by diverse and redundant routes using fiber cable or other standard technologies appropriate for the geography and existing network components due to high cost/low density or low growth and/or the extraordinary cost of essential rights of way: Alamogordo West; Red River; Taos North; Bayard Main; Hatch; Farmington West; Pena Blanca and Penasco.) 3) Cable Improvement Project. Qwest will identify and replace defective, deteriorating or aging lead, air core and other cables and associated network elements identified in Qwest's New Mexico network with modern copper or fiber and associated utilities ("Cable Improvement Project"). Qwest must spend at least $30,000,000 on this Priority Project. 4) Advanced Telecommunications Technologies Projects. Qwest will deploy facilities associated with providing access to advanced telecommunications technology services for customers throughout Qwest's New Mexico territory who do not currently have such access, and Qwest will expend no less than $50 Million over the Settlement Period from the Settlement Amount in achieving this objective. Qwest must spend at least $50,000,000 on this Priority Project. 5) Network Improvement and Capacity Augmentation Projects. With the remaining settlement dollars, Qwest shall create a forty-two month network improvement and capacity augmentation plan by designing, describing and prioritizing a number of specific projects... Examples of such projects include, without limitation, the following: central office upgrades; new network facility locations; upgrades of high bandwidth network connections; and analog to digital upgrades. There is no minimum amount that Qwest must spend for this fifth area, and additional moneys spent in other areas will be taken from this area. This area could have as much as $86 million if no additional money is spent in other areas. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Thu Jul 24 15:35:39 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:35:39 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Google Policy Blog: Local Fiber Networks Message-ID: <20080724153539.jr23kl1268w8s8ok@www2.dcn.org> The following posting, relevant to this list, comes from young policy analyst, Derek Slater, who seems not to be aware of the early 'open' fiber initiatives starting to manifest in this country. Good to see this coming from inside Google, nonetheless. RL ------- >From the Google Public Policy Blog http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2008/07/what-if-you-could-own-your-internet.html What if you could own your Internet connection? Wednesday, July 23, 2008 at 2:34 PM Posted by Derek Slater, Policy Analyst It may sound strange, and it's certainly not what we're used to. Today we have a "carrier-centered" model; phone and cable companies spend billions to build, operate, and own the "last-mile" connection -- the copper, cable, or fiber wires that come into your house. Individual consumers then pay for particular services, like phone service or Internet access. In turn, we tend to think about broadband deployment in carrier-centric ways. If we want to see super-fast fiber connections rolled out to consumers, the main question appears to be whether carriers have appropriate incentives to invest. But there's no law of nature that says this is the only possible model. Many businesses, governments, universities, and other entities already own their own fiber connections, rather than leasing access to lines. It may also be possible to find ways for consumers to purchase their own last-mile strands of fiber. Here, as anywhere, there would be certain advantages that come with ownership over renting. No one necessarily needs to own skis or a car, but many of us do. If you owned your own fiber, you'd be able to connect it to a service provider of your own choosing. Over time, you might save money, and it could make your house more valuable to have a fiber "tail." This may all sound rather abstract, but a trial experiment in Ottawa, Canada is trying out the consumer-owned model for a downtown neighborhood of about 400 homes. A specialized construction company is already rolling out fiber to every home, and it will recoup its investment from individual homeowners who will pay to own fiber strands outright, as well as to maintain the fiber over time. The fiber terminates at a service provider neutral facility, meaning that any ISP can pay a fee to put its networking equipment there and offer to provide users with Internet access. Notably, the project is entirely privately funded. (Although some schools and government departments are lined up to buy their own strands of fiber, just like homeowners.) The main challenges with this model are economic, rather than technical. Most importantly, ownership has to be made appealing and affordable to consumers. The construction company is using conservative estimates that only 10% of homeowners will sign up and there will be a per-customer cost of $2700. If you assume 50% take-up, then the per-customer cost drops to $1100. Both figures might seem like a lot, but people pay for a variety of improvements to their home -- like remodeled kitchens, or a deck -- that also cost large sums. This model faces other significant obstacles as well and it may only be possible in certain circumstances, if it's practical at all. But the only way to really figure that out is to experiment. Cable television started out as CATV -- community antenna television, an experiment by individual entrepreneurs and rural towns to deliver broadcast signals across longer distances. The Internet started as an experiment in the research community before becoming the worldwide network we know today. It's also worth considering that, as recently as a few decades ago, personal telephones were unheard of -- the telephone was owned by Bell and simply part of the network. Similarly, the very idea of a "personal" computer used to seem ridiculous, and people relied on sharing access to mainframes. Sure, there are differences between owning your own computer and your own Internet connection, but perhaps one day we may see that the differences weren't as great as we thought. Even if this experiment fails, it can be a worthwhile data point in discussions about broadband deployment. We need as much creative thinking as we can get to determine how to deliver fast, open Internet for everyone. The Ottawa trial was driven forward by Bill St. Arnaud, Chief Research Officer at CANARIE, a nonprofit research group devoted to promoting advanced network infrastructure in Canada. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Fri Jul 25 11:47:30 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:47:30 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: RE: Google Policy Blog: Local Fiber Networks Message-ID: <20080725114730.7xfdi129wg4woksg@www2.dcn.org> ----- Forwarded message from BHarris at nmag.gov ----- Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:39:50 -0600 From: "Harris, Brian, WEU NMAGO" Subject: RE: [1st-mile-nm] Google Policy Blog: Local Fiber Networks While I think individually owned fiber has a surface appeal, I think over time you'd find that it doesn't work very well. Thre is another alternative to either the "carrier centric" model of basic infrastructure or the individually owned fiber link model. Brian Harris For your reading pleasure: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Gartner Says Carrier Challenges Abound as 'Structural Separation' Looms Large. Regulators Poised to Break Up Carriers' Vertically Integrated Business Model to Encourage Competition and Stimulate Investment STAMFORD, Conn., May 15, 2008 - In the next five years the telecom market will change so dramatically and rapidly that government intervention and market engineering will be inevitable in some countries, according to Gartner Inc. At the center of this is the global trend toward telecom "structural separation," which Gartner defines as the deconstruction or breaking apart of a telecom carrier's vertically integrated business model into a more horizontally structured model. "In the past 20 years, carriers have increasingly focused on operational efficiency - via a tighter coupling of business assets (vertical integration) - to compete more effectively against new market entrants with lower cost structures," said Alex Winogradoff, research vice president at Gartner. "Despite government moves (such as unbundling and accounting separation) to encourage competition and stimulate investment, progress has been meager in most countries. Regulators believe that continued vertical integration is the primary reason for this lack of progress and are increasingly seeking separation as a policy tool." Gartner said that telecom regulators have been pursuing accounting separation and are now considering functional and ownership separation as a last measure to achieve their policy goals. The difference between these types of separation is the level of control that carriers will be able to exercise over their separated units: * Accounting separation means the keeping of separate revenue and cost accounts for different activities to achieve a detailed and accurate statement of the costs incurred and profits made by an operator for a specific activity. * Functional separation means the establishment of operationally fully separated entities, the ownership of which remains with the parent company. The separate entities have separate accounts, but they are not legally independent entities. * Ownership separation means that a carrier division with some of the network or the entire network is placed in a separate legal entity and owned by a company other than the parent company. The term structural separation is often used in this more fully separated context. Mr. Winogradoff explained that not all separation scenarios will fit neatly into these variants, and regulators in different regions and countries may have different definitions driven by their individual laws and telecom policies. However, he said that functional and ownership separation are global trends and will particularly impact developed countries where the telecom market is mature and regulators are trying to inject more direct market competition as a stimulus for innovation and greater investment in next-generation broadband. Gartner found that functional separation is being considered by regulators in most developed countries in Western Europe and Asia, where it could strongly compromise cost efficiencies currently enjoyed by vertically integrated carriers. Furthermore, experience in the past 20 years in the United States and Japan has demonstrated that this kind of forced separation of incumbent carriers has an overall negative effect on them. In Europe, it is still too early to tell whether functional or ownership separation has had a negative or positive effect on network investment by BT and other carriers that have pursued separation. All national regulatory authorities and European Union regulators are watching this issue carefully. Experience of separation in other industries - for example, electric utilities and railways - has shown that customer experience and service quality are often negatively affected. "All incumbent carriers that have global ambitions should consider two distinct strategies to deal with forced structural separation: First, focus on defending their incumbent franchise; and second, take advantage of strategic positioning opportunities in foreign countries where structural separation of the incumbent is being considered," Mr. Winogradoff said. Additional information is available in the Gartner report "Dataquest Insight: Telecom 'Structural Separation' Is a Global Trend." The report is available on Gartner's Web site at" http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?ref=g_search&id=656008&subref=sim plesearch. Contact: Christy Pettey Gartner +1 408 468 8312 christy.pettey at gartner.com -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Fri Jul 25 12:41:59 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2008 12:41:59 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Broadband Strategy: Conduit Message-ID: <20080725124159.qxhk0txw80c8c04w@www2.dcn.org> The Best Municipal Broadband Strategy - Just Lay Conduit July 24, 2008 4:18 PM http://app-rising.com/2008/07/the_best_municipal_broadband_s.html In Portland on Monday after my panel I was chatting with fellow panelist Jim Stegeman, president of CostQuest Associates. While his presentation dealt with the cost of deploying wireless 3G nationwide, during our follow-up conversation we got into the topic of how much it costs to deploy fiber. That's when Jim shared a stunning number with me: fiber only costs $1 a foot while putting in the underground conduit that it needs to run through can cost $13-14 a foot, with that number varying based on the characteristics of the areas in which it's being deployed. The reason laying conduit's so expensive is because of the labor it takes to dig up the streets, put in the conduit, and then cover it back up again. The actual cost of the conduit itself isn't all that high. What that also means is that once the conduit's in the ground, the cost of laying fiber can be reduced dramatically, orders of magnitude cheaper. So imagine this: what could happen if we started having cities lay conduit whenever they're ripping up roads for other reasons, like upgrading the sewer system? There are many reasons why cities have to rip up roads, and once they're ripped up there isn't all that much additional cost that would be needed to put in conduit. And once that conduit's in place, it would dramatically reduce the cost, time, and complexity of deploying fiber. Plus, if cities needed to recoup their investment in conduit, they could likely charge whoever comes in to lay fiber for access to it. Of course they wouldn't want to charge too much lest they dissuade private investment, but I'd think there'd certainly be enough there to have the deployment of conduit pay for itself. By doing this, cities can improve the economics of any public or private deployment of full fiber networks. So much so, in fact, that I'd bet at least in some communities it would shift the balance sheet so dramatically that it might cause incumbents who are currently sitting on the sidelines when it comes to deploying fiber all the way to the home to get up off the bench since now the economics of these endeavors become much more feasible. So if you ask me what's the best broadband strategy for any municipality, I'll say that it starts with making sure you don't miss the opportunity to lay conduit whenever possible, thereby setting the stage for improving your chances of getting wired with fiber in the future. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From Leo.Baca at qwest.com Fri Jul 25 12:45:46 2008 From: Leo.Baca at qwest.com (Baca, Leo) Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2008 13:45:46 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] [nmisp] Hearing Monday the 28th on Qwest Cybercebter Message-ID: <45bc101c8ee8e$ffc73b80$9807010a@AD.QINTRA.COM> Just to clarify....the total investmest for the proposed Cyber Center is $40 to $50 million. Qwest is requesting that only $10 million count towards its infrastructure investment commitment of $255 million to the state which is part of its total SASA agreement of $270 million. Leo Baca -----Original Message----- From: "Marianne Granoff" To: "nmisp at nmisp.net" ; "nmipa at nmipa.org" ; "1st-mile-nm at crank.dcn.davis.ca.us" <1st-mile-nm at crank.dcn.davis.ca.us>; "aww-discuss at egroups.com" ; "MISP-L at LIST.UNM.EDU" Cc: "cecilia.rios at state.nm.us" Sent: 7/23/2008 7:58 PM Subject: [nmisp] Hearing Monday the 28th on Qwest Cybercebter There is a NM Public Regulation Commission (PRC) hearing on Monday, July 28, 2008 at 9:30 am in the PERA Building regarding whether Qwest can or cannot use $40 million dollars of the $270 million that was allocated under the Second Amended (AFOR) Settlement Agreement (SASA) to build a CyberCenter in Albuquerque. This is about 15% of the SASA money. The case number is 07-00184. The SASA stated that Qwest was to spend $270 million over a 42 month period in five critical areas (see below) with some of the money to be spent over a shorter time frame. It also stipulated that $15 million be returned to Qwest's customers as credits on their phone bills within 120 days of the March 2007 effective date. The PRC usually asks for public comment at the beginning of a hearing. While public comment is not "evidence" and is not included in the "record" of the hearing, Commissioners are usually sensitive to the wishes of their constituents. Because several of you have to travel unusually long distances to provide public comment, I have asked the PRC Associate General Counsel, Allen Ferguson, if he would be amenable to setting up a "conference call bridge" for people who wished to give public comment to be able to dial into. He has made such arrangements with the concurrence of the Commissioners. That bridge will be available to anyone who wants to provide public comment on this issue, but they must notify Cecilia Rios at the PRC General Counsel's office by Friday at 4:00 pm that they will be using the bridge so she can plan for it appropriately. You must call Cecilia at 505 827-4501 or send her email at cecilia.rios at state.nm.us with your name, address, and phone number if you want to call in and make some public comments on this issue. The bridge will be available at 9:40 AM on Monday the 28th for a short while to allow people (who notify Cecilia Rios first) from all areas of the state to provide input to the Commissioners on this specific issue. I.E. 1) yes - Qwest should get to use the money for the Cybercenter in Albuquerque since we do not need Qwest to spend that money on Qwest's network or 2) no - Qwest should spend the money on their network, especially in rural areas, not on another Cybercenter in Albuquerque. Please do not bring up any other issue during this particular meeting unless it is relevant to this discussion. The telephone number for the bridge is 1-866-295-5950. The PIN is 5754422 and then a # on your phone keypad. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions. You may forward this email to others who may be interested in providing public comment. Marianne Granoff Chair, Public Affairs Committee New Mexico Internet Professionals Association 505 980-7919 The Second Amended Settlement Agreement is here: http://www.nmprc.state.nm.us/utility/telecommunications/pdf/qwestafor/amendedsettlementagreementclean1215063.pdf The SASA had five project areas for investment. Below is a very simple review of those five areas: 1) High Speed Internet Access Project - where Qwest would provision high speed Internet (DSL) to 83% of Qwest's New Mexico Working Living Units in Qwest's service area. "Qwest will provide 90% of its Working Qualified Living Units in New Mexico with speed(s) of at least 512kbps upload and from 512kbps to 1.5mbps download. Internet access speeds are not constant and service is subject to the terms and conditions of applicable tariffs and published customer service agreements. A "Working Living Unit" is a customer (residential or business) that has at least one working Qwest landline. A "Working Qualified Living Unit" is a Working Living Unit that is located within the operational distance, for Qwest, of a DSLAM and has a working Qwest landline capable (i.e. free of load coils, other inhibitors and disturbers) of providing High Speed Internet Access to the customer." Estimated cost $81,300,000 2) Redundant and Diverse Routes Project. "Except as specifically provided or excepted below, Qwest shall upgrade all of Qwest's wire centers throughout its New Mexico territory so that each wire center is connected to Qwest's network by both redundant and diverse routes, using fiber cable or other standard technologies appropriate for the geography and existing network components." Estimated cost $23,100,000, plus additional estimated costs for the wire centers as specified below. (The following wire centers only shall be excluded from those wire centers to be served by diverse and redundant routes using fiber cable or other standard technologies appropriate for the geography and existing network components due to high cost/low density or low growth and/or the extraordinary cost of essential rights of way: Alamogordo West; Red River; Taos North; Bayard Main; Hatch; Farmington West; Pena Blanca and Penasco.) 3) Cable Improvement Project. Qwest will identify and replace defective, deteriorating or aging lead, air core and other cables and associated network elements identified in Qwest's New Mexico network with modern copper or fiber and associated utilities ("Cable Improvement Project"). Qwest must spend at least $30,000,000 on this Priority Project. 4) Advanced Telecommunications Technologies Projects. Qwest will deploy facilities associated with providing access to advanced telecommunications technology services for customers throughout Qwest's New Mexico territory who do not currently have such access, and Qwest will expend no less than $50 Million over the Settlement Period from the Settlement Amount in achieving this objective. Qwest must spend at least $50,000,000 on this Priority Project. 5) Network Improvement and Capacity Augmentation Projects. With the remaining settlement dollars, Qwest shall create a forty-two month network improvement and capacity augmentation plan by designing, describing and prioritizing a number of specific projects... Examples of such projects include, without limitation, the following: central office upgrades; new network facility locations; upgrades of high bandwidth network connections; and analog to digital upgrades. There is no minimum amount that Qwest must spend for this fifth area, and additional moneys spent in other areas will be taken from this area. This area could have as much as $86 million if no additional money is spent in other areas. This communication is the property of Qwest and may contain confidential or privileged information. Unauthorized use of this communication is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this communication in error, please immediately notify the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the communication and any attachments. From editorsteve at gmail.com Fri Jul 25 13:18:19 2008 From: editorsteve at gmail.com (Steve Ross) Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2008 16:18:19 -0400 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Broadband Strategy: Conduit In-Reply-To: <20080725124159.qxhk0txw80c8c04w@www2.dcn.org> References: <20080725124159.qxhk0txw80c8c04w@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: <488A350B.4040706@gmail.com> Richard, What you propose is actually the norm (and usually required by law) in European cities. Fiber is "blown" for miles through the conduits. Steven S. Ross Editor-in-Chief Broadband Properties steve at broadbandproperties.com www.bbpmag.com SKYPE: editorsteve +1 781-284-8810 +1 646-216-8030 fax +1 201-456-5933 mobile Richard Lowenberg wrote: > The Best Municipal Broadband Strategy - Just Lay Conduit > > July 24, 2008 4:18 PM > > http://app-rising.com/2008/07/the_best_municipal_broadband_s.html > > In Portland on Monday after my panel I was chatting with fellow panelist Jim > Stegeman, president of CostQuest Associates. > > While his presentation dealt with the cost of deploying wireless 3G nationwide, > during our follow-up conversation we got into the topic of how much it costs to > deploy fiber. That's when Jim shared a stunning number with me: fiber only costs > $1 a foot while putting in the underground conduit that it needs to run through > can cost $13-14 a foot, with that number varying based on the characteristics > of the areas in which it's being deployed. > > The reason laying conduit's so expensive is because of the labor it takes to dig > up the streets, put in the conduit, and then cover it back up again. The actual > cost of the conduit itself isn't all that high. > > What that also means is that once the conduit's in the ground, the cost of > laying fiber can be reduced dramatically, orders of magnitude cheaper. > > So imagine this: what could happen if we started having cities lay conduit > whenever they're ripping up roads for other reasons, like upgrading the sewer > system? > > There are many reasons why cities have to rip up roads, and once they're ripped > up there isn't all that much additional cost that would be needed to put in > conduit. > > And once that conduit's in place, it would dramatically reduce the cost, time, > and complexity of deploying fiber. > > Plus, if cities needed to recoup their investment in conduit, they could likely > charge whoever comes in to lay fiber for access to it. Of course they wouldn't > want to charge too much lest they dissuade private investment, but I'd think > there'd certainly be enough there to have the deployment of conduit pay for > itself. > > By doing this, cities can improve the economics of any public or private > deployment of full fiber networks. So much so, in fact, that I'd bet at least > in some communities it would shift the balance sheet so dramatically that it > might cause incumbents who are currently sitting on the sidelines when it comes > to deploying fiber all the way to the home to get up off the bench since now the > economics of these endeavors become much more feasible. > > So if you ask me what's the best broadband strategy for any municipality, I'll > say that it starts with making sure you don't miss the opportunity to lay > conduit whenever possible, thereby setting the stage for improving your chances > of getting wired with fiber in the future. > > From granoff at zianet.com Fri Jul 25 14:36:19 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:36:19 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] CyberCenter response from Leo Baca Message-ID: <20080725213613.6C5612D0B@velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us> Leo is not a member of all of the lists to which I posted the original message. He is correct that Qwest is only asking for $10 million of the SASA money to be used towards the proposed Cybercenter. I apologize for the error. >From: Baca, Leo >Sent: Friday, July 25, 2008 1:46 PM >To: Marianne Granoff; nmisp at nmisp.net; nmipa at nmipa.org; >1st-mile-nm at crank.dcn.davis.ca.us; aww-discuss at egroups.com; >MISP-L at LIST.UNM.EDU >Cc: cecilia.rios at state.nm.us >Subject: RE: Hearing Monday the 28th on Qwest Cybercebter > >Just to clarify....the total investment for the proposed Cyber Center >is $40 to $50 million. Qwest is requesting that only $10 million count >towards its infrastructure investment commitment of $255 million to the >state which is part of its total SASA agreement of $270 million. > >Leo Baca Just a reminder if you want to use the conference call bridge to make public comments on Monday, you must contact Cecilia Rios at 505 827-4501 or send her email at cecilia.rios at state.nm.us with your name, address, and phone number by TODAY at 4:00 pm. The bridge will be available at 9:40 AM on Monday the 28th for a short while to allow people (who notify Cecilia Rios first) from all areas of the state to provide input to the Commissioners on this specific issue. I.E. 1) yes - Qwest should get to use the money for the Cybercenter in Albuquerque since we do not need Qwest to spend that money on Qwest's network or 2) no - Qwest should spend the money on their network, especially in rural areas, not on another Cybercenter in Albuquerque. Please do not bring up any other issue during this particular meeting unless it is relevant to this discussion. The telephone number for the bridge is 1-866-295-5950. The PIN is 5754422 and then a # on your phone keypad. Best Regards, Marianne Marianne Granoff Chair, Public Affairs Committee New Mexico Internet Professionals Association P.O. Box 22641 Santa Fe, NM 87502 http://www.nmipa.org 505 246-4634 or 505 980-7919 granoff at zianet.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ggomes at soundviewnet.com Fri Jul 25 14:43:30 2008 From: ggomes at soundviewnet.com (Gary Gomes) Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:43:30 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Broadband Strategy: Conduit In-Reply-To: <20080725124159.qxhk0txw80c8c04w@www2.dcn.org> References: <20080725124159.qxhk0txw80c8c04w@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: <12439BED9A614F8D8C8532AC3C19A56A@GARY> This is precisely the approach which the Broadband Technology Advisory Committee recently recommended to the Las Cruces; we'll keep the list advised of our progress. I do think that it is important to refine our numbers, in order to present an accurate picture to the municipalities. I have generally seen numbers for installed FTTH (including electronics) in the range of $30per foot, with about half the cost associated with opening and closing the street. In a recent roadway project, the City got a price of $5 per foot to install conduit in parallel with road work. I would appreciate any better (more accurate and granular) network deployment cost models that readers could provide. Gary -----Original Message----- From: 1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org [mailto:1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org] On Behalf Of Richard Lowenberg Sent: Friday, July 25, 2008 1:42 PM To: 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Broadband Strategy: Conduit The Best Municipal Broadband Strategy - Just Lay Conduit July 24, 2008 4:18 PM http://app-rising.com/2008/07/the_best_municipal_broadband_s.html In Portland on Monday after my panel I was chatting with fellow panelist Jim Stegeman, president of CostQuest Associates. While his presentation dealt with the cost of deploying wireless 3G nationwide, during our follow-up conversation we got into the topic of how much it costs to deploy fiber. That's when Jim shared a stunning number with me: fiber only costs $1 a foot while putting in the underground conduit that it needs to run through can cost $13-14 a foot, with that number varying based on the characteristics of the areas in which it's being deployed. The reason laying conduit's so expensive is because of the labor it takes to dig up the streets, put in the conduit, and then cover it back up again. The actual cost of the conduit itself isn't all that high. What that also means is that once the conduit's in the ground, the cost of laying fiber can be reduced dramatically, orders of magnitude cheaper. So imagine this: what could happen if we started having cities lay conduit whenever they're ripping up roads for other reasons, like upgrading the sewer system? There are many reasons why cities have to rip up roads, and once they're ripped up there isn't all that much additional cost that would be needed to put in conduit. And once that conduit's in place, it would dramatically reduce the cost, time, and complexity of deploying fiber. Plus, if cities needed to recoup their investment in conduit, they could likely charge whoever comes in to lay fiber for access to it. Of course they wouldn't want to charge too much lest they dissuade private investment, but I'd think there'd certainly be enough there to have the deployment of conduit pay for itself. By doing this, cities can improve the economics of any public or private deployment of full fiber networks. So much so, in fact, that I'd bet at least in some communities it would shift the balance sheet so dramatically that it might cause incumbents who are currently sitting on the sidelines when it comes to deploying fiber all the way to the home to get up off the bench since now the economics of these endeavors become much more feasible. So if you ask me what's the best broadband strategy for any municipality, I'll say that it starts with making sure you don't miss the opportunity to lay conduit whenever possible, thereby setting the stage for improving your chances of getting wired with fiber in the future. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. _______________________________________________ 1st-mile-nm mailing list 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm From BHarris at nmag.gov Fri Jul 25 15:24:48 2008 From: BHarris at nmag.gov (Harris, Brian, WEU NMAGO) Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2008 16:24:48 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Broadband Strategy: Conduit In-Reply-To: <12439BED9A614F8D8C8532AC3C19A56A@GARY> Message-ID: Have you looked at any of the cost models developed to price UNEs? There are various flavors of the Hatfield Model and the HAI that you may find interesting. Brian Harris -----Original Message----- From: 1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org [mailto:1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org] On Behalf Of Gary Gomes Sent: Friday, July 25, 2008 3:44 PM To: 'Richard Lowenberg'; 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org Subject: Re: [1st-mile-nm] Broadband Strategy: Conduit This is precisely the approach which the Broadband Technology Advisory Committee recently recommended to the Las Cruces; we'll keep the list advised of our progress. I do think that it is important to refine our numbers, in order to present an accurate picture to the municipalities. I have generally seen numbers for installed FTTH (including electronics) in the range of $30per foot, with about half the cost associated with opening and closing the street. In a recent roadway project, the City got a price of $5 per foot to install conduit in parallel with road work. I would appreciate any better (more accurate and granular) network deployment cost models that readers could provide. Gary -----Original Message----- From: 1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org [mailto:1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org] On Behalf Of Richard Lowenberg Sent: Friday, July 25, 2008 1:42 PM To: 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Broadband Strategy: Conduit The Best Municipal Broadband Strategy - Just Lay Conduit July 24, 2008 4:18 PM http://app-rising.com/2008/07/the_best_municipal_broadband_s.html In Portland on Monday after my panel I was chatting with fellow panelist Jim Stegeman, president of CostQuest Associates. While his presentation dealt with the cost of deploying wireless 3G nationwide, during our follow-up conversation we got into the topic of how much it costs to deploy fiber. That's when Jim shared a stunning number with me: fiber only costs $1 a foot while putting in the underground conduit that it needs to run through can cost $13-14 a foot, with that number varying based on the characteristics of the areas in which it's being deployed. The reason laying conduit's so expensive is because of the labor it takes to dig up the streets, put in the conduit, and then cover it back up again. The actual cost of the conduit itself isn't all that high. What that also means is that once the conduit's in the ground, the cost of laying fiber can be reduced dramatically, orders of magnitude cheaper. So imagine this: what could happen if we started having cities lay conduit whenever they're ripping up roads for other reasons, like upgrading the sewer system? There are many reasons why cities have to rip up roads, and once they're ripped up there isn't all that much additional cost that would be needed to put in conduit. And once that conduit's in place, it would dramatically reduce the cost, time, and complexity of deploying fiber. Plus, if cities needed to recoup their investment in conduit, they could likely charge whoever comes in to lay fiber for access to it. Of course they wouldn't want to charge too much lest they dissuade private investment, but I'd think there'd certainly be enough there to have the deployment of conduit pay for itself. By doing this, cities can improve the economics of any public or private deployment of full fiber networks. So much so, in fact, that I'd bet at least in some communities it would shift the balance sheet so dramatically that it might cause incumbents who are currently sitting on the sidelines when it comes to deploying fiber all the way to the home to get up off the bench since now the economics of these endeavors become much more feasible. So if you ask me what's the best broadband strategy for any municipality, I'll say that it starts with making sure you don't miss the opportunity to lay conduit whenever possible, thereby setting the stage for improving your chances of getting wired with fiber in the future. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. _______________________________________________ 1st-mile-nm mailing list 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm _______________________________________________ 1st-mile-nm mailing list 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm From editorsteve at gmail.com Fri Jul 25 16:23:20 2008 From: editorsteve at gmail.com (Steve Ross) Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2008 19:23:20 -0400 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Broadband Strategy: Conduit In-Reply-To: <12439BED9A614F8D8C8532AC3C19A56A@GARY> References: <20080725124159.qxhk0txw80c8c04w@www2.dcn.org> <12439BED9A614F8D8C8532AC3C19A56A@GARY> Message-ID: <488A6068.4070608@gmail.com> The cost models are remarkably site-specific. In greenfield, where conduit typically goes down in a trench for all utilities, the marginal cost associated with an empty duct in a 4- or 6-channel conduit block is often zero. Steven S. Ross Editor-in-Chief Broadband Properties steve at broadbandproperties.com www.bbpmag.com SKYPE: editorsteve +1 781-284-8810 +1 646-216-8030 fax +1 201-456-5933 mobile Gary Gomes wrote: > This is precisely the approach which the Broadband Technology Advisory > Committee recently recommended to the Las Cruces; we'll keep the list > advised of our progress. > > I do think that it is important to refine our numbers, in order to present > an accurate picture to the municipalities. > > I have generally seen numbers for installed FTTH (including electronics) in > the range of $30per foot, with about half the cost associated with opening > and closing the street. > > In a recent roadway project, the City got a price of $5 per foot to install > conduit in parallel with road work. > > I would appreciate any better (more accurate and granular) network > deployment cost models that readers could provide. > > Gary > -----Original Message----- > From: 1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org > [mailto:1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org] On Behalf Of Richard Lowenberg > Sent: Friday, July 25, 2008 1:42 PM > To: 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Broadband Strategy: Conduit > > The Best Municipal Broadband Strategy - Just Lay Conduit > > July 24, 2008 4:18 PM > > http://app-rising.com/2008/07/the_best_municipal_broadband_s.html > > In Portland on Monday after my panel I was chatting with fellow panelist Jim > Stegeman, president of CostQuest Associates. > > While his presentation dealt with the cost of deploying wireless 3G > nationwide, > during our follow-up conversation we got into the topic of how much it costs > to > deploy fiber. That's when Jim shared a stunning number with me: fiber only > costs > $1 a foot while putting in the underground conduit that it needs to run > through > can cost $13-14 a foot, with that number varying based on the > characteristics > of the areas in which it's being deployed. > > The reason laying conduit's so expensive is because of the labor it takes to > dig > up the streets, put in the conduit, and then cover it back up again. The > actual > cost of the conduit itself isn't all that high. > > What that also means is that once the conduit's in the ground, the cost of > laying fiber can be reduced dramatically, orders of magnitude cheaper. > > So imagine this: what could happen if we started having cities lay conduit > whenever they're ripping up roads for other reasons, like upgrading the > sewer > system? > > There are many reasons why cities have to rip up roads, and once they're > ripped > up there isn't all that much additional cost that would be needed to put in > conduit. > > And once that conduit's in place, it would dramatically reduce the cost, > time, > and complexity of deploying fiber. > > Plus, if cities needed to recoup their investment in conduit, they could > likely > charge whoever comes in to lay fiber for access to it. Of course they > wouldn't > want to charge too much lest they dissuade private investment, but I'd think > there'd certainly be enough there to have the deployment of conduit pay for > itself. > > By doing this, cities can improve the economics of any public or private > deployment of full fiber networks. So much so, in fact, that I'd bet at > least > in some communities it would shift the balance sheet so dramatically that it > might cause incumbents who are currently sitting on the sidelines when it > comes > to deploying fiber all the way to the home to get up off the bench since now > the > economics of these endeavors become much more feasible. > > So if you ask me what's the best broadband strategy for any municipality, > I'll > say that it starts with making sure you don't miss the opportunity to lay > conduit whenever possible, thereby setting the stage for improving your > chances > of getting wired with fiber in the future. > > From rl at 1st-mile.com Sat Jul 26 08:33:25 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Sat, 26 Jul 2008 08:33:25 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Conduit Message-ID: <20080726083325.kfhwigq8gccokksk@www2.dcn.org> Forwarded posting from subscriber Mike Byrnes. Steven: Can you provide any examples of municipalities 'requiring' the installation of conduit during a utility system upgrade? I live in a small (2200 lots and 1000 homes) community in So. NM with a Special Water District that is preparing a major system upgrade (new water lines throughout the district). I shared today's postings with a couple of water district commissioners. Their response indicated an 'abundance of caution' and a misunderstanding of installing 'conduit' vs. fiber. I could use some educational materials to help get over their reluctance. -- Mike Mike Byrnes mike.byrnes at enmu.edu Lincoln County SBDC 505-937-9593 -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From cohill at designnine.com Sat Jul 26 14:23:18 2008 From: cohill at designnine.com (Andrew Cohill) Date: Sat, 26 Jul 2008 17:23:18 -0400 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Conduit In-Reply-To: <20080726083325.kfhwigq8gccokksk@www2.dcn.org> References: <20080726083325.kfhwigq8gccokksk@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: > > Forwarded posting from subscriber Mike Byrnes. > > Steven: > > Can you provide any examples of municipalities 'requiring' the > installation > of conduit during a utility system upgrade? > > I live in a small (2200 lots and 1000 homes) community in So. NM > with a > Special Water District that is preparing a major system upgrade (new > water > lines throughout the district). West Point, Virginia, a small town of 1200 homes, just put in a new water line between a new business park and a water line closer to downtown, and they are installing microduct alongside the water line. It is a run of about two miles. The Lenowisco fiber project (three counties in southwest Virginia) got started in duct and fiber several years ago by installing microduct alongside a twenty mile water main that was going in between two towns in the region. The project now has nearly 200 miles of duct and fiber installed. Best regards, Andrew ------------------------------------------------- Andrew Michael Cohill, Ph.D. President Design Nine, Inc. Design Nine provides visionary broadband architecture and engineering services, telecommunications and broadband master planning, and broadband project management. Visit the Technology Futures blog for frequently updated news and commentary on technology issues. http://www.designnine.com/news/ http://www.designnine.com/ Blacksburg, Virginia 540.951.4400 From editorsteve at gmail.com Sat Jul 26 15:42:30 2008 From: editorsteve at gmail.com (Steve Ross) Date: Sat, 26 Jul 2008 18:42:30 -0400 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Conduit In-Reply-To: References: <20080726083325.kfhwigq8gccokksk@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: <488BA856.3090905@gmail.com> Hi, Andrew, I have some sample local laws around here somewhere. Let me try to find them. I have it in my head that Boston requires it -- but it may only be "leans on with prejudice." the Big Dig included new ducts, and it was designed almost 20 years ago, BTW. NYC requires it for Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island. We've written about these things more in Europe, where major cities do not allow street openings more than once a decade in key corridors. This is why emtelle and other fiber-blowing outfits started there. I'm cc'ing Tibor at emtelle. Steven S. Ross Editor-in-Chief Broadband Properties steve at broadbandproperties.com www.bbpmag.com SKYPE: editorsteve +1 781-284-8810 +1 646-216-8030 fax +1 201-456-5933 mobile Andrew Cohill wrote: >> Forwarded posting from subscriber Mike Byrnes. >> >> Steven: >> >> Can you provide any examples of municipalities 'requiring' the >> installation >> of conduit during a utility system upgrade? >> >> I live in a small (2200 lots and 1000 homes) community in So. NM >> with a >> Special Water District that is preparing a major system upgrade (new >> water >> lines throughout the district). > > > West Point, Virginia, a small town of 1200 homes, just put in a new > water line between a new business park and a water line closer to > downtown, and they are installing microduct alongside the water line. > It is a run of about two miles. > > The Lenowisco fiber project (three counties in southwest Virginia) got > started in duct and fiber several years ago by installing microduct > alongside a twenty mile water main that was going in between two towns > in the region. The project now has nearly 200 miles of duct and fiber > installed. > > Best regards, > Andrew > > ------------------------------------------------- > Andrew Michael Cohill, Ph.D. > President > Design Nine, Inc. > > Design Nine provides visionary broadband architecture and engineering > services, telecommunications and broadband master planning, and > broadband project management. > > Visit the Technology Futures blog for frequently updated news and > commentary on technology issues. > http://www.designnine.com/news/ > > http://www.designnine.com/ > Blacksburg, Virginia > 540.951.4400 > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > From granoff at zianet.com Tue Jul 29 11:00:31 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2008 12:00:31 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: 7.28.8 Message-ID: <20080729180039.E59488F3BE0@mx.dcn.davis.ca.us> FYI. >FCC Rejects Qwest Forbearance Request - Who are you and what have >you done with the FCC?, dslreports >Most line sharing regulation was gutted by the FCC's deregulation of >the DSL industry back in 2005, but some agreements remain >grandfathered. Qwest has been arguing the last few years that the >markets they serve are just so competitive, they should no longer be >mandated to share network access with competitors at protected, >affordable rates. In a rare act of non-solidarity with a baby bell, >the FCC has rejected Qwest's request (pdf) for forbearance from such > >http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/FCC-Rejects-Qwest-Forbearance-Request-96469 From rl at 1st-mile.com Tue Jul 29 16:05:00 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2008 16:05:00 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] US Broadband Policy: AU Blog Recommendation Message-ID: <20080729160500.ka0c7x8zb440sw4s@www2.dcn.org> Here's a fairly intelligent recommendation for US Broadband Policy, from an Australian consulting firm. Australia would do well to follow this advice, as well, as their new national broadband plan does not go far enough in this direction, either. rl -------- Pressure mounts in the USA for a national broadband infrastructure policy www.buddeblog.com.au/pressure-mounts-in-the-usa-for-a-national-broadband-infrastructure-policy/ Many years of unrealised fibre projects have left the USA trailing far behind Asia in the deployment of FttH networks. Despite having very a high total number of broadband subscribers, in terms of penetration (based on subscribers per 100 inhabitants), the USA dropped from 4th place in 2001 to 12th place in 2004 where it remained through 2005 and 2006. By 2007 the USA had dropped a further three places to 15th. Back in 2006, BuddeComm published an analysis of the US broadband infrastructure market predicting that also here structural changes will be needed to take this market forwards. Moreover, a country comparison of broadband penetration indicates little about speeds, bandwidth, service levels and value. For instance, although data show Japan and the US to have similar broadband penetration rates, OECD figures indicate that Japan has nearly ten times faster broadband speeds than the US, based on average advertised download speeds. According to the OECD measure, the US ranks 14th in the OECD in terms of average broadband speeds. The US has fallen so badly off the pace in broadband development that many in the US are now calling for government to treat broadband as significant national infrastructure. Perhaps the most significant reason for the lacklustre broadband market includes the lack of a federal broadband plan setting specific broadband goals. Having left broadband development largely to the private sector, the US market has been typified by a cosy cable-DSL duopoly which has been slow to embrace the latest technologies. In this regard, the US could learn from the national broadband initiatives of Japan, South Korea and Canada. Similarly, only some US state governments have started treating broadband as an infrastructure issue rather than merely a communication issue. To date, the focus of the US federal and state governments has been on providing broadband to underserved rural and regional areas. However, this tends to be low speed broadband, rather than the 100Mbps speeds we see in Japan. Thus there are increasing calls for US federal and state governments to commit significant public funds to broadband infrastructure as has been successfully done by the Japanese, South Korean, Canadian and Swedish governments. Another reason for limited private sector investment in fibre networks is the fact that the US has not required open access to, or unbundling of, fibre networks. In contrast Japan has imposed unbundling on NTT?s fibre facilities whilst EU nations are debating whether to impose unbundling on fibre facilities. France and the UK have moved to the top of the G7 in terms of broadband adoption, largely due to the unbundling of their local loops. It is envisaged that a national broadband policy would focus on high bandwidth fibre networks that can deliver 100Mbps speeds. Such a policy would foster investment by both the public and the private sectors, so as to capture the benefits that broadband can bring to, for example, education, health and public safety, whilst harnessing the capital and expertise of the private sector. The policy would aim for universality i.e. all communities, institutions, businesses, houses and individuals would have equitable and affordable access to high speed broadband services and to a wide range of content and service providers. The federal policy should also embrace sufficient flexibility to allow local and state governments to target the funding dollars as appropriate within their jurisdiction. While a number of US cities have already built or are building fibre networks, federal and state governments could do more to encourage municipalities to deploy fibre networks. In addition to public-private-partnerships, another means by which to encourage private sector investment in fibre networks is to offer tax incentives. This was done with much success in 1986 when the US Congress passed legislation offering tax incentives for investment in long distance infrastructure upgrades. Based on Verizon?s $800 per house FttH deployment costs, it is estimated that the total costs to provide FttH to every home in the country would amount to around $80-100 billion. The policy should include funding to improve research into broadband technology and to enhance consumer education about broadband services. It has been proposed that a new fund be established using a marching grant format such as that used in some Canadian provinces, where the federal government, the state government and the network owner each contribute one-third of the funding for each broadband project. To administer the policy and the fund, it has been suggested that there be established a council of government officials, co-chaired by the Secretary of Commerce and the Chairman of the FCC, together with officials from federal, state and local government agencies. The policy should set an aggressive timeframe, such as providing minimum 100Mbps access to all homes, businesses and institutions within 5 years. Currently, even Verizon?s FttH deployment, which is by far the most aggressive in the country (Verizon currently accounts for approximately 60% of all FttH subscriptions and nearly 90% of homes passed by fibre), is aiming to cover only half of Verizon?s footprint. Given the Regional Bell Operating Companies? success in the past to ensure that their fibre networks are not made subject to third party access regimes, it is unlikely that the envisaged national fibre networks would be subject to interconnection regulation, at least not within the 5-year horizon. Critically, however, to ensure that the full economic and social benefits of the national broadband network are properly realised, it is essential that the policy enshrines network neutrality in legislation. Lawrence Baker - BuddeComm Senior Analyst North America -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Fri Aug 1 11:43:39 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Fri, 01 Aug 2008 11:43:39 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Navajo Nation police to lose wireless capability Message-ID: <20080801114339.hnt2gavpxc0s8o8w@www2.dcn.org> Navajo Nation police to lose wireless capability By FELICIA FONSECA Posted 01 August 2008 @ 09:55 am EST Police on the sprawling Navajo Nation are about to lose their access to wireless service, which enables them to file reports remotely and easily communicate with fellow officers in field. A subcontractor that had provided satellite time for the Internet service plans to shutter it as of Friday because of nonpayment for services. SES Americom, a subcontractor for Utah-based OnSat Network Communications Inc., said OnSat owes the company $4 million dollars. "This is a backward step, it's not a forward step," said George Hardeen, a spokesman for Navajo President Joe Shirley Jr. "It's unfortunate because the Navajo Nation was a leader in wireless communication, and certainly the president wants to regain that status as soon as possible." OnSat's five-year contract with SES expired on June 30, and the company decided not to renew it because of the $4 million bill. At the request of the Federal Communications Commission, the shutdown of service was delayed temporarily, said Nancy Eskenazi, vice president and associate general counsel for SES. But she said service would end Friday. Eskenazi said OnSat has had months of notice that SES would not renew the contract with such a large balance. "It is what it is, at this point," she said. The loss of wireless access for police is the second recent blow to telecommunications in Navajo country. Just four months ago, about 70 of the tribe's 110 chapter houses lost Internet service; they had been connected through E-rate, a program administered by the Universal Services Administration Company under the FCC. USAC is withholding millions of dollars in funding to OnSat in a dispute over what OnSat had been charging the tribe and whether the tribe followed procurement and competitive bidding rules. An e-mail message and calls to OnSat President Dave Stephens went unanswered. The Associated Press also left messages with an OnSat attorney, Cynthia Schultz, who specializes in the E-rate program. OnSat has said it is unable to pay SES because USAC is withholding its money, which had already been approved. The public safety network is not part of the E-rate program and had been paid for through federal grant money, Hardeen said. Hardeen said police and other emergency responders still can access the Internet through land lines, two-way radios and other forms of communication. He said the safety of tribal members won't be in jeopardy. 'It's how it used to be," he said. "We're not back to typewriters, but we're functioning without wireless." Dozens of wireless access points had been set up across the vast reservation. Navajo police had been able to file reports miles away from their office and instantly communicate with their colleagues. "In a community where there is already so little telecommunications infrastructure available, it is just plain disrespectful to the Navajo Nation to pull the plug on the systems they already have in place," said former Arizona state Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, whose district had included parts of the reservation. "The Nation is already struggling to cope with losing internet access for its schools and libraries," she said. Now, it appears that the few gains we have made moving toward a functional public safety network are taken away." Read the full aticle of: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20080801/navajo-nation-police-to-lose-wireless-capability.htm Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From carroll at cagleandassociates.com Fri Aug 1 12:04:46 2008 From: carroll at cagleandassociates.com (Carroll Cagle) Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2008 13:04:46 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] FCC makes a move toward Net Neutrality Message-ID: <65095C95018E4914992766A9BCAB1B5C@yourfsyly0jtwn> Many of you may have received this information already-but I am forwarded a notice I just got from the organization, "Free Press" (edited to remove some of their promotional phraseology). Carroll Cagle Your hard work is paying off! Just one hour ago, the Federal Communications Commission voted to punish Comcast for violating Net Neutrality and blocking your right to do what you want on the Internet. . Today's vote at the FCC is a precedent-setting victory that sends a powerful message to phone and cable companies that blocking access to the Internet will not be tolerated from this time forward. News of this win is now being covered by every major news outlet as a turning point for Net Neutrality. Many more people are discovering our people-powered movement for a free and open Internet. Today's FCC victory is a milestone, but our work is far from done. Companies like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon are continuing to fight Net Neutrality using lobbyists, lawyers and campaign contributions. These spec The Internet's true greatness lies in those of us who use its level playing field to challenge the status quo, create and share new ideas, take part in our democracy and connect with others around the world -- without permission from any gatekeepers. With your help and commitment, today's win will be just the first of many to protect innovation, free speech and democracy on the Internet. Thank you! Timothy Karr Campaign Director Free Press www.freepress.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.gif Type: image/gif Size: 862 bytes Desc: not available URL: From josmon at rigozsaurus.com Fri Aug 1 14:29:50 2008 From: josmon at rigozsaurus.com (John Osmon) Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2008 15:29:50 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] FCC makes a move toward Net Neutrality In-Reply-To: <65095C95018E4914992766A9BCAB1B5C@yourfsyly0jtwn> References: <65095C95018E4914992766A9BCAB1B5C@yourfsyly0jtwn> Message-ID: <20080801212950.GV18607@rigozsaurus.com> [...from "Free Press" via Carroll Cagle...] > Your hard work is paying off! Just one hour ago, the Federal Communications > Commission voted to punish Comcast for violating Net Neutrality and blocking > your right to do what you want on the Internet. Ouch. Too many of these types of victories could be devestating. I *want* my ISP to be able to block things. I don't want spam. I don't want the worm-du-jour running rampant. I might even want to them block P2P so that they can keep their costs lower than other ISPs -- and thus offer me cheaper access. What we need is access neutrality -- from my home or office I want a multitude of choices when it comes to ISPs. I want them to be unfettered by mandated "Net Neutrality" laws. I want them to *offer* filtered access, but each ISP could specialize in some niche. Qwest has a great model for such a system -- their ATM-based DSL product. Qwest offers connectivity from your home/business to several ISPs. Any number of service-based ISPs could be contemplated by using such an access system. Perhaps an ISP alliance would crop up that partners with the MPAA/RIAA. Such ISPs would filter P2P traffic that isn't destined for "legitimate" services. In exchange for such filtering, the MPAA/RIAA could subsidize the end-users' ISP fees with the savings from reduced piracy issues... I believe that such a service would have many takers -- but would be impossible to achieve if Net Neutrality becomes the law of the land. Free the copper/fiber -- the net will take care of itself. (Note: I help run an ISP, so assume I have some biases...) As I get ready to send this, the following popped up on slashdot: http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/customer-owned-fiber.ars From pete at ideapete.com Sat Aug 2 11:22:25 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Sat, 02 Aug 2008 12:22:25 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] FCC makes a move toward Net Neutrality In-Reply-To: <20080801212950.GV18607@rigozsaurus.com> References: <65095C95018E4914992766A9BCAB1B5C@yourfsyly0jtwn> <20080801212950.GV18607@rigozsaurus.com> Message-ID: <4894A5E1.2000008@ideapete.com> Both sides of the comment have merit but I agree we should be worried about radical oversight by government trying to fix everything TCP combined with IPV4, as routers get overloaded just divide traffic allowable by 50% and as we have seen Video and P2P are overloading many networks and yes the best example should be more and bigger networks but some kind of traffic management will always be needed even with smart upgrades to V6 and beyond Again it stuns me that traffic management bad or good is being attempted without fully understanding all the implications involved and with 0 input on dynamic modeling and mapping and huge dynamic input from ISPs and others When I see legislation justification implemented by tons of paper documents on a subject like digital traffic in the real world its time to run for the hill My hope for networks is really based on this analogy " Engineers break complicated issues down into small pieces each of which is fixable, politicians do the reverse combining small problems to create huge un fixable issues. " ( : ( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ John Osmon wrote: > [...from "Free Press" via Carroll Cagle...] > > >> Your hard work is paying off! Just one hour ago, the Federal Communications >> Commission voted to punish Comcast for violating Net Neutrality and blocking >> your right to do what you want on the Internet. >> > > Ouch. Too many of these types of victories could be devestating. > > I *want* my ISP to be able to block things. I don't want spam. I don't > want the worm-du-jour running rampant. I might even want to them block > P2P so that they can keep their costs lower than other ISPs -- and thus > offer me cheaper access. > > What we need is access neutrality -- from my home or office I want > a multitude of choices when it comes to ISPs. I want them to be > unfettered by mandated "Net Neutrality" laws. I want them to > *offer* filtered access, but each ISP could specialize in some niche. > > Qwest has a great model for such a system -- their ATM-based DSL > product. Qwest offers connectivity from your home/business to > several ISPs. Any number of service-based ISPs could be contemplated > by using such an access system. > > Perhaps an ISP alliance would crop up that partners with the MPAA/RIAA. > Such ISPs would filter P2P traffic that isn't destined for "legitimate" > services. In exchange for such filtering, the MPAA/RIAA could subsidize > the end-users' ISP fees with the savings from reduced piracy issues... > > I believe that such a service would have many takers -- but would be > impossible to achieve if Net Neutrality becomes the law of the land. > > Free the copper/fiber -- the net will take care of itself. > > (Note: I help run an ISP, so assume I have some biases...) > > As I get ready to send this, the following popped up on slashdot: > http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/customer-owned-fiber.ars > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Sun Aug 3 14:48:53 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Sun, 03 Aug 2008 15:48:53 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Plugging America's Broadband Gap Message-ID: <489627C5.3010006@ideapete.com> http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_32/b4095052388294.htm?chan=search -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Mike.Ripperger at state.nm.us Tue Aug 5 11:22:37 2008 From: Mike.Ripperger at state.nm.us (Ripperger, Michael, PRC) Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 12:22:37 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Qwest CyberCenter Message-ID: <0018F48A404E174982905690CB56097D063751A0@CEXMB2.nmes.lcl> All, Regarding the Cyber Center, the Commission issued an oral order, which is eventually to be followed by a written order. Attached is the Commission's press release on the issue. In a nutshell, Qwest wanted $10 Million in SASA funds devoted to the proposed CyberCenter, DoIT none, and Staff only the network portion, which would be much less than $10 million. The Commission ordered $2.2 million to come from Qwest non-SASA funds, and $7.8 million from SASA funds for the building of the Cyber Center. The $2.2 million of Qwest's non-SASA money is to be spent up front. The decision on the spending of the SASA monies on the CyberCenter is not to be precedential. If Qwest discontinues the Cyber Center within 5 years, any portion of the $7.8 Million SASA money spent is to return to the SASA for use on other projects. This is in the press release. When the formal order is issued, I will forward it to the list. Michael Ripperger Telecommunications Bureau Chief New Mexico Public Regulation Commission Marian Hall 224 East Palace Ave Santa Fe, NM 87501 Phone 1-505-827-6902 Fax 1-505-827-4402 Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail, including all attachments is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited unless specifically provided under the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender and destroy all copies of this message. -- This email has been scanned by the Sybari - Antigen Email System. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: cybercenter08.docx Type: application/octet-stream Size: 30628 bytes Desc: cybercenter08.docx URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Wed Aug 6 21:11:03 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Wed, 06 Aug 2008 21:11:03 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] 1st-Mile Initiatives: Update Message-ID: <20080806211103.etrqa3exw4oog04c@www2.dcn.org> Greetings 1st-Milers, I want to provide some news on 1st-Mile Institute efforts, growing from this online community and its exchanges, and from the past year's behind the scenes work. First of all, the 1st-Mile Institute has been awarded a $10,000 'seed-funding' grant from the NM McCune Foundation, via our non-profit fiscal sponsor, Ars Publica. Thank you, McCune Foundation, and Ars Publica. Second: For the past year, I have been formulating and proposing an "Integrated Strategic Broadband Initiative" for the State of New Mexico. Following on lots of background work and meetings since early this year, with representatives of State departments and agencies, telecommunications companies, university, business and community leaders and others, this proposal recently moved forward to the Governor's Office, guided by the Governor's Science Advisor, Tom Bowles. At the end of July, staff and Advisors in the Governor's Office agreed that I should be immediately contracted to substantiate the proposed Initiative, in order to take informed necessary next steps. The contract, to be issued by the newly established NM Computing Applications Center, is with Design Nine, Inc., Andrew Cohill's national broadband planning firm, with which I am associated as a Senior Planner. This initial contract has deliverables due at the beginning of September. Attached is a three page .pdf that was prepared for and presented to the NM IT Commission this morning. It provides a brief outline of the proposal and work plan for a "New Mexico Integrated Strategic Broadband Initiative". As you will see, there is a lot to do in a very short amount of time. It is my hope that this list may be used to help substantiate this effort, to share needed information, and to discuss the needs, opportunities and means of moving this state forward in some pragmatic and example-setting ways. Thanks for your participation on this list to date. I look forward to a productive next phase of exchanges. Richard -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: NM-ISBI-Proposal+WorkPlan.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 1363626 bytes Desc: not available URL: From tom at jtjohnson.com Thu Aug 7 09:41:42 2008 From: tom at jtjohnson.com (Tom Johnson) Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2008 10:41:42 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] 1st-Mile Initiatives: Update In-Reply-To: <20080806211103.etrqa3exw4oog04c@www2.dcn.org> References: <20080806211103.etrqa3exw4oog04c@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: Congrats, Richard. Looks to be a much-needed step. -tom On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 10:11 PM, Richard Lowenberg wrote: > Greetings 1st-Milers, > I want to provide some news on 1st-Mile Institute efforts, growing from > this online community and its exchanges, and from the past year's behind > the > scenes work. > First of all, the 1st-Mile Institute has been awarded a $10,000 > 'seed-funding' grant from the NM McCune Foundation, via our non-profit > fiscal > sponsor, Ars Publica. Thank you, McCune Foundation, and Ars Publica. > Second: For the past year, I have been formulating and proposing an > "Integrated Strategic Broadband Initiative" for the State of New Mexico. > Following on lots of background work and meetings since early this year, > with > representatives of State departments and agencies, telecommunications > companies, university, business and community leaders and others, this > proposal > recently moved forward to the Governor's Office, guided by the Governor's > Science Advisor, Tom Bowles. > At the end of July, staff and Advisors in the Governor's Office agreed > that > I should be immediately contracted to substantiate the proposed Initiative, > in > order to take informed necessary next steps. The contract, to be issued > by the > newly established NM Computing Applications Center, is with Design Nine, > Inc., > Andrew Cohill's national broadband planning firm, with which I am > associated as > a Senior Planner. This initial contract has deliverables due at the > beginning > of September. > Attached is a three page .pdf that was prepared for and presented to > the > NM IT Commission this morning. It provides a brief outline of the > proposal > and work plan for a "New Mexico Integrated Strategic Broadband Initiative". > As you will see, there is a lot to do in a very short amount of time. > It > is my hope that this list may be used to help substantiate this effort, to > share needed information, and to discuss the needs, opportunities and means > of > moving this state forward in some pragmatic and example-setting ways. > Thanks for your participation on this list to date. I look forward > to a > productive next phase of exchanges. > Richard > > -- > Richard Lowenberg > 1st-Mile Institute > P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 > 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell > rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------- > This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > > -- ========================================== J. T. Johnson Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA www.analyticjournalism.com 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) http://www.jtjohnson.com tom at jtjohnson.com "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." -- Buckminster Fuller ========================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From granoff at zianet.com Thu Aug 7 12:27:32 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Thu, 07 Aug 2008 13:27:32 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: GigaLaw.com Daily News, August 7, 2008 Message-ID: <20080807192736.1650521E5@velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us> From another list. FYI. >Internet Security Flaw Could Compromise E-mail, Too > A newly discovered flaw in the Internet's core infrastructure > not only permits hackers to force people to visit Web sites they > didn't want to, it also allows them to intercept e-mail messages, > the researcher who discovered the bug said. Considering the silent > nature of the attack and the sensitive nature of a lot of > electronic correspondence, the potential for damage from this > second security flaw is high. > Read more: > http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/biztech/08/06/internet.security.ap/index.html From rl at 1st-mile.com Fri Aug 8 11:45:32 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Fri, 08 Aug 2008 11:45:32 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Qwest net tumbles by 24% Message-ID: <20080808114532.9csmr9tx4w4o0so8@www2.dcn.org> Qwest net tumbles by 24% Phone customers are still leaving, but a bright spot is sales from data, Net and video services. www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_10120526# By Steve Raabe The Denver Post 08/07/2008 Qwest on Wednesday reported a decline in phone customers but announced new promotional prices in an effort to pick up more Internet business. The fall-off in telephone revenues contributed to a 24 percent decline in second-quarter net income to $188 million, compared with $246 million a year ago. Operating revenue for the quarter was $3.4 billion, compared with $3.5 billion a year earlier. "Under more challenging conditions in some of our markets, operating results were mixed," said Qwest chief executive Ed Mueller. Qwest shares fell 14 cents Wednesday to $3.45. The stock has dropped about 50 percent this year. Qwest said it lost 1.1 million residential and business phone lines over the past year, an 8.2 percent drop, as competition from cable and wireless providers took a toll on traditional phone service. But sales from data, Internet and video services grew 9 percent in the second quarter compared with last year. The company announced Wednesday that customers signing up for its standard- speed Internet service will receive a 12-month promotional rate of $14.99 a month, compared with the current charge of $29.99 with a two-year commitment. Promotional discounts also are being offered on Qwest's bundled Internet and DirecTV service, as well as on higher- speed broadband. The company said its highest-speed offering is now available to more than 1 million customers in 18 markets. Helping to counter the disappointing earnings report, the Federal Communications Commission said Qwest has won partial regulatory relief on rules governing the commercial Internet market. The decision lifted pricing restrictions on what Qwest can charge to business customers and rival carriers for using its high-speed Internet network. "This relief will enable Qwest to have the flexibility to further deploy its broadband services and fiber facilities without overly burdensome regulations," FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said in a statement. But the ruling drew criticism from Littleton-based TW Telecom Inc., formerly Time Warner Telecom. "There is simply not enough competition for these enterprise broadband services to keep prices affordable for most businesses," said Kelsi Reeves, vice president of federal government relations for TW. "This decision is not in the best interest of America's businesses." -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From granoff at zianet.com Mon Aug 11 14:06:59 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:06:59 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Reminder NMIPA meeting this Thursday Message-ID: <20080811210657.004287954C9@mx.dcn.davis.ca.us> >Next NMIPA membership meeting is this week - THURSDAY, AUGUST 14th! >8/14/2008 @ 11:30am >Tiny's >Restaurant & Lounge >Santa Fe, NM > >Presentation by Peter Small > >Topic: Ajax and Web 2.0 > >Cost for members is $16, for non members the cost is $26. Cost >includes presentation, lunch, drink, tax, and tip. > >The term Web 2.0 is used to describe the explosion in web-based >applications that have appeared over the last 4 years. These >include Social Networking sites (MySpace, Facebook, etc.), rich >internet applications (Google Maps, Apple's Me.com, 280North, Google >Docs, etc), wikis, blogs, and folksonomies (the practice of >categorizing content through tags). > >Although the technology behind these applications has existed for >years before they appeared, it is the mindset change in software >developers and end users that has allowed this explosion to >occur. In the presentation, Peter will present the technology of >AJAX that underpins the rich user experience of many of these apps, >and discuss Web 2.0 in general. > >------------------ > >Peter Small has over 21 years of software engineering experience in >many different environments. For the past 10 years, he has been >involved exclusively in web applications. He was using AJAX before >he knew it be that name. > >Currently, Peter is the sole developer of Aurora Borealis Design and >also works as a senior software engineer at Deep Web Technologies in >Santa Fe, developing web applications. Current areas of research are >developing web applications in JavaScript, Object-Oriented PHP, and >applying design patterns to web applications. > > > >I hope to see you all at this membership meeting! > >Best, > >Kerri Korschgen > >Chair of NMIPA > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From BHarris at nmag.gov Tue Aug 12 12:04:35 2008 From: BHarris at nmag.gov (Harris, Brian, WEU NMAGO) Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2008 13:04:35 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] FCC Broadband Workshop In-Reply-To: <20080808114532.9csmr9tx4w4o0so8@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: FCC AND USDA TO CONDUCT EDUCATIONAL WORKSHOPS ON RURAL BROADBAND IN AUSTIN, TEXAS AND PHOENIX, ARIZONA Washington, D.C. - The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced today that registration is still open for the two remaining regional educational workshops on rural broadband: September 18, 2008: Austin, Texas November 20, 2008: Phoenix, Arizona These workshops are designed to provide communities, organizations, and businesses in rural America seeking to bring the benefits of broadband to their communities with an opportunity to learn about the resources, programs, and policies of the FCC and USDA. They follow two workshops held earlier this year in Blacksburg, Virginia and Saginaw, Michigan. The topics to be covered at the workshops include the following: different technology platforms used to provide broadband services, USDA funding for broadband deployment, the Universal Service Fund, the FCC's Rural Health Care Pilot program, and wireless spectrum access. The workshops will also provide communities and organizations an opportunity to share their experiences about broadband deployment in rural and hard-to-reach areas. The workshops will be held free of charge; however, attendees will be responsible for providing their own transportation, lodging, and meals. If you are interested in attending one of these workshops, please register no later than August 15, 2008 for the Austin workshop or October 10, 2008 for the Phoenix workshop. Below is the information required to register: o Community/Organization Name o Address o Phone Number o Email Address o Contact Person o Workshop Location You Wish to Attend o Number of Expected Attendees o Description of Accommodations Required for People with Disabilities (Reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities will be made available upon request.) There are several ways for you to register for a workshop: o Online. Go to the FCC's website at http://wireless.fcc.gov/outreach/ruralbroadband/workshop and fill in the online registration form. o By Email. Send the information outlined above in an email to ruralworkshop at fcc.gov. o By Telephone. Call (877) 480-3201 and press Option 1. For TTY, dial (717) 338-2824. o By U.S. Mail. Send a letter with the information outlined above to: Federal Communications Commission Wireless Telecommunications Bureau ATTN: Matt Nodine 445 12th Street, SW Washington, DC 20554 A community or organization can register for only one workshop. The contact person listed in the registration will receive additional information at a later date regarding the workshop selected, including the exact time and venue, as well as a detailed agenda. For additional information about the workshops, please visit the FCC's website at http://wireless.fcc.gov/outreach/ruralbroadband/; send an email to ruralworkshop at fcc.gov; or contact Cecilia Sulhoff at (202) 418-0587 or Matt Nodine at (202) 418-1646. Further information on rural programs is available on the FCC/USDA Broadband Opportunities for Rural America website at http://wireless.fcc.gov/outreach/ruralbroadband, at a local USDA Rural Development office, and on the USDA's web site at http://www.rurdev.usda.gov. - FCC - News and other information about the Federal Communications Commission is available at www.fcc.gov. This URL is better. http://wireless.fcc.gov/outreach/index.htm?job=workshop From rl at 1st-mile.com Wed Aug 13 20:48:53 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2008 20:48:53 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Democratic Party's Technology Platform Message-ID: <20080813204853.ro7ycyr6ogso48ck@www2.dcn.org> >From the Benton Foundation's postings: Democratic Party's Technology Platform http://benton.org/node/16054?utm_campaign=Benton%27s+Headlines&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=2008/08/13/nid-16068& Renewing America's Promise At its meeting in Pittsburgh in early August, the full Platform Committee recommended that the Convention adopt the Democratic Party's national Platform "Renewing America's Promise" when it is presented in Denver later this month. Here's a look at the technology-relted sections. A Connected America In the 21st century, our world is more intertwined than at any time in human history. This new connectedness presents us with untold opportunities for innovation, but also new challenges. We will protect the internet's traditional openness to innovation and creativity and ensure that it remains a dynamic platform for free speech, innovation, and creativity. We will implement a national broadband strategy, especially in rural areas, that enables every American household, school library and hospital to connect to a world-class communications infrastructure. We will rededicate our nation to ensuring that all Americans have access to broadband and the skills to use it effectively. In an increasingly technology-rich, knowledge-based economy, connectivity is a key part of the solution to many of our most important challenges: job creation economic growth, energy, health care, and education. We will establish a Chief Technology Officer for the nation, to ensure we use technology to enhance the functioning, transparency, and expertise of government, including establishing a national interoperable public safety communications network to help first responders at the local, state and national level communicate with one another during a crisis. We will toughen penalties, increase enforcement resources, and spur private sector cooperation with law enforcement to identify and prosecute those who exploit the Internet to try to harm children. We will encourage more educational content on the Web and in our media. We will give parents the tools and information they need to manage (in ways fully consistent with the First Amendment) what their children see on television and the Internet. We will strengthen privacy protections in the digital age and will harness the power of technology to hold government and business accountable for violations of persona privacy. Science, Technology & Innovation America has long led the world in innovation. But this Administration's hostility to science has taken a toll. At a time when technology helps shape our future, we devote a smaller and smaller share of our national resources to research and development. It is time again to lead. We took a critical step with the America Competes Act and we will start by implementing that act - then we will do more. We will make science. technology, engineering, and math education a national priority. We will double federal funding for basic research, invest in a strong and inspirational vision for space exploration and make the Reaearch and Development Tax Credit permanent. We will invest in the next generation of transformative energy technologies and health IT and we will renew the defense R&D system. We will lift the current Administration's ban on using federal funding for embyronic stem cells - cells that would have otherwhise have been discarded and lost forever - for research that could save lives. We will ensure that our patent laws protect legitimate rights while not stifling innovation and creativity. We will end the Bush Administration's war on science, restore scientific integrity, and return to evidence-based decision-making. In sum, We will stregthen our system, treat science and technology as crucial investments, and use these forces to ensure a future of economic leadership, health well-being and national security. Open, Accountable and Ethical Government In Barack Obama's Administration, we will open up the doors of democracy. We will create a new "open source" government, using technology to make government more transparent, accountable and inclusive. Rather than obstruct people's use of the Freedom of Information Act, we will require that agencies conduct significant business in public and release all relevant information unless an agency reasonably forsees harm to a protected interest. We will lift the veil of secret deals in Washington by publishing searchable, online information about federal grants, contracts, earmarks, loans, and lobbyist contracts with government officials. We will make government data available online and will have an online video archive of significant agency meetings. We will put all non-emergency bills that Congress has passed online for five days, to allow the American public to review and comment on them before they are signed into law. We will require Cabinet officials to have periodic national online town hall meetings to discuss issues before their agencies. Implementing our Party's agenda will require running an efficient government that gets results. We will develop a comprehensive management agenda to prevent operational breakdowns in government and ensure that government provides the level of service that the American people deserve. Because we understand that good government depends on good people, we will work to rebuild and reengage our federal workforce. We will make the government a more attractive place to work. Our hiring will be based only on qualification and experience, and not on ideology or party affiliation. We will pay for our new spending, eliminate waste in government programs, demand and measure results, and stop funding programs that don't work. We are committed to a participatory government. We will use the most current technology available to improve the quality of government decision-making and make government less beholden to special interest groups and lobbyists. We will enhance the flow of information between citizens and government?in both directions?by involving the public in the work of government agencies. We will not simply solicit opinions, but will also use new technology to tap into the vast expertise of the American citizenry, for the benefit of government and our democracy. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From granoff at zianet.com Thu Aug 14 09:11:08 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 10:11:08 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: GigaLaw.com Daily News, August 14, 2008 Message-ID: <20080814161110.01E7F21E7@velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us> From another list. FYI. >Lawmakers Respond to FCC's Plan for Free Wi-Fi > The clock is ticking on the U.S. Federal Communications > Commission's free wireless broadband proposal, with organizations > on both sides of the debate stepping up their arguments. Two > lawmakers and a company that backs the FCC's plan are among many > groups that filed letters with the commission over the past couple > of weeks, responding in part to T-Mobile's filing of the results of > its technical laboratory test. > Read more: > http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/08/11/Lawmakers_urge_FCC_to_move_forward_with_free_plan_1.html > (Source: InfoWorld) From rl at 1st-mile.com Mon Aug 18 07:17:23 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2008 07:17:23 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] CityLink FTTH in Albuquerque Message-ID: <20080818071723.x3to4ftrgkg0o08g@www2.dcn.org> CityLink Receives Prestigious Fiber-to-the-Home Council Certification, First in New Mexico ALBUQUERQUE, NM ? August 13, 2008? The Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) Council of North America has certified CityLink Fiber as operating a pure fiber to the home network, meaning that CityLink subscribers can look forward to receiving all the benefits of this next-generation telecommunications technology. Council certification is intended to help consumers identify which providers are offering 100% fiber optic connections for delivering superior quality and bandwidth for video, Internet and voice services. The certification allows providers to affix a badge stating "This Home is Fiber Connected" at the subscriber site, and to use the image on the badge in promoting their services. Use of the image signifies that an installation meets the FTTH Council's standard for running fiber optic cable all the way to the boundary of the home premises. ?The badge demonstrates to our communities CityLink?s strategic commitment in deploying fiber optic cable all the way to the home or business?, said John Brown, Co-Founder of CityLink. Companies wishing to be certified by the FTTH Council must submit an application, under go technical and business review, agree to conduct themselves by a code of ethics, exhibit a ?Strategic Commitment? to FTTH and submit to other review processes. CityLink joins the list of fewer than 50 other companies across the country that has been certified by the FTTH Council. Other certified companies include Verizon?s FiOS, Elim Valley Development, and City of Wilson NC. CityLink is the first FTTH network to be certified in New Mexico. ?We offer this program to ensure that there is no confusion, and that broadband, telephone and video subscribers know that they are getting the quality and bandwidth capabilities that are present only when fiber is run all the way to the home," said Joe Savage, President of the FTTH Council. Savage added that the growing popularity of fiber to the home, along with the high performance and service quality widely associated with direct fiber connections, have prompted some providers that are still using copper in their last mile to claim that they deliver service over what they call a "fiber network." "While it's understandable that competing Internet, telephone and video service providers would want to associate their product with optical fiber, consumers do not get the benefits of a 100% fiber network unless the fiber optic cable goes all the way to the home. That's why we came up with this certification program and the fiber-connected badge," he said. Brown further stated that with FTTH, customers are ?future-proofed? for next generation communications and video services, which are expected to consume thousands of times the bandwidth currently available via DSL or cable infrastructure. CityLink's new certified FTTH service brings 100Mb/s of upload and download speed Internet service to the home for $59.95 a month. CityLink is currently deploying both business and residential fiber services in the 87102 and 87104 areas of Albuquerque. The company has plans to deploy city wide. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Tue Aug 19 14:40:12 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:40:12 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Aspen Summit: Verizon PR Message-ID: <20080819144012.ftlpp9pqr34kgoc0@www2.dcn.org> A PR from Verizon: http://newscenter.verizon.com/press-releases/verizon/2008/verizon-technology-chief.html Verizon Technology Chief Urges Sound Policy and Industry Cooperation to Continue High Innovation Internet Industry and Consumers Best Served by Pragmatic Solutions, He Says August 19, 2008 ASPEN, Colo. - The information and communications sectors are experiencing one of the greatest periods of innovation in their history, as entrepreneurs compete to provide consumers with increased speed, mobility and content over broadband networks. But, according to the Verizon senior executive who manages his company's large investment in networks, future breakthroughs will also depend upon appropriate public policy, as well as cooperative industry efforts to set standards. In a keynote address Tuesday (Aug. 19) at the Progress and Freedom Foundation's annual Aspen Summit, Verizon Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer Dick Lynch urged a "change in mindset on the part of policymakers to acknowledge the realities of the 100-megabit world" and suggested that other industry participants be pragmatic as well. "The public interest can best be served by getting as much broadband in front of as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, and ensuring that investment keeps up with demand," Lynch said. "To a large extent, this is a matter of taking down the barriers to investment and refraining from erecting new ones." As examples, Lynch cited "removing entry barriers to facilitate investment, as New York City has recently done in granting a franchise" to Verizon to bring FiOS TV to all city residents, and "forming partnerships and revamping the Universal Service Fund to bring broadband to rural communities." He compared these examples with the "over-taxation of innovation, such as we currently see to a disproportionate degree in the wireless industry." Lynch said the "high-passion" issue of network management is a "major public policy concern" that can be resolved in a way that preserves proper network management techniques. "We believe that network and applications providers can and must work together to find solutions that work for the industry and for our customers," he said, "and Verizon has taken a leadership role in doing just that." To that end, Verizon and Pando Networks co-founded the P4P Working Group in 2007. Lynch said the group identified "techniques which, in field tests, have dramatically reduced network costs and congestion while noticeably improving the performance of the service to the customer." He said he expects those techniques "to be adopted as an Internet standard" and "by all major network and peer-to-peer providers." Lynch said the pragmatism displayed in the P4P Working Group's success "offers a model of the kind of industry cooperation and collaboration that should be used to address the emerging challenges of the Internet industry." But he noted that government has "a legitimate role in helping to define the public interest, establish principles and adjudicate conflicts." "Dynamic industries like ours require flexible solutions that can evolve and adapt to a changing environment - not rigid regulatory solutions that are one step behind the marketplace," he said. The title of this year's Aspen Summit - "Unlocking Innovation: Has the Key Been Misplaced?" - provided Verizon's top engineer the opportunity to showcase a variety of breakthroughs. Lynch said broadband investment is up 40 percent over the last four years, with speeds doubling, on average, every 20 months. That new capacity enables "equally amazing advances in applications, services and equipment," he said. Verizon's 700 megahertz spectrum purchase, the choice of LTE technology for its fourth-generation wireless network, its wireless Open Development Initiative, and the company's superior, FiOS fiber-to-the home network position Verizon as a market leader, Lynch said. Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ), headquartered in New York, is a leader in delivering broadband and other wireline and wireless communication innovations to mass market, business, government and wholesale customers. Verizon Wireless operates America's most reliable wireless network, serving nearly 69 million customers nationwide. Verizon's Wireline operations include Verizon Business, which delivers innovative and seamless business solutions to customers around the world, and Verizon Telecom, which brings customers the benefits of converged communications, information and entertainment services over the nation's most advanced fiber-optic network. A Dow 30 company, Verizon employs a diverse workforce of more than 228,600 and last year generated consolidated operating revenues of $93.5 billion. For more information, visit www.verizon.com. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Wed Aug 20 18:57:00 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2008 18:57:00 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] FCC?s Martin wants broadband across USA Message-ID: <20080820185700.w6836czx4cccw0w4@www2.dcn.org> www.usatoday.com/printedition/money/20080820/martincenter.art.htm Martin wants broadband across USA FCC chief has plans for wireless spectrum By Leslie Cauley USA TODAY WASHINGTON ? High-speed Internet access is so important to the welfare of U.S. consumers that America can't afford not to offer it ? free of charge ? to anybody who wants it, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin says. "There's a social obligation in making sure everybody can participate in the next generation of broadband services because, increasingly, that's what people want," he says. Martin hopes to use a chunk of wireless airwaves due to hit the auction block next year to help turn his vision into reality. Some cellphone operators are objecting. As FCC chairman, Martin is responsible for protecting the interests of U.S. consumers. The FCC has regulatory sway over a broad swath of U.S. business, including cable and broadcast TV, radio, telecommunications and wireless. Martin sat down with USA TODAY to talk about some of the biggest consumer issues facing America. Broadband Internet access is at the top of his list. "More and more people expect and demand to have access to the Internet and new wireless technologies," Martin says. "It is important that the (FCC) try to find new ways to address" those needs. The way Martin sees it, broadband is quickly becoming what copper phone lines were for decades: the main means of communication for millions of Americans. As people turn to the Internet for work, play, telemedicine, education and more, Martin says, it's incumbent on U.S. regulators to make sure no one gets left behind. Ditto for cutting-edge wireless technologies, which have the ability to deliver a circus of advanced new services, including the mobile Web. Consumers living in rural areas are one of Martin's biggest concerns. In these areas, he says, dial-up and satellite-based Internet still rule. Owing to technical limitations, they don't offer enough speed to handle advanced, interactive services. People who live in densely populated areas, on the other hand, can pick from an array of high-speed options, including DSL and cable modem services. No matter where, Martin says, he worries about availability and cost of high-speed services. Broadband runs about $40 a month, on average, though you'll pay a lot more for faster speeds. Only 38% of rural households are broadband customers, according to a Communications Workers of America report. For urban and suburban areas, the numbers are much higher: 57% and 60%, respectively. Cost is a big factor, according to the report. Among households with incomes of $100,000 or more, 85% subscribe. The figure drops to 25% for households with incomes of less than $20,000. Martin wants to use a block of wireless spectrum to help bridge the gap. By attaching a "free broadband" condition to the sale of the spectrum, known as AWS-3 (for advanced wireless services-3), Martin thinks he can help drive broadband adoption in rural areas in particular. Only 25% of network capacity would have to be reserved for free broadband. The rest could be used to provide premium broadband services. Some cellphone providers are howling, none louder than T-Mobile. The company paid $4 billion two years ago to buy AWS-1 spectrum, which abuts the AWS-3 spectrum. While the FCC's goal of providing broadband alternatives for rural customers is "noble," the approach would cause service disruptions for T-Mobile's data customers, says Cole Brodman, T-Mobile's chief technology officer. "The FCC has an obligation to make sure that their spectrum policy allows for people who bought spectrum to be protected," he says. Milo Medin, founder and chairman of M2Z, a start-up that first proposed the "free broadband" idea and plans to bid for the spectrum, says T-Mobile's problem is self-inflicted. He says T-Mobile is using handset "filters" and antennas that "read" signals in the adjoining AWS-3 zone, which could result in interference problems. Brodman counters that the issue isn't that simple. If T-Mobile doesn't prevail, he says, the company would have to "work it out" with the AWS-3 winner or perhaps bid on the spectrum itself. Martin says FCC engineers are studying the interference issue. As for the high cost of broadband generally, Martin says he'd like to find a way to use a very old federal subsidy ? the universal service fund ? to ease costs for lower-income people. The fund, currently about $6 billion a year, is used to help keep basic phone service cheap. Rural phone companies, which use that money to help offset their costs, would likely resist such a plan. Martin says it's just common sense. With so many cutting the cord and going wireless, it's far more important "to make sure we're spending that money ? in a way that better reflects the actual usage habits of Americans today." -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From editorsteve at gmail.com Thu Aug 21 01:11:27 2008 From: editorsteve at gmail.com (Steve Ross) Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2008 13:41:27 +0530 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Conduit In-Reply-To: <20080726083325.kfhwigq8gccokksk@www2.dcn.org> References: <20080726083325.kfhwigq8gccokksk@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: <203e4cf70808210111x3b81c37ajb753e20eae05b4af@mail.gmail.com> Damn. I'm in India until Aug 31 and away from my notes. In greenfield it is actually the norm. They worry about rupture and repair issues but fiber isn't copper. Take a look at articles on our site from Renaissance solutions (pipe bursting). They are gone but the technology survives and a long article mid-2006 on using pipes themselves for conduit. There are actually ASTM standards that apply. Steve On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 9:03 PM, Richard Lowenberg wrote: > Forwarded posting from subscriber Mike Byrnes. > > Steven: > > Can you provide any examples of municipalities 'requiring' the installation > of conduit during a utility system upgrade? > > I live in a small (2200 lots and 1000 homes) community in So. NM with a > Special Water District that is preparing a major system upgrade (new water > lines throughout the district). > > I shared today's postings with a couple of water district commissioners. > Their response indicated an 'abundance of caution' and a misunderstanding > of > installing 'conduit' vs. fiber. > > I could use some educational materials to help get over their reluctance. > > -- Mike > > Mike Byrnes > mike.byrnes at enmu.edu > Lincoln County SBDC > 505-937-9593 > > -- > Richard Lowenberg > 1st-Mile Institute > P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 > 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell > rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com > > ---------------------------------------------------------------- > This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > -- Steve Ross 201-456-5933 781-284-8810 editorsteve at gmail.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Fri Aug 22 15:18:12 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2008 15:18:12 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Governor Bill Richardson Thanks Roy Soto for his Service to New Mexico Message-ID: <20080822151812.2rbagn3g0so44o0k@www2.dcn.org> For immediate release Contact: Gilbert Gallegos Aug. 22, 2008 (505) 476-2217 Governor Bill Richardson Thanks Roy Soto for his Service to New Mexico Governor Richardson names Marlin Mackey as Acting Secretary of Information Technology SANTA FE ? Governor Bill Richardson today announced that Information Technology Cabinet Secretary Roy Soto is leaving state government to return to his career in the private sector. ?Roy deserves credit for taking on one of the most difficult jobs in state government as we centralized our information technology and communications systems into a Cabinet-level department,? Governor Richardson said. ?Roy has put us into a position to utilize technology to deliver services to New Mexicans in a quick and efficient manner.? Soto is leaving state government to return to his family firm, RLR Resources, where in the past he performed executive search services for the energy industry and IT management consulting for corporations worldwide. ?It?s been an honor to serve Governor Richardson and the citizens of New Mexico for nearly five years,? Soto said. ?We?ve made great progress in the information technology arena ? both by improving the services and the technical infrastructure that helps state agencies to better serve the public. I am proud to have built a stronger foundation for the state?s information technology network.? Governor Richardson named Marlin Mackey, currently the Chief Information Officer at the Taxation & Revenue Department, as acting Secretary of the Department of Information Technology. Mackey has more than 34 years of combined executive leadership, management consulting, strategic business planning, business development and program management. Prior to his current position, Mackey served in several senior state government positions over the years, including Deputy Cabinet Secretary for the state Department of Labor, Chief Information Officer for the New Mexico State Land Office, state Information Systems Division and the Department of Transportation. He was Senior Vice President of Syntel Inc., a Detroit-based, international consulting company for nine years. Governor Richardson appointed Soto as Chief Information Officer in 2004. After being confirmed by the State Senate, Soto guided the office through 2007 when he worked with Governor Richardson to create the cabinet-level Department of Information Technology ? merging the Chief Information Office with the Information Systems Division and Communications Division of the General Services Department. Soto has overseen significant upgrades to the state?s information technology network during his tenure. These include organizing a new Office of Security that implemented security measures throughout the agency; power and cooling upgrades to the state Data Center; installation of new digital microwave radio towers and stronger oversight for major IT projects in state government. Soto has also served as deputy secretary for Corrections, deputy commissioner of Public Lands and deputy secretary of the Department of Labor. For 10 years he was vice president of RLR Resources. He also served as board chair and member of the Board of Directors of the Albuquerque Family Health Center, and president of the Albuquerque Public Schools Westside Advisory Council. Gilbert Gallegos Director of Communications Office of New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (office) 505-476-2217 (mobile) 505-412-2644 gilbert.gallegos at state.nm.us -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Fri Aug 22 15:52:13 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2008 15:52:13 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] First in Broadband Mapping, North Carolina?s e-NC Message-ID: <20080822155213.5xm71ncc08oso0g8@www2.dcn.org> The North Carolina initiative is of interest, as a possible broadband initiative is being proposed in New Mexico. Click on the e-NC web site and interactive broadband mapping site, at the bottom of the article web site. rl http://broadbandcensus.com/blog/?p=515 First in Broadband Mapping, North Carolina?s e-NC Now Wants Faster Speeds Broadband Census North Carolina By Drew Clark, Editor, BroadbandCensus.com This is the eighth of a series of articles surveying the state of broadband, and broadband data, within each of the United States. Among the next profiles: Colorado, California and Missouri. August 22 ? In taking an inventory of North Carolina?s broadband assets, and in its push to stimulate high-speed internet investment and adoption, the e-NC Authority is arguably the most advanced effort of its kind in the nation. Long before the current wave of interest in broadband data, North Carolina state officials were at the forefront of mapping out broadband availability; aggregating demand; educating the public about the benefits of broadband; fostering local ?e-champions;? and providing hands-on training and access to low-cost hardware, software and technical support. Now, the state is attempting to push forward further, by encouraging significantly faster connection speeds than are currently generally available in North Carolina, or throughout the country. In a report commissioned by e-NC and released in June, the agency called for faster broadband, a national strategy and more transparent data from carriers. The state?s extensive efforts to date include an interactive web site with detailing geographic information systems (GIS) maps, annual reports, a detailing parsing of Federal Communications Commission data ? as well as its own data from broadband providers ? and concrete funding for digital training, high-tech business incubation and better rural connectivity. For Jane Smith Patterson, executive director of the e-NC authority, the state?s central role is a matter of pride. ?We did the first mapping from the data that we had? way back in 2001, Patterson said in an interview. In the popular press, e-NC?s accomplishments have been somewhat eclipsed by the extensive media focus on Connect Kentucky, and the model that Connected Nation, Inc., has attempted to export to other states. Connected Nation is a non-profit organization funded by telecommunications carriers and state grants. ?Connect Kentucky first talked with us, and didn?t credit us? for work that e-NC had done, said Patterson. Not only was the North Carolina agency the first to extensively map out broadband, it originated the idea for e-community toolkits, and the concomitant effort to stimulate demand by talking up broadband across the state in more than 137 forums, she said. Back in 2001, e-NC was called the Rural Internet Access Authority, created as a result of the Rural Prosperity Task Force chartered by the legislature. Among the major recommendations were to create a new public-private entity (which eventually became e-NC), to fund it through private-sector contributions, and to invest in business and technology telecenters, said Patterson. In 2003, the General Assembly expanded the agency?s focus beyond rural areas and to distressed urban areas. It also called for e-NC ?to continue the development and facilitation of a coordinated Internet access policy for the citizens of North Carolina.? Between 2001 and 2006, e-NC issued more than $2.7 million in grants to build e-communities, including grants of about $5,000 a piece to ?e-champions? in each of 85 rural counties. It later supplemented these grants. Also, e-NC awarded more than $1.7 million in digital literacy training grants, of about $20,000-$40,000 apiece to 28 communities across the state, and in 64 rural counties, that had implemented local broadband strategies. It also established 135 public internet access points. Among the most significant of e-NC?s accomplishments, according to Patterson, is the creation of three ? and now a fourth ? business and tech telecenters. The first three were funded by the sale of assets from MCNC, a non-profit company created in 1980 as the Microelectronics Center of North Carolina from a state grant. The fourth center was funded directly by the state, said Patterson. These centers ?get revenue and provide technical support to community colleges, regional hospitals, and libraries because there is no one around? that is providing them with the broadband that they need, said Patterson. ?What we tried to create were places that would be seen as technological lighthouses that would show, ?look at what [broadband] can do for a region that is distressed.?? The fruits of these centers are helping to build the case for faster broadband ? generally fiber-optic broadband ? in rural areas, said Patterson. They are also encouraging major manufacturers to locate in the state. ?Communities that have FTTH [fiber-to-the-home] networks are likely to attract high-technology businesses and compete successfully in the emerging knowledge-based global economy,? according to the June 2008 e-NC report, written by attorneys Jim Baller and Casey Lide at the Baller Herbst Law Group. North Carolina?s extensive interactive map has also allowed it to understand the impact of broadband ? and the need to aggressively push beyond conventional digital subscriber lines (DSL) and cable modem service. According to the June 2008 report, two cooperatives in North Carolina are building FTTH at 80 Megabits per second (Mbps) ? in rural areas. ?In contrast, the larger telephone companies, which are headquartered out of state, typically extent DSL only to about 80 percent of the households in the rural areas they serve,? read the report. And DSL and cable modem service generally top off at around 3 Mbps to 5 Mbps, for download speeds. That is about 20 times slower than fiber-optic wires. Patterson said that she would like to see a state-wide goal of 80 Mbps to the home. ?Even if you don?t get it, that is your goal, and you are always pushing for that.? ?What would help tremendously is a national broadband policy,? she said. ?It is like saying, ?we are going to put a person on the moon,? and we did ? and it paid huge dividends in terms of products and technology.? By putting a 80 Mbps marker out there, Patterson said, the policy would say to incumbents: ?We want every company out there to be building at this level, and if you are not building at this level, than you are just not being American.? -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From pete at ideapete.com Fri Aug 22 16:46:50 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:46:50 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] First in Broadband Mapping, North Carolina?s e-NC In-Reply-To: <20080822155213.5xm71ncc08oso0g8@www2.dcn.org> References: <20080822155213.5xm71ncc08oso0g8@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: <48AF4FE9.7020307@ideapete.com> Actually I think this is a classic example of how NOT to map a technology system You do not map a dynamic system with a static map they are just pretty colored lines on a piece of paper 1. Internet traffic is dynamic ( today and in the future ) and operates in real time between hardware and similarly data design current and future web modeling needs to be dynamic and the economic traffic layers and future application prospects similarly added. 2. This type of mapping ( GIS based ) is not and can never be dynamic and just adding a database sql feed does not make it so. Static GIS mapping is and requires huge costly interfaces to even view ( poorly ) Note how the page quoted collapses and fails to load at even basic increment in resolution.http://204.211.239.208/enc-telco-maps/eNC_LaunchMap.htm and is totally dependent on the ESRI kludge connection. Making a pointer selection is the worst example I have seen of the word INTERACTIVE because it is not. There is also no way to corroborate or check whether any of this map data is correct because the data sources are totally hidden so its a glorified pdf Similarly without the application layer interface its worthless and historical worthless at that.. 3. All that the broadband and digital companies need to do it allow dynamic mapping interfaces to the traffic management systems ( design ) and combine this with a service requirement economic data and output that in real time into google apps / earth , overlay the future demand designs to any ip source or what if model.and the deal is done. This was all laid out clearly by Deutsch Tel over 10 years ago and all the design step by step plans are still in NM Science and Technology with probably a foot of dust on them. But then we would all see the appalling under designed current infrastructure in all its ugliness, so show and tell make believe is all we get I am not sure what movie we are currently in " Groundhog Day " or " Back to the /No/ future " ( : ( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ Richard Lowenberg wrote: > The North Carolina initiative is of interest, as a possible broadband initiative > is being proposed in New Mexico. Click on the e-NC web site and interactive > broadband mapping site, at the bottom of the article web site. > rl > > http://broadbandcensus.com/blog/?p=515 > > First in Broadband Mapping, North Carolina?s e-NC Now Wants Faster Speeds > Broadband Census North Carolina > By Drew Clark, Editor, BroadbandCensus.com > > This is the eighth of a series of articles surveying the state of broadband, and > broadband data, within each of the United States. Among the next profiles: > Colorado, California and Missouri. > > August 22 ? In taking an inventory of North Carolina?s broadband assets, and > in its push to stimulate high-speed internet investment and adoption, the e-NC > Authority is arguably the most advanced effort of its kind in the nation. > > Long before the current wave of interest in broadband data, North Carolina state > officials were at the forefront of mapping out broadband availability; > aggregating demand; educating the public about the benefits of broadband; > fostering local ?e-champions;? and providing hands-on training and access > to low-cost hardware, software and technical support. > > Now, the state is attempting to push forward further, by encouraging > significantly faster connection speeds than are currently generally available > in North Carolina, or throughout the country. In a report commissioned by e-NC > and released in June, the agency called for faster broadband, a national > strategy and more transparent data from carriers. > > The state?s extensive efforts to date include an interactive web site with > detailing geographic information systems (GIS) maps, annual reports, a > detailing parsing of Federal Communications Commission data ? as well as its > own data from broadband providers ? and concrete funding for digital > training, high-tech business incubation and better rural connectivity. > > For Jane Smith Patterson, executive director of the e-NC authority, the > state?s central role is a matter of pride. ?We did the first mapping from > the data that we had? way back in 2001, Patterson said in an interview. > > In the popular press, e-NC?s accomplishments have been somewhat eclipsed by > the extensive media focus on Connect Kentucky, and the model that Connected > Nation, Inc., has attempted to export to other states. Connected Nation is a > non-profit organization funded by telecommunications carriers and state grants. > > ?Connect Kentucky first talked with us, and didn?t credit us? for work > that e-NC had done, said Patterson. Not only was the North Carolina agency the > first to extensively map out broadband, it originated the idea for e-community > toolkits, and the concomitant effort to stimulate demand by talking up > broadband across the state in more than 137 forums, she said. > > Back in 2001, e-NC was called the Rural Internet Access Authority, created as a > result of the Rural Prosperity Task Force chartered by the legislature. Among > the major recommendations were to create a new public-private entity (which > eventually became e-NC), to fund it through private-sector contributions, and > to invest in business and technology telecenters, said Patterson. > > In 2003, the General Assembly expanded the agency?s focus beyond rural areas > and to distressed urban areas. It also called for e-NC ?to continue the > development and facilitation of a coordinated Internet access policy for the > citizens of North Carolina.? > > Between 2001 and 2006, e-NC issued more than $2.7 million in grants to build > e-communities, including grants of about $5,000 a piece to ?e-champions? in > each of 85 rural counties. It later supplemented these grants. Also, e-NC > awarded more than $1.7 million in digital literacy training grants, of about > $20,000-$40,000 apiece to 28 communities across the state, and in 64 rural > counties, that had implemented local broadband strategies. It also established > 135 public internet access points. > > Among the most significant of e-NC?s accomplishments, according to Patterson, > is the creation of three ? and now a fourth ? business and tech > telecenters. The first three were funded by the sale of assets from MCNC, a > non-profit company created in 1980 as the Microelectronics Center of North > Carolina from a state grant. The fourth center was funded directly by the > state, said Patterson. > > These centers ?get revenue and provide technical support to community > colleges, regional hospitals, and libraries because there is no one around? > that is providing them with the broadband that they need, said Patterson. > ?What we tried to create were places that would be seen as technological > lighthouses that would show, ?look at what [broadband] can do for a region > that is distressed.?? > > The fruits of these centers are helping to build the case for faster broadband > ? generally fiber-optic broadband ? in rural areas, said Patterson. They > are also encouraging major manufacturers to locate in the state. ?Communities > that have FTTH [fiber-to-the-home] networks are likely to attract > high-technology businesses and compete successfully in the emerging > knowledge-based global economy,? according to the June 2008 e-NC report, > written by attorneys Jim Baller and Casey Lide at the Baller Herbst Law Group. > > North Carolina?s extensive interactive map has also allowed it to understand > the impact of broadband ? and the need to aggressively push beyond > conventional digital subscriber lines (DSL) and cable modem service. According > to the June 2008 report, two cooperatives in North Carolina are building FTTH > at 80 Megabits per second (Mbps) ? in rural areas. > > ?In contrast, the larger telephone companies, which are headquartered out of > state, typically extent DSL only to about 80 percent of the households in the > rural areas they serve,? read the report. And DSL and cable modem service > generally top off at around 3 Mbps to 5 Mbps, for download speeds. That is > about 20 times slower than fiber-optic wires. > > Patterson said that she would like to see a state-wide goal of 80 Mbps to the > home. ?Even if you don?t get it, that is your goal, and you are always > pushing for that.? > > ?What would help tremendously is a national broadband policy,? she said. > ?It is like saying, ?we are going to put a person on the moon,? and we > did ? and it paid huge dividends in terms of products and technology.? By > putting a 80 Mbps marker out there, Patterson said, the policy would say to > incumbents: ?We want every company out there to be building at this level, > and if you are not building at this level, than you are just not being > American.? > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From josmon at rigozsaurus.com Fri Aug 22 18:25:27 2008 From: josmon at rigozsaurus.com (John Osmon) Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2008 19:25:27 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] First in Broadband Mapping, North Carolina?s e-NC In-Reply-To: <48AF4FE9.7020307@ideapete.com> References: <20080822155213.5xm71ncc08oso0g8@www2.dcn.org> <48AF4FE9.7020307@ideapete.com> Message-ID: <20080823012527.GD25494@rigozsaurus.com> On Fri, Aug 22, 2008 at 05:46:50PM -0600, peter wrote: > You do not map a dynamic system with a static map they are just pretty > colored lines on a piece of paper Wow -- that kinda throws the baby out with the bath water. It think the map has some valuable information. It shows wire center boundaries and what form of DSL/ATM/FrameRelay/OCx is available. That's some pretty basic information that is relatively static, so this map is useful in that sense. The dynamic portion comes in when you want to look at the servcies that are being provided on top of those underlying services. In my mind, I *want* the underlying infrastructure to be static, so that I can roll any dynamic service over the top -- and trust the underlying layers. Internet consumers want a finished packet service at a reasonable cost per bit -- so from one perspective the DSL data is really the only relevant data to the map. All the other services are tariffed at rates that make them unavailable to consumers directly. It would be *great* to see a series of maps that show availability of services, and an a $/Mbps contour map -- that would let you see the economic impact of bringing new services to a given area... From john at citylinkfiber.com Sat Aug 23 07:30:58 2008 From: john at citylinkfiber.com (John Brown) Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2008 08:30:58 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] First in Broadband Mapping, North Carolina?s e-NC In-Reply-To: <20080823012527.GD25494@rigozsaurus.com> References: <20080822155213.5xm71ncc08oso0g8@www2.dcn.org> <48AF4FE9.7020307@ideapete.com> <20080823012527.GD25494@rigozsaurus.com> Message-ID: <48B01F22.9040500@citylinkfiber.com> CityLink has offered to 1st-Mile the use of and to host the GIS data. We've invested over $40K in ESRI ArcGIS (same software these folks and most Muni's are using) for our own internal needs. I agree with Josmon that having visibility on the mostly static infrastructure would be highly useful. While some carrier data is "proprietary", it becomes available via public domain when you put paint on the ground. Having the knowledge of how to get reasonably priced bits to places helps everyone. Internally we have the DSL service areas for Qwest DSL in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, along with rate/wire center boundries, parts of Qwest's metro fiber network, lit buildings for (qwest, twtc, brooks, verizon), CO locations, parts of PNM Electric and PNM Gas, some wireless locations/direction of coverage for (SWCP, Lobo and others). The ability to export/import to Google Earth format is available. So the back end could be ESRI GeoData, with export to Google Earth data sets that the "public" could download. Maybe there should be a NM Telcom GIS working group that meets to collect and enter this info.... John Osmon wrote: > On Fri, Aug 22, 2008 at 05:46:50PM -0600, peter wrote: > >> You do not map a dynamic system with a static map they are just pretty >> colored lines on a piece of paper > > Wow -- that kinda throws the baby out with the bath water. > > It think the map has some valuable information. It shows wire center > boundaries and what form of DSL/ATM/FrameRelay/OCx is available. That's > some pretty basic information that is relatively static, so this > map is useful in that sense. > > The dynamic portion comes in when you want to look at the servcies > that are being provided on top of those underlying services. In my > mind, I *want* the underlying infrastructure to be static, so that I can > roll any dynamic service over the top -- and trust the underlying > layers. > > Internet consumers want a finished packet service at a reasonable > cost per bit -- so from one perspective the DSL data is really the only > relevant data to the map. All the other services are tariffed at rates > that make them unavailable to consumers directly. > > It would be *great* to see a series of maps that show availability of > services, and an a $/Mbps contour map -- that would let you see the > economic impact of bringing new services to a given area... > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > From granoff at zianet.com Sat Aug 23 11:35:01 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2008 12:35:01 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] First in Broadband Mapping, North Carolina?s e-NC In-Reply-To: <48B01F22.9040500@citylinkfiber.com> References: <20080822155213.5xm71ncc08oso0g8@www2.dcn.org> <48AF4FE9.7020307@ideapete.com> <20080823012527.GD25494@rigozsaurus.com> <48B01F22.9040500@citylinkfiber.com> Message-ID: <20080823183503.0BE8125E9@velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us> One important point to make - even where Qwest or Windstream (see below) is the physical DSL provider, it is not necessary to use qwest.net, windstream.net or msn for the ISP. Many other New Mexico ISPs offer Internet services via both Qwest and Windstream DSL and higher bandwidth wireline connections. More sources for broadband connection availability and mapping in NM: 1) Windstream serves five large areas of NM: Espanola, Cuba, Jemez Springs and all of Rio Arriba County, Hobbs, Eunice, Jal, Lovington and surrounding area, Carlsbad, Loving, White City and surrounding area Ruidoso, Capitan and surrounding area T or C, Elephant Butte and surrounding area http://www.windstream.com/business/broadband.aspx - on the right side of the screen you can enter NM for the state and the menu will show communities served by Windstream which may have broadband services. 2) www.nmecg.org is the web site for the NM Exchange Carriers Group - the association of rural telephone companies in NM. All but Centurytel and Sacred Wind (maybe not yet - but they will) offer DSL or some kind of broadband in almost all of their entire service areas. Almost all of these companies' individual web pages show where the service is available, and their contacts will tell you where it is available if it is not on the web page. These companies are serving the most rural areas of NM extremely well. 3) There are a few CLECs and a many wireless ISPs in rural areas providing their own broadband service. These are some - in no particular order): www.connectchama.com has a community wireless Internet network that is used by ZiaNet and maybe Ravin (I don't know if they still have access services) to offer wireless broadband in most of the Chama Valley. http://www.cybermesa.com/VoiceData.htm is a CLEC providing their own voice and broadband Internet services from Eldorado south of Santa Fe to Espanola, with other locations planned. http://www.digii.net/HighSpeed.html serves San Juan County areas with high speed wireless Internet. www.kitcarson.net - Kit Carson Telecom offers wireless Internet to the Taos Area, Questa Area, Angel Fire Area, Eagle Nest Area, and Penasco Area (Vadito, Llano, Chamisal, Picuris, Rio Lucio). They are also a CLEC offering fiber connectivity and other services in the Taos area. http://www.amigo.net/cms/index.php?id=25 - provides high speed wireless Internet in Moriarty, Edgewood, Estancia, and Mountainair. http://www.lobo.net/access.shtml has been offering wireless broadband Internet in the Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Rio Rancho and East Mountain areas for almost a decade. http://www.newmex.net/web_page.php?page=services&type=wireless and http://www.la-tierra.net/services/ both offer high speed wireless Internet in Las Cruces and the surrounding area. http://www.spinn.net/ offers High speed wireless Internet in Albuquerque http://riolink.com/html/wireless.html offers high speed wireless Internet in and around the T or C and Elephant Butte areas. http://www.uphi.net/service_areas.htm serves parts of Torrence County and the east mountains near Mountainair with high speed wireless Internet. http://www.desertgatewireless.com/ serves the Las Vegas, NM area with wireless broadband Internet. http://www.signalpeak.net/ serves the Silver City and the surrounding area including Arenas Valley, Chisholm Ranch, the Little Walnut area, Silver Acres, Dos Griegos, parts of Wind Canyon and the surrounding areas with high speed wireless Internet. http://www.cnsp.com/Wireless/tabid/57/Default.aspx serves Santa Fe, Espanola, La Cienega, Las Campanas, La Tierra, Eldorado, Los Alamos, White Rock, Tesuque, Pojoaque, La Puebla, Nambe, Chimayo, El Valle de Arroyo Seco, Alcalde, Velarde, Hwy 14, Cerrillos, Galisteo, and Lamy and the surrounding areas with wireless broadband Internet. http://www.dfn.com/wireless_info2.htm provides wireless broadband Internet in Roswell, Artesia, Dexter, Hagerman, Carlsbad and Surrounding areas. http://www.leaco.net/internet/internet.htm offers high speed wireless Internet in Tatum, Dexter, Hagerman, Antelope Ridge, Crossroads, Maljamar, Hobbs, Lovington, Jal, Eunice, Carlsbad and Roswell. They are also a LEC providing DSL services in these areas. http://www.keycominc.com/ doing business as Southwestern Wireless offers high speed wireless Internet in Roswell, Dexter, Artesia, Hagerman, Lake Arthur, Carlsbad, Eunice, Jal, Fort Sumner, Ruidoso, Capitan, Alamogordo, Tularosa, Las Cruces, Clovis, Hobbs, Tatum, Elida, Melrose, Portales, Kenna, Floyd, Hondo, Carazozo, "Coming Soon" Seminole, Denver City and many others in Southeastern New Mexico. http://www.comcastspecial.com/state/newmexico/newmexico.html - Comcast offers cable Internet service in Albuquerque, Angel Fire, Bernalillo, Bloomfield, Cedar Crest, Cimarron, Corrales, Deming, Eagle Nest, El Prado, Espanola, Farmington, Gallup, Grants, Hatch, Hurley, Jemez Springs, Las Cruces, Las Vegas, Los Alamos, Los Lunas, Lovington, Mesilla, Milan, Moriarty, Navajo Dam, Nogal, Pecos, Portales, Questa, Ranchos De Taos, Raton, Red River, Rio Rancho, Santa Fe, Silver City, Socorro, Springer, Taos, and Tucumcari. There are also other cable companies serving other NM communities with Cable Internet. http://www.suddenlink.com/internet/ serves Clovis and Texico with cable Internet. http://www.cableone.net/digitalcable/package.asp Cable One serves Rio Rancho, Roswell and Chaves County with Cable Internet. http://timewarner.usdirect.com/timewarner/new-mexico-time-warner.html offers cable Internet services in many NM communities. I am sure there are other companies that I haven't listed - only because I do not know of them. Marianne Granoff Chair, Public Affairs Committee New Mexico Internet Professionals Association P.O. Box 22641 Santa Fe, NM 87502 http://www.nmipa.org 505 246-4634 or 505 980-7919 granoff at zianet.com At 08:30 AM 8/23/2008 -0600, you wrote: >CityLink has offered to 1st-Mile the use of and to host the GIS data. >We've invested over $40K in ESRI ArcGIS (same software these folks and >most Muni's are using) for our own internal needs. > >I agree with Josmon that having visibility on the mostly static >infrastructure would be highly useful. > >While some carrier data is "proprietary", it becomes available via >public domain when you put paint on the ground. > >Having the knowledge of how to get reasonably priced bits to places >helps everyone. > >Internally we have the DSL service areas for Qwest DSL in Santa Fe and >Albuquerque, along with rate/wire center boundries, parts of Qwest's >metro fiber network, lit buildings for (qwest, twtc, brooks, verizon), >CO locations, parts of PNM Electric and PNM Gas, some wireless >locations/direction of coverage for (SWCP, Lobo and others). > >The ability to export/import to Google Earth format is available. So >the back end could be ESRI GeoData, with export to Google Earth data >sets that the "public" could download. > >Maybe there should be a NM Telcom GIS working group that meets to >collect and enter this info.... > >John Osmon wrote: > > On Fri, Aug 22, 2008 at 05:46:50PM -0600, peter wrote: > > > >> You do not map a dynamic system with a static map they are just pretty > >> colored lines on a piece of paper > > > > Wow -- that kinda throws the baby out with the bath water. > > > > It think the map has some valuable information. It shows wire center > > boundaries and what form of DSL/ATM/FrameRelay/OCx is available. That's > > some pretty basic information that is relatively static, so this > > map is useful in that sense. > > > > The dynamic portion comes in when you want to look at the servcies > > that are being provided on top of those underlying services. In my > > mind, I *want* the underlying infrastructure to be static, so that I can > > roll any dynamic service over the top -- and trust the underlying > > layers. > > > > Internet consumers want a finished packet service at a reasonable > > cost per bit -- so from one perspective the DSL data is really the only > > relevant data to the map. All the other services are tariffed at rates > > that make them unavailable to consumers directly. > > > > It would be *great* to see a series of maps that show availability of > > services, and an a $/Mbps contour map -- that would let you see the > > economic impact of bringing new services to a given area... > > _______________________________________________ > > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > > >_______________________________________________ >1st-mile-nm mailing list >1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > > >No virus found in this incoming message. >Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com >Version: 8.0.138 / Virus Database: 270.6.7/1628 - Release Date: >8/22/2008 6:32 PM From rl at 1st-mile.com Sun Aug 24 20:48:34 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Sun, 24 Aug 2008 20:48:34 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Qwest and Pueblo of Pojoaque Reach Right-of-Way Agreement Message-ID: <20080824204834.grfvefcprks00g0k@www2.dcn.org> The following new item of this past week, comes from a Qwest press release. Do 1st-Mile subscribers from the PRC have any more detail about this. Will Mescalero Apache Telecom. Inc. (MATI) continue to have a presence/role in the Pojoaque telecom. arena? rl --------- Qwest, Pueblo of Pojoaque Reach Right-of-Way Agreement Tuesday August 19, 12:00 pm ET Agreement Paves Way for Expanded High-Speed Internet ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Qwest Communications International Inc. announced an agreement today that secures right-of-way for Qwest facilities with the Pueblo of Pojoaque. The agreement ensures communications services for thousands of residents and businesses in parts of northern New Mexico. The easement and rights-of-way agreement also paves the way for Qwest to continue to expand its high-speed Internet and advanced communications technology to benefit customers on the Pueblo of Pojoaque and in northern New Mexico. ?I?m pleased to announce this agreement and appreciate the efforts of so many people and organizations, especially the Pueblo of Pojoaque, to come together,? said Loretta A. Armenta, Qwest New Mexico president. ?At the end of the day, this is all about serving the needs of the customer.? Pueblo of Pojoaque Governor George Rivera said, ?By working together, the entire Pojoaque Valley becomes the winner. Special thanks go out to the Public Regulation Commission, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and everyone who worked so hard.? The agreement is for 15 years, with an option for renewal for an additional 15 years. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From granoff at zianet.com Sun Aug 24 20:59:56 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Sun, 24 Aug 2008 21:59:56 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Qwest and Pueblo of Pojoaque Reach Right-of-Way Agreement In-Reply-To: <20080824204834.grfvefcprks00g0k@www2.dcn.org> References: <20080824204834.grfvefcprks00g0k@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: <20080825040001.35B692BAB@velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us> I would guess MATI is out of the picture since it is a 15-year agreement. This sounds like Qwest will keep the Santa Fe North CO which is on the Pueblo and will be able to continue providing service in the area. Qwest may have agreed to pull fiber to the new resort and to provision DSL on the pueblo. I am just speculating. Pojoaque is on a major fiber path to both Espanola and Los Alamos, and possibly Taos as well. It would be kind of hard for Qwest to give it up. If the PRC has to approve it, we may get more information. I don't know if Leo Baca or Michael Horcasitas is on this list, but I am copying them to see if they will comment regarding this on the list. Marianne Marianne Granoff Chair, Public Affairs Committee New Mexico Internet Professionals Association P.O. Box 22641 Santa Fe, NM 87502 http://www.nmipa.org 505 246-4634 or 505 980-7919 granoff at zianet.com At 08:48 PM 8/24/2008 -0700, Richard Lowenberg wrote: >The following new item of this past week, comes from a Qwest press release. >Do 1st-Mile subscribers from the PRC have any more detail about this. Will >Mescalero Apache Telecom. Inc. (MATI) continue to have a presence/role in the >Pojoaque telecom. arena? >rl >--------- > >Qwest, Pueblo of Pojoaque Reach Right-of-Way Agreement >Tuesday August 19, 12:00 pm ET >Agreement Paves Way for Expanded High-Speed Internet > >ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Qwest Communications International Inc. >announced an agreement today that secures right-of-way for Qwest facilities >with the Pueblo of Pojoaque. The agreement ensures communications >services for >thousands of residents and businesses in parts of northern New Mexico. > >The easement and rights-of-way agreement also paves the way for Qwest to >continue to expand its high-speed Internet and advanced communications >technology to benefit customers on the Pueblo of Pojoaque and in northern New >Mexico. > >?I?m pleased to announce this agreement and appreciate the efforts of so >many people and organizations, especially the Pueblo of Pojoaque, to come >together,? said Loretta A. Armenta, Qwest New Mexico president. ?At the >end of the day, this is all about serving the needs of the customer.? > >Pueblo of Pojoaque Governor George Rivera said, ?By working together, the >entire Pojoaque Valley becomes the winner. Special thanks go out to the Public >Regulation Commission, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and everyone who worked so >hard.? > >The agreement is for 15 years, with an option for renewal for an additional 15 >years. > > >-- >Richard Lowenberg >1st-Mile Institute >P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 >505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell >rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com > >---------------------------------------------------------------- >This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. >_______________________________________________ >1st-mile-nm mailing list >1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > > >No virus found in this incoming message. >Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com >Version: 8.0.138 / Virus Database: 270.6.7/1631 - Release Date: >8/24/2008 12:15 PM From Mike.Ripperger at state.nm.us Mon Aug 25 10:38:55 2008 From: Mike.Ripperger at state.nm.us (Ripperger, Michael, PRC) Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2008 11:38:55 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Qwest and Pueblo of Pojoaque Reach Right-of-Way Agreement In-Reply-To: <20080825040001.35B692BAB@velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us> References: <20080824204834.grfvefcprks00g0k@www2.dcn.org> <20080825040001.35B692BAB@velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us> Message-ID: <0018F48A404E174982905690CB56097D065CBC9E@CEXMB2.nmes.lcl> The Commission has yet to respond to Qwest's request to dismiss case 07-00189-UT based on this agreement between Qwest and Pojoaque Pueblo. The Commission's investigation in that case centered around the Commission's concern that service may be interrupted to those communities served by the SF North exchange, Windstream's continued ability to get its northern traffic backhauled through the connectivity it has on the Pueblo, and the Commission's concern that Qwest live up to its broadband commitments under the Second Amended Settlement Agreement in that area. I do not know if the Commission will ask for further explanation, or just dismiss the case based upon the assurances so far of Qwest and the Pueblo. If anyone ever needs to see what is transpiring in cases at the Commission, you can get a password and look at the filings in the cases. http://www.nmprc.state.nm.us/caselookup.htm Michael Ripperger Telecommunications Bureau Chief New Mexico Public Regulation Commission Marian Hall 224 East Palace Ave Santa Fe, NM 87501 Phone 1-505-827-6902 Fax 1-505-827-4402 -----Original Message----- From: 1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org [mailto:1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org] On Behalf Of Marianne Granoff Sent: Sunday, August 24, 2008 10:00 PM To: Richard Lowenberg; 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org Cc: michael.horcasitas at qwest.com; leo.baca at qwest.com Subject: Re: [1st-mile-nm] Qwest and Pueblo of Pojoaque Reach Right-of-Way Agreement I would guess MATI is out of the picture since it is a 15-year agreement. This sounds like Qwest will keep the Santa Fe North CO which is on the Pueblo and will be able to continue providing service in the area. Qwest may have agreed to pull fiber to the new resort and to provision DSL on the pueblo. I am just speculating. Pojoaque is on a major fiber path to both Espanola and Los Alamos, and possibly Taos as well. It would be kind of hard for Qwest to give it up. If the PRC has to approve it, we may get more information. I don't know if Leo Baca or Michael Horcasitas is on this list, but I am copying them to see if they will comment regarding this on the list. Marianne Marianne Granoff Chair, Public Affairs Committee New Mexico Internet Professionals Association P.O. Box 22641 Santa Fe, NM 87502 http://www.nmipa.org 505 246-4634 or 505 980-7919 granoff at zianet.com At 08:48 PM 8/24/2008 -0700, Richard Lowenberg wrote: >The following new item of this past week, comes from a Qwest press release. >Do 1st-Mile subscribers from the PRC have any more detail about this. Will >Mescalero Apache Telecom. Inc. (MATI) continue to have a presence/role in the >Pojoaque telecom. arena? >rl >--------- > >Qwest, Pueblo of Pojoaque Reach Right-of-Way Agreement >Tuesday August 19, 12:00 pm ET >Agreement Paves Way for Expanded High-Speed Internet > >ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Qwest Communications International Inc. >announced an agreement today that secures right-of-way for Qwest facilities >with the Pueblo of Pojoaque. The agreement ensures communications >services for >thousands of residents and businesses in parts of northern New Mexico. > >The easement and rights-of-way agreement also paves the way for Qwest to >continue to expand its high-speed Internet and advanced communications >technology to benefit customers on the Pueblo of Pojoaque and in northern New >Mexico. > >?I?m pleased to announce this agreement and appreciate the efforts of so >many people and organizations, especially the Pueblo of Pojoaque, to come >together,? said Loretta A. Armenta, Qwest New Mexico president. ?At the >end of the day, this is all about serving the needs of the customer.? > >Pueblo of Pojoaque Governor George Rivera said, ?By working together, the >entire Pojoaque Valley becomes the winner. Special thanks go out to the Public >Regulation Commission, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and everyone who worked so >hard.? > >The agreement is for 15 years, with an option for renewal for an additional 15 >years. > > >-- >Richard Lowenberg >1st-Mile Institute >P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 >505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell >rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com > >---------------------------------------------------------------- >This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. >_______________________________________________ >1st-mile-nm mailing list >1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > > >No virus found in this incoming message. >Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com >Version: 8.0.138 / Virus Database: 270.6.7/1631 - Release Date: >8/24/2008 12:15 PM _______________________________________________ 1st-mile-nm mailing list 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm ______________________________________________________________________ This inbound email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. ______________________________________________________________________ Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail, including all attachments is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited unless specifically provided under the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender and destroy all copies of this message. -- This email has been scanned by the Sybari - Antigen Email System. From carroll at cagleandassociates.com Tue Aug 26 14:24:54 2008 From: carroll at cagleandassociates.com (Carroll Cagle) Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2008 15:24:54 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] TelephonyOnline re. muni fiber Message-ID: <402C176C83F84338A880C866FE187874@yourfsyly0jtwn> Telephony Online Logo Muni fiber networks bounce back Aug 25, 2008 By Carol Wilson Telephony Online Despite some high-profile failures, the deep-seated need for broadband keeps municipalities on the fiber-to-the-home-track. The headlines surrounding municipally funded telecom networks have been dominated by bad news this year. In addition to the outright collapse of muni Wi-Fi networks, there have been notable failures in the muni fiber market as well, namely the iProvo network, sold to Broadweave earlier this year, and Utopia, a network linking multiple municipalities that has struggled to sign up customers. A multicity fiber network in northeastern Minnesota that had been under study for years also was scrapped recently. Anyone who thinks the municipal broadband market is headed south, however, needs to take a closer look. For every visible failure, there are multiple other cities, towns and villages either building or looking to build their own fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) networks, for the simple reason that they want broadband facilities they can't convince their local telco and cable incumbents to build. These projects are being fueled by the falling cost of FTTH technology and the growing experience in deploying systems, due in no small part to the massive effort Verizon has launched, as well as that of other telcos. It is supremely ironic that one of the nation's more visible and contentious muni fiber projects, involving the city-owned Lafayette Utilities System in Lafayette, La., is now reaping the benefits of delays to its FTTH construction caused by lawsuits and legal actions launched by incumbent cable and telco operators. "Not only is the technology cheaper than what we would have deployed, it's better," said Terry Huvall, director for LUS. "We are using [Gigabit passive optical networks], not [broadband PON]." In addition, in a few cases states are getting in on the act. North Carolina's e-NC Authority is seeking ways to stimulate broadband initiatives in rural areas of that state, while Massachusetts just passed a bill to create a Broadband Institute, using $40 million in state funding to bring broadband to western areas of the state still served only by dial-up. What's different about today's municipal networks is that, while still intended to solve the problem of broadband access, they are more practically grounded in market realities. "I would say that in the last few years, literally three, it's really gone through a flat period, whereby people have tried to evaluate a way forward," said Tim Scott, director of sales for North America for PacketFront, a company that assists in developing, designing and operating open-access fiber networks for municipalities. "There were a couple of early adopters who started early in 2000 and ran into some difficulties. It was an early time from a technology perspective; prices were higher so the business case was tougher. We've seen a little bit of turn now. People are starting to understand some of the lessons learned. They got more into a business mode where they put more time into planning, so new muni nets are technically viable, commercially viable, funded correctly and have a realistic business model." One other definite trend is that the municipalities themselves are biting the bullet and becoming service providers - something many of them avoided either for regulatory or business reasons. The notion of building a fiber optic network using municipally backed bonds and then serving only as a wholesaler now is generally viewed as a very tough row to hoe. "If you look at the municipal fiber projects that succeed and what characteristics are inherent to those projects, one salient fact is that the projects provide retail services directly and are not a wholesale-only network," said Timothy Nulty, the man who helped Burlington Telecom bring fiber to that Vermont community and is now president of ValleyFiber, which is bringing FTTH to a consortium of 25 rural Vermont communities. Networks such as iProvo and Utopia found it hard to attract service providers, and without services, customers just weren't interested. A Utah state law, passed after those two fiber projects were in discussion, prohibits municipally owned networks from selling retail services. "What happened in Utah is something we have been talking about for years - the state law that effectively prohibits retail service is, in my view, a very substantial part of what is wrong with the environment in Utah and particularly iProvo," said Jim Baller, attorney with Baller & Herbst, which represents municipalities and has done research for e-NC Alliance, among others. "If applications are slow to evolve - and they have been - service providers are left competing with incumbents on traditional services, where they have no advantages." In Washington state, the Grant County Public Utilities Department, another FTTH pioneer, still is operating a wholesale-only network in accordance with state law there, although it came under criticism and went through a management change over the $400 million price tag of that network. Partially in response to that criticism, the Grant County PUD halted its network expansion in 2004, after four years of construction had connected about 11,000 homes - or one-third of the anticipated homes - said Sarah Morford, spokeswoman for PUD. After extensive review and exploration of other technology options, the Grant County PUD commissioners voted in March to press forward, citing public support for its fiber network. Over the next five years, Grant County plans to expand the network to reach 80% of residents and 95% of businesses, or about 3000 homes and business per year. Many Models Calling Grant County the exception to the wholesale rule isn't really accurate, however, because there really aren't rules associated with municipal broadband, Baller said. "There's no one thing called municipal broadband," he said. "It's a lot of different things that have different trajectories and different histories. We did see a little lull in movement into the fiber arena, but there is a lot more interest now. PacketFront's Scott agreed. "There are more choices today," he said. "A municipality can look for public/private partnerships, third-party operators and service providers to come and offer services." One of the popular models is for municipally owned utility companies - many of which were created to bring electricity to towns in which large incumbent utility companies weren't interested - to build FTTH networks that privately owned incumbents can't cost-justify. In Chattanooga, Tenn., for instance, the municipally owned utility, EPB, is economically justifying its fiber build on the basis of creating a "smart grid" that will enable the company to reduce energy consumption and lower the cost of power it buys from the Tennessee Valley Authority. The plan is to reach 80% of the 167,000 homes in the 600-square-mile service area in the first three years and then reach more rural homes in the last two years of the five-year buildout. It's really a win-win," said Kate Espeseth, vice president of EPB's communications system. "Not only do we enhance the electric services, there has also been a tremendous amount of support for choices for advanced communications as well. The way it is set up financially, the communications division will pay something similar to a lease fee to the electric division for use of the network. We will pay our fair share; there is no subsidy." The smart grid will allow consumers to remotely monitor their usage and will enable EPB to remotely read meters as well. "It gives customers the ability to see their electric bill real-time or usage real-time," Espeseth said. "And we can provide energy management applications to enable them to reduce consumption during the times during the day when power is more expensive." Billy Ray, CEO of the Glasgow Electric Plant Board of Glasgow, Ky., which built the nation's first municipally owned broadband network, is now publicly arguing that instead of spending $18 billion to build nuclear power generators to meet future electric demand, the TVA should build FTTH networks to 9 million homes at $2000 each and use those connections to manage in-home electrical use in a way that would reduce demand and render new nuclear plants unnecessary. In Lafayette, the LUS network is under construction and expects to turn up its first customer in January 2009, Huvall said. "Our plans are still to serve the entire city of Lafayette, putting fiber along every street and alley," he said. "After that, the only thing left to be done is when the subscriber will contact us and we will run the line to them." Both LUS and EPB plan to offer their own triple-play services, although the Chattanooga utility isn't opposed to wholesaling its network as well if a service provider comes along to compete, Espeseth said. Bristol Virginia Utilities began offering triple-play services on its OptiNet network in 2003, after considerable challenges from anti-muni broadband forces that, among other things, forced a state law requiring open access for those networks. But while OptiNet has offered open access from the outset, it has had very few takers. "Most of what we wholesale is backbone network," said Wes Rosenbalm, president and CEO of BVU. "It's not down to the [optical network terminal] on the side of the home. We tried to find companies to [offer retail services] early on and couldn't." The Burlington Telecom network is similarly disposed to providing open access, Nulty said, but he doesn't believe there will be takers. "Open access is a philosophical or policy matter which I happen to believe in," he said. "But open access is a bit of a red herring. If you are a municipality and you are providing services directly to the customer - triple-play services - no major provider of triple play is going to try to come in and beat you for your citizens. I couldn't pay Time Warner enough to use our network. Unless you are so awful that people are itching to get away from your services, the idea that major providers are going to use your network doesn't make sense." The wholesale model is working in Europe, Scott said. The Swedish city of Vasteras, for example, teamed up with Malar Energy to build an FTTH network that was intended to be open-access from the outset. "They realized they hadn't done all that early marketing to make this work, so they decided to be an ISP for the first year," he said. "Once they were able to show them the benefits of being on fiber, of a 100-megabit connection, they could encourage private companies to come on board, and today it is a perfect success, with 22 service providers." PacketFront also encourages municipalities to consider public/private partnerships and options such as working with a local service provider to build or operate a network, Scott said. "In the old days, the city was taking all the capital risk, doing the bonding, and we firmly believe there are a lot more different choices, from municipal leases to public/private partnerships to 100% privately funded," Scott said. "It is not necessary that the city has to take the full risk." Berkshire Connect is a volunteer group that initially worked to bring affordable connections to businesses in western Massachusetts by aggregating demand to make it more appealing to private service providers, said Dan Dubendorf, a local attorney who heads the group. "I have never wanted to fight with the provider community; I have always said we need to find ways to alter the capital equation - if they can earn a return, then they'll invest," he said. After months of "going to a lot of meetings, eating a lot of bad chicken dinners," Dubendorf and Berkshire Connect were able to pull together local hospitals, colleges, businesses and other institutions into a buying group that lured Global Crossing into the area with a broadband wireless solution. Finding a residential option for an area that includes 32 towns with nothing but dial-up access proved thornier, which is why even a public funding skeptic such as Dubendorf welcomed the $40 million the state of Massachusetts is now willing to pay. "The $40 million will come to a quasi-public institute - the Broadband Institute - which has the ability to do things that a line agency could not in terms of interacting with the private sector," Dubendorf said. "We will find places to invest at places where public dollars can be spent and not have to be replaced every three years." Bristol, Burlington and others are paying their way by selling triple-play services to residents and showing a local economic payoff. Bristol's OptiNet has a 65% penetration rate, or about 9000 customers, who pay about $10 less per month than the local cable rates for basic cable. BVU estimates its business and residential customers have collectively saved more than $9.7 million between 2005 and 2008 over what they would have had to pay incumbents. But the bigger payoff is in economic development, Rosenbalm said. BVU's 800-mile fiber network, some of it built in partnership with the Cumberland Plateau Co. - a company 50% owned by BVU - has helped lure two major new employers to the region, bringing 700 new jobs. Defense contractor Northrop Grumman came in 2005 with 400 jobs and specifically cited BVU's available infrastructure as a key reason for the decision to put its new facility in Russell County, Va. CGI, an IT and business process services firm, opened its new facility in late 2007, also in Russell County, and is served by CPC Optinet, the BVU partnership. "We had two very good success stories that happened with Northrop Grumman and CGI, which brought in 700 new jobs with average salaries of $50,000," Rosenbalm said. "The average salary here is $24,000 to $27,000. And we have a couple other deals we are looking at internally." The BVU network's success is particularly significant because Bristol was in bad financial straits before it was built, Baller said. "All of its major industries were cratering at the same time; downtown was boarded up," he said. "Think what it means in a town of 18,000 to see 750 to 1000 high-paying jobs move in, paying twice the local salaries. Think of what that does to a community where each of those jobs generates income that is buying soccer cleats and haircuts and building materials and homes, pushing property values up, raising the tax bases, generating dollars spent in the local economy so someone else has a dollar." Jobs, health care and education; retaining young people; and improving quality of life are all goals of municipal networks. Burlington Telecom now has about 5000 customers and is looking at full profitability by early 2009, Nulty said, but it also is able to do things with its video offering that local cable can't. "For example, Burlington Telecom's network has capacity for 100,000 cable TV channels," Nulty said. "We can and do sell a channel for $65 a month. If you try to go to Comcast and buy a commercial channel, it costs $6500 a month if you can get it, which you mostly can't. We can provide it at 1% of their costs for commercial uses. At anything that remotely smells of public service, we give [the channel] away because it costs us $4 a month, fully allocated." Burlington's thriving arts community wasn't certain what to do with virtually unlimited cable TV capacity at first, so it took some promotion on the part of Burlington Telecom, but there are now local plays, concerts, debates, sporting events and more on view, along with a classified ad business from a local newspaper. A telemedicine application also is in trial that links shut-ins to their doctors via video and home sensors. The Challenges Everyone involved with building municipal networks readily agreed that the process of getting a muni network up and running is not for the faint of heart. There are still ongoing critics of the process, such as the Heartland Foundation, that say cities don't have the expertise to run telecom networks cost-effectively. And virtually every successful muni fiber operator interviewed for this article admitted some early mistakes. "This is not a game; you need to decide whether you are going to do it or not do it because if you don't fully do it, you will suffer the consequences," said BVU's Rosenbalm, whose company now sells its consulting services to other municipalities. "It is not for everyone." The first major challenge muni broadband networks face is opposition from incumbents, both in the form of lawsuits and efforts to pass laws at the state level to limit or even prohibit municipalities from owning, operating or providing services over their own networks. A local referendum gave Monticello, Minn., a 74% approval rating for a city-owned FTTH network, but plans to issue the revenue-generation bonds to pay for the system are on hold because TDS Telecom filed a suit claiming the network violates state laws. The Tennessee Cable TV Association is appealing the dismissal of its lawsuit to halt the Chattanooga EPB network. Lawsuits mean delays, which can be costly, although not all delays translate into lost capital, as LUS found out in Lafayette. Still, Huvall believes the hassle is discouraging to some cities that might otherwise consider building their own networks. "I think there would be a lot more municipalities doing this if it weren't for the fear tactics of going through lawsuits and delays that incumbents throw up against you," Huvall said. LUS did lose out on a source of video content. The utility had planned to join the National Cable Television Cooperative to purchase its content, but the NCTC declared a moratorium on members during the period when LUS was fighting in court, and the utility has had to buy its content from individual providers at a higher cost. "The positive side of that is that we now have our own relationship with those content providers, and we will still be able to meet our commitments, in terms of the price of our service," Huvall said. Baller sees a reversal in the legal trend that favors municipalities, citing recent success in fighting state laws designed to limit what can be done. "Take a look at the biggest battle we had within North Carolina [in 2007]," Baller said. "The kinds of people who line up in support of municipalities - Googles, Alcatels, Intels - everyone saying these restrictions make no sense, they are not good for our communities, the states or our country." According to Joe Savage, president of the Fiber to the Home Council, there are 14 states where laws either prohibit or limit muni networks. "Lately there are three or four states that have tried and failed," he said. "I think we'll see some states begin to roll back these restrictions." A national Community Broadband Act failed in 2007 at the federal level, but U.S. Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) introduced similar provisions as part of a 2008 bill that also seeks to unlock cell phones from specific mobile networks. As more cities get more experience and that experience is shared, municipal networks will become more common in the U.S., as they already are in Europe, Scott said. "I believe that some of these challenges over the last few years - there are great lessons to be learned there," he said. "There will always be mistakes to be made, but as long as new initiatives learn from these, the future of municipal broadband looks pretty good." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.gif Type: image/gif Size: 862 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.gif Type: image/gif Size: 6648 bytes Desc: not available URL: From carroll at cagleandassociates.com Thu Aug 28 15:04:47 2008 From: carroll at cagleandassociates.com (Carroll Cagle) Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2008 16:04:47 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fiber -- period Message-ID: From: AppRising By Geoff Daily August 27, 2008 11:05 AM Qwest Also Claims Fiber Optic Mantle - It's Time to Drop The Acronyms After lambasting cablecos yesterday for touting their fiber optic networks, I today discovered the same practice underway from Qwest, which goes so far as to call its service "Qwest Fiber Optic Internet Service." But of course, like the cablecos, these claims are somewhat deceiving as Qwest has been vocal in its lack of support for deploying fiber all the way to the home. Yet the problem still stands that by the definition of Qwest and the cablecos, basically any and every ISP offers fiber optic service since they all rely on fiber optics to interconnect communities and get from the central office onto the Internet. In other words, we're allowing the meaning of fiber optics to become so muddled that it's going to become meaningless to the average consumer when someone comes to lay fiber all the way to their home. I blame this in part on the efforts to denote full fiber networks as FTTH, FTTP, FTTN, FTTx, etc. I can understand why these acronyms were created in the first place and that their initial intent was to help distinguish different types of fiber deployment. But as an unintended result of this I think we're affording those network operators not deploying fiber to the front door to get away with obscuring their lesser investments by wrapping themselves in the guise of fiber optic service. And there's only one clear way to fix this: put an end to the acronyms. Instead, we should be saying that only full fiber networks can claim to deliver fiber optic service, that everyone else has to call their service copper-based, and that anyone defying these new definitions deserves so much public scrutiny and shame so as to force them to end these deceptive marketing practices. I don't know if it's realistic to think we can make this semantic shift a reality as suppliers don't want to upset those clients that aren't deploying full fiber networks, obviously those clients have no interest in giving up their claims to offering fiber optic service, and out of the entities deploying fiber only Verizon has the national clout to push the needle on this issue, and they're probably not overly worried given the growing strength of the FiOS brand regardless of what their competitors claim to offer. So I may be tilting at windmills with this rallying cry, but I do think that if we can't find a way to insure overzealous marketers aren't destroying consumer awareness about the value of full fiber networks, then the hill we have to climb to achieve a full fiber nation will only get steeper. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.gif Type: image/gif Size: 862 bytes Desc: not available URL: From carroll at cagleandassociates.com Thu Aug 28 15:15:09 2008 From: carroll at cagleandassociates.com (Carroll Cagle) Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2008 16:15:09 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Muni fiber networks bounce back Message-ID: <6913B965EB43416D8C63CC42498F5604@yourfsyly0jtwn> Muni fiber networks bounce back Aug 25, 2008 By Carol Wilson Telephony Online Despite some high-profile failures, the deep-seated need for broadband keeps municipalities on the fiber-to-the-home-track. The headlines surrounding municipally funded telecom networks have been dominated by bad news this year. In addition to the outright collapse of muni Wi-Fi networks, there have been notable failures in the muni fiber market as well, namely the iProvo network, sold to Broadweave earlier this year, and Utopia, a network linking multiple municipalities that has struggled to sign up customers. A multicity fiber network in northeastern Minnesota that had been under study for years also was scrapped recently. Anyone who thinks the municipal broadband market is headed south, however, needs to take a closer look. For every visible failure, there are multiple other cities, towns and villages either building or looking to build their own fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) networks, for the simple reason that they want broadband facilities they can't convince their local telco and cable incumbents to build. http://telephonyonline.com/issue_20080901/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.gif Type: image/gif Size: 862 bytes Desc: not available URL: From john at citylinkfiber.com Thu Aug 28 15:22:52 2008 From: john at citylinkfiber.com (John Brown) Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2008 16:22:52 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fiber -- period In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <48B7253C.9040102@citylinkfiber.com> The other way to put an end to this is Industry Certification. The Fiber To The Home Council has a certification process that a provider can go through to become FTTH certified. You have to take the fiber ALL THE WAY TO THE HOUSE and it must be a lions share of the deployment. Last I checked there is only ONE FTTH certified provider in New Mexico. Shameless plug, its our company CityLink Fiber Holdings / CityLink Telecommunications. Others do FTTH in NM, but haven't been certified yet. But they do, do it all the way to the house. Verizon FiOS was the FIRST to be certified. We are something like the 40th to be certified. The "Fiber Optic Internet Service" is deceptive advertising IMHO, unless you bring the fiber cable all the way to the customers home. John Brown CityLink Fiber Holdings, Inc. FTTH Council Certified provider of Fiber to the Home Carroll Cagle wrote: > > > From: AppRising > > > > By Geoff Daily > > August 27, 2008 11:05 AM > > Qwest Also Claims Fiber Optic Mantle - It's Time to Drop The Acronyms > > After lambasting cablecos yesterday for touting their fiber optic networks, > I today discovered the same practice underway from Qwest, which goes so far > as to call its service "Qwest Fiber Optic Internet Service." > > But of course, like the cablecos, these claims are somewhat deceiving as > Qwest has been vocal in its lack of support for deploying fiber all the way > to the home. > > Yet the problem still stands that by the definition of Qwest and the > cablecos, basically any and every ISP offers fiber optic service since they > all rely on fiber optics to interconnect communities and get from the > central office onto the Internet. > > In other words, we're allowing the meaning of fiber optics to become so > muddled that it's going to become meaningless to the average consumer when > someone comes to lay fiber all the way to their home. > > I blame this in part on the efforts to denote full fiber networks as FTTH, > FTTP, FTTN, FTTx, etc. > > I can understand why these acronyms were created in the first place and that > their initial intent was to help distinguish different types of fiber > deployment. But as an unintended result of this I think we're affording > those network operators not deploying fiber to the front door to get away > with obscuring their lesser investments by wrapping themselves in the guise > of fiber optic service. > > And there's only one clear way to fix this: put an end to the acronyms. > > Instead, we should be saying that only full fiber networks can claim to > deliver fiber optic service, that everyone else has to call their service > copper-based, and that anyone defying these new definitions deserves so much > public scrutiny and shame so as to force them to end these deceptive > marketing practices. > > I don't know if it's realistic to think we can make this semantic shift a > reality as suppliers don't want to upset those clients that aren't deploying > full fiber networks, obviously those clients have no interest in giving up > their claims to offering fiber optic service, and out of the entities > deploying fiber only Verizon has the national clout to push the needle on > this issue, and they're probably not overly worried given the growing > strength of the FiOS brand regardless of what their competitors claim to > offer. > > So I may be tilting at windmills with this rallying cry, but I do think that > if we can't find a way to insure overzealous marketers aren't destroying > consumer awareness about the value of full fiber networks, then the hill we > have to climb to achieve a full fiber nation will only get steeper. > > > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm From pete at ideapete.com Thu Aug 28 15:44:38 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2008 16:44:38 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] ITIF: Explaining International Broadband Leadership Message-ID: <48B72A56.9070301@ideapete.com> Unusually coherent review Lots of things here to adopt locally ( : ( : pete http://www.itif.org/index.php?id=142 -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Thu Aug 28 15:54:47 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2008 16:54:47 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] BetaNews | Comcast to deploy 250 GB/month usage caps in October Message-ID: <48B72CB7.4040801@ideapete.com> http://www.betanews.com/article/Comcast_to_deploy_250_GBmonth_usage_caps_in_October/1219958122 -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Thu Aug 28 16:02:45 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2008 16:02:45 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Broadband Census: States Survey Message-ID: <20080828160245.gj7dcbr328w8cs00@www2.dcn.org> Broadband Census is doing a series of online articles on the broadband initiatives, plans and issues in U.S. states. Today?s article features the Governor?s Innovation Council?s Broadband Initiative in Colorado. http://broadbandcensus.com/blog/?p=540 Stay tuned for Broadband Census? article on New Mexico. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From john at citylinkfiber.com Thu Aug 28 20:51:15 2008 From: john at citylinkfiber.com (John Brown) Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2008 21:51:15 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] NM speed and latency vs National speed and latency Message-ID: <48B77233.5070908@citylinkfiber.com> data comes from 7100+ samples recorded by speedtest.ixnm.net Location Download Upload Latency Kbps Kbps ms NM 2953.622 962.810 137.2734 NON-NM 2765.897 840.790 178.7414 Fastest NON-NM 111,325 459 76 1705.0 12,553 49 Fastest NM 76,984 681 86 12,229 10,894 71 Lowest Latency NON-NM 6ms NM 5ms From rl at 1st-mile.com Fri Aug 29 11:02:09 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2008 11:02:09 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Broadband Census Report on NM Message-ID: <20080829110209.tlkylafn4kk44s8g@www2.dcn.org> http://broadbandcensus.com/blog/?p=549 New Mexico Infrastructure Report Fails to Incorporate Broadband Access Broadband Census New Mexico By Drew Bennett, Special Correspondent, BroadbandCensus.com This is the tenth of a series of articles surveying the state of broadband, and broadband data, within each of the United States. Among the next profiles: Arizona, Nevada and Utah. August 29 ? As with other states seeking to promote the availability of high-speed internet access in a broadband-centered world, New Mexico is struggling just to keep up. Despite boasting one of the world?s premier centers for science and research at Los Alamos National Laboratory and experiencing a recent population boom, New Mexico remains far behind the rest of the country in broadband and digital deployment. According to a report by the Kauffman Foundation and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, the state ranks 46th in percentage of internet users, 49th in e-government, and 36th in broadband telecommunications. New Mexico?s deficit in broadband infrastructure is particularly glaring. According to Federal Communications Commission statistics, only 78% of New Mexicans have access to digital subscriber line (DSL) service and only 77% have access to cable modem service ? well below the national averages of 82% and 96%, respectively. And the quality of service received when broadband connectivity is available is 15% slower than the national average, according to the Communications Workers of America?s Speed Matters web site. In capital Santa Fe, policy-makers are beginning to focus on the state broadband situation. In 2006, Governor Bill Richardson appointed Thomas Bowles as his science and technology adviser, stating that ?New Mexico is becoming a national leader in the high tech field and Tom Bowles will help further this progress.? Sources close to Bowles say that the technology advisor seeks to drive innovation through technology, and that he understands the importance of improving broadband infrastructure as a part of this agenda, yet two years later the state has yet to produce a strategy for improving broadband connectivity. ?New Mexico has an opportunity to set national examples when it comes to broadband networks,? said Richard Lowenberg, a broadband expert and state consultant. Lowenberg is a long-time advocate for high-speed, open fiber networks who has worked with Japanese broadband officials. Japanese broadband has been noted for offering particularly high speeds at low costs. There are multiple initiatives throughout New Mexico to develop municipal broadband wireless networks, community fiber networks, and funding through Department of Agriculture and its Rural Utility Service. These grants deliver broadband to rural areas and to Navajo and Pueblo reservations. Lowenberg believes that a comprehensive plan that integrates and builds on these efforts is what is now needed. ?The key is an economic model that aggregates demand, integrates systems like energy systems, and seeks out applications that help pay for these networks so that they can reach everybody,? Lowenberg said. Besides telecommunications carriers, energy utilities, railroads, highway authorities and backbone data infrastructure providers should all be involved in a state broadband policy, said Lowenberg. Any broadband mapping project would need to consider all possible infrastructure that could be utilized in a state-wide effort to expand and enhance broadband services. Lowenberg would like to see New Mexico ?work towards a comprehensive infrastructure that gets us to where we want to be in 10 years.? Governor Richardson has developed a plan, dubbed Invest New Mexico, to offer solutions to New Mexico?s ?perfect storm of infrastructure problems.? However, the 55-page Invest New Mexico report fails to consider and integrate improvements in broadband infrastructure as part of the state-wide plan. The Invest New Mexico initiative asks ?what infrastructure can we invest in to expand our economy?? Yet the answers that it poses have nothing to do with the potential that many others see in deploying faster and better broadband infrastructure. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From pete at ideapete.com Fri Aug 29 14:31:00 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:31:00 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Broadband Census Report on NM and what we should do In-Reply-To: <20080829110209.tlkylafn4kk44s8g@www2.dcn.org> References: <20080829110209.tlkylafn4kk44s8g@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: <48B86A94.2020408@ideapete.com> If Tom B is on this list Go to Economic Development - Science and Technology and get the Leapfrog Technology Road map that is Linked to the Deutsch Tel / US West prospective business plan created in 2000 / 1 under secretary Garcia. A bi partisan effort created this plan which listed all the major directives and actions by all parties / State and private enterprise to move New Mexico across the digital divide into the future and us far as I know this has been buried by the Bell Heads and is still gathering dust. If Bill R is really interested in moving this state forward all the planning and mapping road map has been DONE and you don't have to spend a dime more to figure it out. If this state implemented a minor part of that plan we would be in the top 10 in broad band instead of saying - Thank God for Mississippi " ( : ( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ Richard Lowenberg wrote: > http://broadbandcensus.com/blog/?p=549 > > New Mexico Infrastructure Report Fails to Incorporate Broadband Access > > Broadband Census New Mexico > By Drew Bennett, Special Correspondent, BroadbandCensus.com > > This is the tenth of a series of articles surveying the state of broadband, and > broadband data, within each of the United States. Among the next profiles: > Arizona, Nevada and Utah. > > > August 29 ? As with other states seeking to promote the availability of > high-speed internet access in a broadband-centered world, New Mexico is > struggling just to keep up. > > Despite boasting one of the world?s premier centers for science and research > at Los Alamos National Laboratory and experiencing a recent population boom, > New Mexico remains far behind the rest of the country in broadband and digital > deployment. According to a report by the Kauffman Foundation and the > Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, the state ranks 46th in > percentage of internet users, 49th in e-government, and 36th in broadband > telecommunications. > > New Mexico?s deficit in broadband infrastructure is particularly glaring. > According to Federal Communications Commission statistics, only 78% of New > Mexicans have access to digital subscriber line (DSL) service and only 77% have > access to cable modem service ? well below the national averages of 82% and > 96%, respectively. > > And the quality of service received when broadband connectivity is available is > 15% slower than the national average, according to the Communications Workers > of America?s Speed Matters web site. > > In capital Santa Fe, policy-makers are beginning to focus on the state broadband > situation. In 2006, Governor Bill Richardson appointed Thomas Bowles as his > science and technology adviser, stating that ?New Mexico is becoming a > national leader in the high tech field and Tom Bowles will help further this > progress.? > > Sources close to Bowles say that the technology advisor seeks to drive > innovation through technology, and that he understands the importance of > improving broadband infrastructure as a part of this agenda, yet two years > later the state has yet to produce a strategy for improving broadband > connectivity. > > ?New Mexico has an opportunity to set national examples when it comes to > broadband networks,? said Richard Lowenberg, a broadband expert and state > consultant. Lowenberg is a long-time advocate for high-speed, open fiber > networks who has worked with Japanese broadband officials. Japanese broadband > has been noted for offering particularly high speeds at low costs. > > There are multiple initiatives throughout New Mexico to develop municipal > broadband wireless networks, community fiber networks, and funding through > Department of Agriculture and its Rural Utility Service. These grants deliver > broadband to rural areas and to Navajo and Pueblo reservations. Lowenberg > believes that a comprehensive plan that integrates and builds on these efforts > is what is now needed. > > ?The key is an economic model that aggregates demand, integrates systems like > energy systems, and seeks out applications that help pay for these networks so > that they can reach everybody,? Lowenberg said. > > Besides telecommunications carriers, energy utilities, railroads, highway > authorities and backbone data infrastructure providers should all be involved > in a state broadband policy, said Lowenberg. Any broadband mapping project > would need to consider all possible infrastructure that could be utilized in a > state-wide effort to expand and enhance broadband services. > > Lowenberg would like to see New Mexico ?work towards a comprehensive > infrastructure that gets us to where we want to be in 10 years.? > > Governor Richardson has developed a plan, dubbed Invest New Mexico, to offer > solutions to New Mexico?s ?perfect storm of infrastructure problems.? > However, the 55-page Invest New Mexico report fails to consider and integrate > improvements in broadband infrastructure as part of the state-wide plan. > > The Invest New Mexico initiative asks ?what infrastructure can we invest in to > expand our economy?? Yet the answers that it poses have nothing to do with the > potential that many others see in deploying faster and better broadband > infrastructure. > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tom at jtjohnson.com Sun Aug 31 13:00:40 2008 From: tom at jtjohnson.com (Tom Johnson) Date: Sun, 31 Aug 2008 14:00:40 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] And we complain about lack of broadband Message-ID: All: A friend in the U.S. foreign service writes from India: "...The highlight was staying in a village on the border with Bhutan --no electricity, the entire town of 300 people is vegetarian and won't let you in their homes if you've eaten meat. We visited the oldest house in the village where the owner, Anil Rai, a cardamom farmer with a high school education, gave us a tour. At the end, he asked me for my e-mail address. I asked him how he could use my e-mail address if he has no electricity. He explained that he travels 40 minutes by bus to Kalimpong where he logs on at an Internet Caf?. He also has a cell phone that he sends on a bus to the next village with electricity to be charged when needed." Count our blessings, yes? -tj -- ========================================== J. T. Johnson Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA www.analyticjournalism.com 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) http://www.jtjohnson.com tom at jtjohnson.com "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." -- Buckminster Fuller ========================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From editorsteve at gmail.com Mon Sep 1 05:13:51 2008 From: editorsteve at gmail.com (Steve Ross) Date: Mon, 1 Sep 2008 08:13:51 -0400 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] And we complain about lack of broadband In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <203e4cf70809010513o78b44e13yb254fe67537dd01f@mail.gmail.com> Just returned from India yesterday (I did not write the report Tom passed on, though). To be fair, the village almost certainly has several small generators, but powering them up to charge the cell phone would be rather wasteful and costly. India is in the process of providiing every agricultural village with an internet connection, to check market prices and lock them in before the farmer rents a truck to bring crops to market. Villages of this size can expect a connection in a few years -- in their case, probably solar-powered and served by wireless. Across the border up there, one of my former Columbia University students runs one of the two (weekly) newspapers in Bhutan. It is a happy, peaceful place (unlike nearby Napal). He created his own fonts using Apple tools 20 years ago. The newsroom used to be solar powered (storage to car batteries). Now he hosts his website in Singapore. I have a current Bhutanese journalism student in Chennai. Her name is Lucky. In class she wanted a detailed explanation of how subprime debt is securitized. Will the peacefulness last? Steve Ross On Sun, Aug 31, 2008 at 4:00 PM, Tom Johnson wrote: > All: > > A friend in the U.S. foreign service writes from India: > > "...The highlight was staying in a village on the border with Bhutan --no > electricity, the entire town of 300 people is vegetarian and won't let you > in their homes if you've eaten meat. We visited the oldest house in the > village where the owner, Anil Rai, a cardamom farmer with a high school > education, gave us a tour. At the end, he asked me for my e-mail address. I > asked him how he could use my e-mail address if he has no electricity. He > explained that he travels 40 minutes by bus to Kalimpong where he logs on at > an Internet Caf?. He also has a cell phone that he sends on a bus to the > next village with electricity to be charged when needed." > > Count our blessings, yes? > > -tj > > -- > ========================================== > J. T. Johnson > Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA > www.analyticjournalism.com > 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) > http://www.jtjohnson.com tom at jtjohnson.com > > "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. > To change something, build a new model that makes the > existing model obsolete." > -- Buckminster Fuller > ========================================== > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > > -- Steve Ross 201-456-5933 781-284-8810 editorsteve at gmail.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tom at jtjohnson.com Tue Sep 2 13:42:49 2008 From: tom at jtjohnson.com (Tom Johnson) Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2008 14:42:49 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] On the U.S. and broadband Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- _ http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_ai d=87117_ ( http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=87117 ) [In]Sight: The Great Divide by Graeme Hutton, August 2008 issue "It's a country whose average broadband speed is 30 times slower than the world's leader. Some say that online video will cause its Internet service to grind to a halt. And its population lives in ignorance of the wide choices available to the rest of the world. Welcome to the United States of America." -Spencer Kelly, host of BBC World News television program Click, April 3, 2008 In earlier columns, I have shown that contrary to popular perception, the average U.S. consumer lags behind the typical global user in his use of mobile media. But never have I seen it put so forcefully and by such a respected global news organization as the BBC (see inset). I doubt any of us would agree with the implication that, digitally, the U.S. consumer is backward. Universal McCann's latest edition of its global digital research series, Wave, spans 29 countries and 17,000 respondents and confirms earlier recognized trends: On every social media metric we measured, the average U.S. consumer typically adopts slower. That said, the rate of change in the United States is highly dynamic, and at some levels it's moving at a breathtaking pace. For example, in the States, video clip viewing has more than doubled from 32 percent in September 2006 to 74 percent earlier this year. Similarly, downloading podcasts has more than doubled, from 12 percent to 28 percent over the same period. RSS subscriptions and blog writing are moving swiftly to all-time highs. Interrogating the differences between the United States and the rest of world, we see that this country performs relatively better in what we call passive social media (e.g., watching video clips or visiting a friend's social network page). Conversely, the United States performs comparatively worse in what we term active social media (e.g., managing a social network profile or making a phone call using the computer). On the surface, the U.S. consumer appears to be more inclined to be a social media voyeur. However, at a much deeper level, media carve out powerful, emotionally ingrained habits. These emotional attachments and habits don't change overnight. Yet ultimately, change they will. Interestingly, one major area where entrenched human motivations can immediately be seen in the U.S. social media is in gender. Men are still from Mars and women from Venus - even in cyberspace. There is a clear inverse relationship between men and women in the types of activities they prefer. Men are much more likely to be involved in geeky Internet activities, such as uploading a video (30 percent of men vs. 20 percent of women) or downloading a podcast (38 percent of men vs. 21 percent of women). By contrast, women tend to read personal blogs, visit a friend's social network profile or manage their own. Women quite clearly see social media for what they are: devices that can extend or facilitate social interaction and understanding. When we look specifically at blog topics, we see clear patterns emerge which amplify the differences between the two genders. As in life, men gravitate to the physical and tangible: They demonstrate greater interest in issues like technology, business and science. Blogs by friends and family appeal more to women. We see a correlation between what is important to female and male consumers offline and what content they consume online. For example, Universal McCann's qualitative research shows women take a much greater active interest in planning vacations than men, which translates to women's preference for travel blogs. The blog topics that appeal to women are precisely the ones men show the least interest in. Overall, the United States enjoys a vibrant social media ecosystem. Streaming video leads the way in shaping how social media are swiftly growing to become an integral element of our mass media ecology. But perhaps it is gender - and the innate differences in how men and women use social media - that confirms that while digital media is starting to fuel macro changes in behavior, deeper and more profound human motivations still fundamentally define who we are, and who we want to be. Graeme Hutton is senior vice president and director of consumer insights at Universal McCann. (graeme.hutton at universalmccann.com) **************It's only a deal if it's where you want to go. Find your travel deal here. (http://information.travel.aol.com/deals?ncid=aoltrv00050000000047) _______________________________________________ MEA mailing list MEA at lists.ibiblio.org http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/mea -- ========================================== J. T. Johnson Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA www.analyticjournalism.com 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) http://www.jtjohnson.com tom at jtjohnson.com "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." -- Buckminster Fuller ========================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tom at jtjohnson.com Thu Sep 4 16:24:58 2008 From: tom at jtjohnson.com (Tom Johnson) Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2008 17:24:58 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] State and Federal Electronic Government in the United States, 2008 Message-ID: Surely of relevance. -tj Resource of the Week: State and Federal Electronic Government in the United States, 2008 By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor http://digbig.com/4xkgk We usually don't offer up a report as a Resource of the Week here on RS, since posting reports is what we do on DocuTicker, our sister site. But this report from The Brookings Institution came out just before Labor Day weekend, when posting on both sites is traditionally light, and we thought it was interesting enough to bring it to your attention. The social and political impact of new technology long has been debated among observers. Throughout American history, technological innovations - from the movable-type printing press in the 15th century, the telegraph in 1844, and the telephone in 1876 to the rise of radio in the 1920s and coast-to-coast television broadcasting in 1946 - have sparked much speculation. Transformationalists often claim that new technology will produce widespread consequences. Incrementalists, on the other hand, point to the influence of institutional forces - such as structural fragmentation within government as well as issues related to the investment cost and organizational structures of state and federal government - in limiting the speed and breadth of technology's impact on the public sector. This report assesses the nature of American state and federal electronic government in 2008 by examining whether e-government effectively capitalizes on the interactive features available on the World Wide Web to improve service delivery and public outreach. Although considerable progress has been made over the past decade, e-government has fallen short of its potential to transform public-sector operations. This report closes by suggesting how public officials can take maximum advantage of technology to improve government performance. These key findings come from the full report: + Eighty-nine percent of state and federal websites have services that are fully executable online, compared with 86 percent in 2007. + Three percent of government websites are accessible through personal digital assistants (PDAs), pagers or mobile phones, up from 1 percent last year. + Seventy-three percent of government websites have some form of privacy policy available online (the same as last year), and 58 percent have a visible security policy (up from 52 percent last year). + Forty percent of government websites offer some type of foreign language translation, up from 22 percent last year. + Sixty-four percent of government websites are written at the 12th-grade reading level or higher, which is much higher than that of the average American. + Seven percent of government websites have user fees. + Twenty-five percent of federal websites and 19 percent of state websites are accessible to the disabled. + The highest-ranking state websites belong to Delaware, Georgia, Florida, California, Massachusetts, Maine, Kentucky, Alabama, Indiana and Tennessee. + The top-ranking federal websites are the national portal USA.gov, Department of Agriculture, General Services Administration, Postal Service, Internal Revenue Service, Department of Education, Small Business Administration, Library of Congress, Department of Treasury and the Federal Reserve Board. See also from Brookings: + Improving Technology Utilization in Electronic Government around the World, 2008 ========================================== J. T. Johnson Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA www.analyticjournalism.com 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) http://www.jtjohnson.com tom at jtjohnson.com "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." -- Buckminster Fuller ========================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Fri Sep 5 11:36:39 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2008 11:36:39 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Broadband Energy Management Message-ID: <20080905113639.yfijny09w4swkcgo@www2.dcn.org> A lengthy article on networked meter reading and energy management. rl ------ Utility Meter Reading Networks Save Money and Improve Customer Service By Bradley Kramer ? Aug 01, 2008 www.lastmileonline.com/index/webapp-stories-action?id=302 These hardscrabble economic times have everyone scrounging beneath their sofa cushions for those hidden dimes. We?re all looking for ways to save money, and the cost of doing business has become a primary challenge for any business entity to factor into its expenses. Any tool that can help save money, alleviate costs and improve revenues is welcome. Enter your light switch, faucet and furnace. Nearly every household and business in the United States is dependent on utility services such as electricity, water and gas. The companies that supply those services ? whether publicly or privately owned ? are dependent on customers paying their bills for revenue. The customers, in turn, depend on those bills to be accurate and, to some extent, predictable. If utility bills are inaccurate or otherwise faulty, the customer or the utility provider loses money. Utility information systems, such as advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) and automated meter reading (AMR), supported by broadband networking have become valuable applications for utility companies, which have become a vibrant market for broadband deployment. AMI and AMR systems help utility companies improve operational efficiency, as well as billing accuracy and efficiency. In addition to billing, utility information systems improve customer relations. Many utility companies rely on customers to report service outages, which can lead to sub-optimal response times. An automated system can provide the central office with real-time status on utility usage and detects outages and other problems so repairs can be made quickly. Systems that go beyond providing just metering information are also called ?smart grid? systems. However, all three terms are sometimes used interchangeably. ?It?s All About the Network? Utility information systems at the most basic level can get by with a small radio transmission or power line network, but a broadband network ? wired or wireless ? is necessary if a utility company wants those advanced applications for whole system monitoring, says Pete Harbin, vice president of sales and marketing for Carina Technology, a hardware and software company based in Huntsville, Ala., that specializes in utility information systems. Deploying an AMI, AMR or smart grid system on a broadband network may cost more upfront, but Harbin says it?s worth it. ?You?re future-proofing your system because you have so much bandwidth and you can do a lot more with the information, so you?re not as limited.? If you don?t put money into a network, at some point it will be saturated and the communications pipe won?t be big enough to do real-time price and monitoring. Investing in a high-quality and high-capacity network also allows for more versatility. That network can be used for other applications, such as facility security or public access, which can enhance the business case for the overall system. However, a utility company does not necessarily have to own and operate a broadband network to deploy a utility information system, Harbin says. AMI, AMR and smart grid systems also can be deployed over a private Internet service provider network, as long as it?s a dependable network. ?It?s all about the network,? he says. Investing in a utility information system that requires a broadband network can be a difficult decision for a utility provider. Many companies justify the cost of the system with the meter reading capabilities, but Harbin says that metering is a relatively low cost application. ?The meter read is only 50 cents a month so it?s hard to justify the payback,? he says, but if you start adding more applications to the system, such as real-time monitoring, pre-paid capabilities and usage management, the return on investment starts to become clearer. ?The most important thing is demand site management, because being able to shift loads and move loads off peak will make the business case,? Harbin says. ?You get the fringe benefits of being able to look at your system all the time.? The additional utility monitoring and ability to shift usage loads during peak hours allows the utility company to be more efficient with its services. ?Generating capacity is limited everywhere in the country right now,? Harbin says. ?You have to build new power plants or you?re going to have brown-outs and blackouts.? However, energy efficiency abilities like demand site management can be a short-term alternative to building new power plants until the utility company can afford the cost. The market for utility information systems is strong, Harbin says. Energy costs and the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which requires utility companies to provide customers with additional information about their bills, is helping drive the market. ?Our customers want information right now,? he says. ?They want to look at what they?re using. We spoiled all the customers with real-time information.? Harbin adds that utility customers don?t want to be surprised by their bill, and utility information systems help keep them and the utility companies informed. Automated in Anderson Early this year, Anderson, Ind., deployed an AMR system for the city-owned Municipal Light and Power Utility to monitor water and electricity usage, which the city hoped would reduce the costs caused by the inaccuracies of manual meter reading and improve overall customer satisfaction. The utility communications company Aclara provided the AMR components, which are supported by a wireless network using Tropos Networks equipment and backhauled to Anderson?s fiber-optic network, providing access to the central office?s back end system. ?We decided to implement a wireless AMR solution to eliminate the inaccuracies and lost costs of manual meter reading,? says Darren Grile, network administrator for Anderson Municipal Power and Light. The system has improved meter reading and billing accuracy and immediately detects electric outages, pinpointing affected areas and facilitating a more efficient restoration of service. ?When there?s a problem, the dispatcher can see at a glance which customers are affected,? Grile says. ?This helps us determine the root cause.? Anderson decided to automate its electric and water meter reading system three years ago to solve problems of manual meter reads. Customers were enduring the inaccuracies of estimated billing when inclement weather, pets or locked gates prevented meter readers from getting access to meters. In one month, 15 percent of the utility bills were estimated rather than actual. Some customers were unpleasantly surprised when the corrected bill arrived ? and complained to the mayor and city council. ?Anderson?s decision to automate utility meter reading provides great value to the city and customers,? says Tom Ayers, president and CEO of Tropos. ?It?s a powerful example to other cities grappling with significant utility operating issues related to resource conservation, expense control and meter reading accuracy.? The state of Indiana enabled the funding for automated water and electrical meters and for the network to link them together as a way to support municipal utility conservation. Reading the Cost Depending on the volume of services, deploying a utility information system can cost between $120 to $195 per unit, Harbin says. Carina makes a collar component for utility meters that transmits data for demand site management, prepaid utilities, outage management and other real-time service metrics. Some states, like Indiana did for Anderson, provide funding assistance to improve municipal utility services. The federal government has also made funding available for utility companies in rural communities to deploy public access networks under the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Utility Service (RUS) division. The RUS also provides technical guidance to qualified utilities. The Rural Development Broadband Access loan program was authorized by the 2002 Farm Bill and provides low interest loans to deploy broadband services to communities with a population of 20,000 or less, with first priority going to communities without broadband service. Eligible service providers can receive these loans, provided that they employ RUS-approved products. Bradley Kramer is associate editor of Last Mile. Contact him at bkramer at benjaminmedia.com --------------------------------- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Fri Sep 5 11:44:34 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2008 11:44:34 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] 802.11-VHT: Gigabit Wireless Future? Message-ID: <20080905114434.hr2n71yv4wwcs4ow@www2.dcn.org> Gigabit Wi-Fi Could Follow 802.11n http://news.yahoo.com/s/zd/20080902/tc_zd/231522 Mark Hachman - ExtremeTechTue Sept. 2. Although the IEEE 802.11n specification is still a year or more away from release, a small group of engineers is already moving ahead to the next generation of wireless networking. The goal? Gigabit Wi-Fi, to match the wired gigabit Ethernet links of today's PCs. A working group is preparing to propose what may eventually be known as IEEE 802.11 VHT (Very High Throughput), in what some call the successor to 802.11n. Two working groups each are suggesting proposals to push throughput in excess of one gigabit per second, roughly ten times that of the 802.11n specification. At this point, the IEEE has yet to formally approve what's known as a PAR, or a Project Approval Request, the first step on the road to an IEEE standard. However, that approval is expected. The proposed technology has also not yet been blessed by the Wi-Fi Alliance, which governs the technology. On the other hand, much of the group's work has been in cooperation with the Alliance, including plans to use the technology in wireless display technologies for HDTV, fast file transfer, and campus deployments, among others. If approved, the increase in data rates would be dramatic, at least by today's standards. The 802.11n standard calls for bandwidth on the order of 600 Mbits/s; today, so-called "pre-n" devices offer roughly 300 Mbits/s. But actual throughput can be much less, or only about 100 Mbits/s, after overhead and other traffic. The 802.11 VHT proposals call for throughput of at least a gigabit per second, which could place actual data rates many times higher. Interestingly, none of the PAR documents mention the estimated range for the wireless link. When could such a standard be ratified, and IEEE 802.11 VHT products hit the market? Possibly around 2011 or 2012, according to James Gilb, the technical editor for the WirelessHD consortium and the maintainer of the 802.11 VHT PAR page. IEEE specifications typically take about four to five years from proposal to product; the confusion surrounding the 802.11n standard will probably push formal 802.11n products out until 2010, Gilb said. In July, the IEEE P802.11n task group pushed the timeline for the official publication of 802.11n out by six months, to November 2009. Gigabit Wi-Fi has been proposed before, although not in specification form. In 2007, a research group from the Georgia Electronic Design Center (GEDC) at Georgia Tech developed a 15-Gbit link at 1 meter. The details Two IEEE 802.11 VHT PARs have been submitted, according to documents the group has posted: one dealing with sub- 6 GHz communications, and one using frequencies of 60 GHz and above. While a few key details have been released, more updates are expected in the second quarter of 2009, Bruce Kraemer, the chairman of the IEEE Working Group and a senior manager of strategic marketing for Marvell Semiconductor, said in an email. The author of both the sub-6-GHz and 60-GHz PAR is Eldad Perahia, a senior wireless systems engineer at Intel, who did not reply to requests for comment. The 802.11 VHT sub-6-GHz spec has two overarching goals. "It would be fair to say a goal is to find ways to either serve more users per unit area or to increase the bits/second delivered to users in a given area and backward compatibility is the norm," Kraemer said in an email, when asked about the goal behind 802.11 VHT. "There are no technical agreements on the project plan since it has been concentrating on a basic objective statement for the PAR," Kraemer added. At this point, it's difficult to say which of the two PARs might have more of an effect on PC users and consumer-electronics aficionados. According to Gilb, the sub-6-GHz PAR looks more likely to replace traditional Wi-Fi, if only because the proposal looks more like a traditional wireless network. The goal is for the sub-6-GHz spec to be backwards-compatible with traditional Wi-Fi, but to avoid using and interfering with the 2.4-GHz frequency band used by today's 802.11b and 802.11g. The sub-6-GHz PAR proposes a single-link throughput of only 500 Mbits/s, but contains an interesting provision: "a maximum multi-STA throughput (measured at the MAC data service access point), of at least 1 Gbps". Put simply, it means that the proposal suggests that bandwidth be aggregated among STAs (stations), which include the Wi-Fi client cards and chips found within PCs. How? A July 2007 proposal by Motorola may have the answer. It suggested using Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) bandwidth allocation, which would assign a user "chunks" of bandwidth measured in time and frequency. OFDMA is an advanced form of CDMA, a channel access method employed by CDMA-based cellular phones, among other devices. According to the document, 100 MHz of bandwidth would represent 320 subcarriers, with 8 adjacent subcarriers grouped into one chunk. The forty chunks would then be divided by the number of users. Using a technique called optimized chunk allocation, throughput increased as the number of users also increased, Motorola found: 33 percent for two users, and 66 percent for six users. The performance gains trailed off sharply after that. The authors of the Motorola report suggested that the 802.11 VHT PAR "adopt a requirement on the aggregated throughput and not the peak throughput to introduce multi-user component into the standard" ? which, apparently, the sub-6-GHz PAR has done: "The project may include the capability to handle multiple simultaneous communications," according to the PAR. "The 1Gbps maximum multi-STA [client] throughput may be achieved when considering multiple simultaneously actively-communicating STAs, e.g., a BSS [base station] with 1 AP [access point] and at least 3 STAs." Modifications to both the physical access layer (PHY) and media access control (MAC) would be required, the PAR says. However, the working group also hopes to design in power-saving technologies above and beyond what is offered in Wi-Fi. The 60-GHz PAR The 60-GHz proposal, however, aims for pure, blazing speed. Like the sub-6-GHz PAR, the 60-GHz flavor of 802.11 VHT also proposes altering the MAC and PHY. In this case, however, each single link would be capable of a gigabit per second throughput, primarily through the use of a wider swath of spectrum, or 57 to 66 GHz. If the sub-6-GHz proposal seeks to avoid interference with traditional Wi-Fi, the 60-GHz version is hoping to design around the wireless multimedia specifications that operate in the 60 GHz range. The problem here is twofold: first, there is an existing specification that offers similar capabilities: IEEE 802.15.3, designed for "personal area networks" running at speeds up to 55 Mbits/s or so. Second, specifications like the WirelessHD group also operate in the 60-GHz band. According to the 60-GHz working group, the proposal will maintain the "802.11 user experience" ? basically, a familiar universe of base stations, access points, and clients, together with the underlying infrastructure. The group anticipates that future Wi-Fi radio will access the familiar 2.4-GHz/5-GHz Wi-Fi networks, but also 60-GHz networks as well. And if a 60-GHz network isn't available, the radio would search out a lower-bandwidth Wi-Fi connection. Co-existence with other 60-GHz systems is so important that it is specifically called out in the PAR as a requirement. What appears to be happening, however, is that 802.15.3 and the new 802.11 VHT technology "will go out as separate standards, and we'll let the market decide," Glib said. While the physical chips are relatively similar, the fact that both use the same frequency band means that they'll both share the same airwaves. The question will be whether the two standards can truly cooperate, or whether manufacturers will have to choose one over the other. --------------------------------- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From editorsteve at gmail.com Fri Sep 5 13:19:48 2008 From: editorsteve at gmail.com (Steve Ross) Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:19:48 -0400 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] 802.11-VHT: Gigabit Wireless Future? In-Reply-To: <20080905114434.hr2n71yv4wwcs4ow@www2.dcn.org> References: <20080905114434.hr2n71yv4wwcs4ow@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: <48C19464.5070304@gmail.com> I've been talking to folks about this for months (I volunteer to do some of the security-related math). Two points: 1. The sub-6 GHz idea so far would be TERRIFIC for indoor wifi, especially in a specific dwelling unit. But over a wider area with lots of users, you'd need a lot of radios or it falls apart... and it might fall apart anyway (at least the clever Motorola plan). Indoors, the planned "802.11a" wavelength is more easily blocked than b/g/n, so ganging multiple radios at a base station to get a MIMO pattern is a key feature, not merely a bandwidth-enhancer. 2. In this spectrum, a lot of companies are likely to have a stake, meaning a complex standards-setting scrum. So 2012 is optimistic. The entrails I've been reading suggest an n-type mashup. Ugh. we'll be lucky to get n by 2010! By 2012, 802.16-type ideas (WiMAX) and structured wiring may be the norm; the chipsets will certainly be cheap thanks to GSM pickup. Also, 1 Gbps in the home will probably be obsolete/too little bandwidth by 2020.... except maybe in places like New Mexico.... Steven S. Ross Editor-in-Chief Broadband Properties steve at broadbandproperties.com www.bbpmag.com SKYPE: editorsteve +1 781-284-8810 +1 646-216-8030 fax +1 201-456-5933 mobile Richard Lowenberg wrote: > Gigabit Wi-Fi Could Follow 802.11n > > http://news.yahoo.com/s/zd/20080902/tc_zd/231522 > > Mark Hachman - ExtremeTechTue Sept. 2. > > Although the IEEE 802.11n specification is still a year or more away from > release, a small group of engineers is already moving ahead to the next > generation of wireless networking. The goal? Gigabit Wi-Fi, to match the wired > gigabit Ethernet links of today's PCs. > > A working group is preparing to propose what may eventually be known as IEEE > 802.11 VHT (Very High Throughput), in what some call the successor to 802.11n. > Two working groups each are suggesting proposals to push throughput in excess > of one gigabit per second, roughly ten times that of the 802.11n specification. > > At this point, the IEEE has yet to formally approve what's known as a PAR, or a > Project Approval Request, the first step on the road to an IEEE standard. > However, that approval is expected. The proposed technology has also not yet > been blessed by the Wi-Fi Alliance, which governs the technology. > > On the other hand, much of the group's work has been in cooperation with the > Alliance, including plans to use the technology in wireless display > technologies for HDTV, fast file transfer, and campus deployments, among > others. > > If approved, the increase in data rates would be dramatic, at least by today's > standards. The 802.11n standard calls for bandwidth on the order of 600 > Mbits/s; today, so-called "pre-n" devices offer roughly 300 Mbits/s. But actual > throughput can be much less, or only about 100 Mbits/s, after overhead and other > traffic. The 802.11 VHT proposals call for throughput of at least a gigabit per > second, which could place actual data rates many times higher. Interestingly, > none of the PAR documents mention the estimated range for the wireless link. > > When could such a standard be ratified, and IEEE 802.11 VHT products hit the > market? Possibly around 2011 or 2012, according to James Gilb, the technical > editor for the WirelessHD consortium and the maintainer of the 802.11 VHT PAR > page. > > IEEE specifications typically take about four to five years from proposal to > product; the confusion surrounding the 802.11n standard will probably push > formal 802.11n products out until 2010, Gilb said. In July, the IEEE P802.11n > task group pushed the timeline for the official publication of 802.11n out by > six months, to November 2009. > > Gigabit Wi-Fi has been proposed before, although not in specification form. In > 2007, a research group from the Georgia Electronic Design Center (GEDC) at > Georgia Tech developed a 15-Gbit link at 1 meter. > > The details > > Two IEEE 802.11 VHT PARs have been submitted, according to documents the group > has posted: one dealing with sub- 6 GHz communications, and one using > frequencies of 60 GHz and above. While a few key details have been released, > more updates are expected in the second quarter of 2009, Bruce Kraemer, the > chairman of the IEEE Working Group and a senior manager of strategic marketing > for Marvell Semiconductor, said in an email. > > The author of both the sub-6-GHz and 60-GHz PAR is Eldad Perahia, a senior > wireless systems engineer at Intel, who did not reply to requests for comment. > > The 802.11 VHT sub-6-GHz spec has two overarching goals. "It would be fair to > say a goal is to find ways to either serve more users per unit area or to > increase the bits/second delivered to users in a given area and backward > compatibility is the norm," Kraemer said in an email, when asked about the goal > behind 802.11 VHT. > > "There are no technical agreements on the project plan since it has been > concentrating on a basic objective statement for the PAR," Kraemer added. > > At this point, it's difficult to say which of the two PARs might have more of an > effect on PC users and consumer-electronics aficionados. According to Gilb, the > sub-6-GHz PAR looks more likely to replace traditional Wi-Fi, if only because > the proposal looks more like a traditional wireless network. The goal is for > the sub-6-GHz spec to be backwards-compatible with traditional Wi-Fi, but to > avoid using and interfering with the 2.4-GHz frequency band used by today's > 802.11b and 802.11g. > > The sub-6-GHz PAR proposes a single-link throughput of only 500 Mbits/s, but > contains an interesting provision: "a maximum multi-STA throughput (measured at > the MAC data service access point), of at least 1 Gbps". Put simply, it means > that the proposal suggests that bandwidth be aggregated among STAs (stations), > which include the Wi-Fi client cards and chips found within PCs. > > How? A July 2007 proposal by Motorola may have the answer. It suggested using > Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) bandwidth allocation, > which would assign a user "chunks" of bandwidth measured in time and frequency. > OFDMA is an advanced form of CDMA, a channel access method employed by > CDMA-based cellular phones, among other devices. > > According to the document, 100 MHz of bandwidth would represent 320 subcarriers, > with 8 adjacent subcarriers grouped into one chunk. The forty chunks would then > be divided by the number of users. Using a technique called optimized chunk > allocation, throughput increased as the number of users also increased, > Motorola found: 33 percent for two users, and 66 percent for six users. The > performance gains trailed off sharply after that. > > The authors of the Motorola report suggested that the 802.11 VHT PAR "adopt a > requirement on the aggregated throughput and not the peak throughput to > introduce multi-user component into the standard" ? which, apparently, the > sub-6-GHz PAR has done: "The project may include the capability to handle > multiple simultaneous communications," according to the PAR. "The 1Gbps maximum > multi-STA [client] throughput may be achieved when considering multiple > simultaneously actively-communicating STAs, e.g., a BSS [base station] with 1 > AP [access point] and at least 3 STAs." > > Modifications to both the physical access layer (PHY) and media access control > (MAC) would be required, the PAR says. However, the working group also hopes to > design in power-saving technologies above and beyond what is offered in Wi-Fi. > > The 60-GHz PAR > > The 60-GHz proposal, however, aims for pure, blazing speed. Like the sub-6-GHz > PAR, the 60-GHz flavor of 802.11 VHT also proposes altering the MAC and PHY. In > this case, however, each single link would be capable of a gigabit per second > throughput, primarily through the use of a wider swath of spectrum, or 57 to 66 > GHz. > > If the sub-6-GHz proposal seeks to avoid interference with traditional Wi-Fi, > the 60-GHz version is hoping to design around the wireless multimedia > specifications that operate in the 60 GHz range. The problem here is twofold: > first, there is an existing specification that offers similar capabilities: > IEEE 802.15.3, designed for "personal area networks" running at speeds up to 55 > Mbits/s or so. Second, specifications like the WirelessHD group also operate in > the 60-GHz band. > > According to the 60-GHz working group, the proposal will maintain the "802.11 > user experience" ? basically, a familiar universe of base stations, access > points, and clients, together with the underlying infrastructure. The group > anticipates that future Wi-Fi radio will access the familiar 2.4-GHz/5-GHz > Wi-Fi networks, but also 60-GHz networks as well. And if a 60-GHz network isn't > available, the radio would search out a lower-bandwidth Wi-Fi connection. > > Co-existence with other 60-GHz systems is so important that it is specifically > called out in the PAR as a requirement. > > What appears to be happening, however, is that 802.15.3 and the new 802.11 VHT > technology "will go out as separate standards, and we'll let the market > decide," Glib said. While the physical chips are relatively similar, the fact > that both use the same frequency band means that they'll both share the same > airwaves. The question will be whether the two standards can truly cooperate, > or whether manufacturers will have to choose one over the other. > > > --------------------------------- > Richard Lowenberg > 1st-Mile Institute > P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 > 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell > rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------- > This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > From tom at jtjohnson.com Fri Sep 5 15:00:49 2008 From: tom at jtjohnson.com (Tom Johnson) Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2008 16:00:49 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Mountain Megas: America's Newest Metropolitan Places and a Federal Partnership to Help Them Prosper Message-ID: And important study for those of us interested in the digital urban environment and communications. Note reference link to Northern NM on first page or here: http://BrookingsNorthernNM.notlong.com . *Mountain Megas: America's Newest Metropolitan Places and a Federal Partnership to Help Them Prosper [pdf]* http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2008/0720_mountainmegas_sarzynski.aspx In the years after the Civil War, the population of the intermountain West began to boom as people moved across the Mississippi River for new opportunities as homesteaders, prospectors, and enterprising dry goods merchants. 130 years later or so, it appears that this region of the United States is experiencing yet another renaissance. This report from the Brookings Institution's "Blueprint for American Prosperity" series takes a close look at the growth this region has experienced in recent years. Written by Robert E. Lang, Andrea Sarzynski, and Mark Muro, the report is divided into six chapters, including "Megapolitan Development in the Intermountain West" and "Forging a New Federal-Mega Agenda for the Intermountain West". Visitors can also avail themselves of a brief executive summary if they are in a hurry, and they may also wish to pay particular attention to the report's conclusions as well. -- tj ========================================== J. T. Johnson Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA www.analyticjournalism.com 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) http://www.jtjohnson.com tom at jtjohnson.com "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." -- Buckminster Fuller ========================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bennett at broadbandcensus.com Sun Sep 7 22:06:14 2008 From: bennett at broadbandcensus.com (Drew Bennett) Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2008 01:06:14 -0400 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Broadband Census for America: Official Agenda For September 26 Conference In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Dear 1st-Mile Listserve Members: The official agenda for the Broadband Census for America Conference in Washington, DC on September 26 has been announced and the complete press release is below. We would be pleased if you could join us at what should be an important conference for those concerned with improving the collection and utilization of broadband data. Please contact me if you're interested in attending and feel free to forward this announcement. Drew Bennett *Special Assistant, *Broadband Census LLC BroadbandCensus.Com 202/744-0486 Bennett at BroadbandCensus.com Agenda for Broadband Census for America Conference on September 26, 2008 Key Academics, State Officials and Broadband Data Collectors to Speak Embassy of Ireland to Give Luncheon Keynote Address on Publicly-Available Broadband Data For Immediate Release WASHINGTON, September 8, 2008 ? Many of the nation's foremost broadband policy-makers and experts will analyze and discuss best practices for improving the collection and sharing of public data about high-speed internet access at the Broadband Census for America Conference in Washington, D.C., on Friday, September 26, 2008. Panelists at the half-day conference include Dr. William Lehr, an economist and broadband expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Jane Smith Patterson, executive director of the e-NC Authority; broadband data pioneer Professor Kenneth Flamm of the University of Texas at Austin; and Indiana Utility Regulatory Commissioner Larry Landis, who is also chair of a telecommunications regulatory task force charged with coordinating state efforts to collect broadband data. Eamonn Confrey, the First Secretary for Information and Communications Policy at the Embassy of Ireland, will present the luncheon keynote: an overview of his nation's efforts to collect data on broadband service in Ireland through a comprehensive web site with availability, pricing and speed data about carriers. Also participating on the panels will be representatives from BroadbandCensus.com, the California Broadband Task Force, Connected Nation, Communications Workers of America's Speed Matters, Public Knowledge, and Virginia Tech's eCorridors Program. As policy-makers around the world seek innovative approaches to enhancing and expanding broadband service, they also seek accurate data and maps of the digital infrastructure. Increasingly, experts believe that universal broadband is a crucial ingredient to global economic competitiveness. These efforts are apparent here in the United States with the Federal Communications Commission's proposed rules to collect more localized data on broadband service. Massachusetts Representative Ed Markey, Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, has also introduced the House-based "Broadband Census of America Act," which would require a comprehensive national inventory of broadband availability and competition. The conference will be held at the American Association for the Advancement of Science at 12th and H Streets, NW, and is sponsored by BroadbandCensus.com, Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Texas at Austin's Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law, and the Virginia Tech eCorridors Program. The event will bring together government officials, academic researchers and other key stakeholders for a half-day conference that seeks to improve our understanding of current practices in broadband data collection and discuss ways of improving and expanding publicly-available data within the United States. The complete program is available at http://broadbandcensus.com/blog/?p=569 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From david at BreeckerAssociates.com Mon Sep 8 09:49:24 2008 From: david at BreeckerAssociates.com (David Breecker) Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2008 10:49:24 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Smart Grid/Telecom Message-ID: <16A76211-DB2E-492B-89DE-BD150A2C4546@BreeckerAssociates.com> For those on the list interested in this conjunction (and further to Richard's post last week), a couple of data points that may be useful: First, Tom Bowles of the Governor's Office recently convened a summit on the future electric grid, and how New Mexico can work with the federal government to participate in this rapidly emerging area of development. So there's good potential for a fit between the state- wide ISBI initiative and related electric grid efforts, for shared infrastructure planning. Second, the Santa Fe regional plan for renewable energy industry development (aka the TREE plan) calls for establishing a Smart Grid Center of Excellence with a micro-grid test-bed and demo facility. Santa Fe Community College, one of the TREE plan consortium members, is very interested in developing this expertise as part of its new Sustainable Technologies Center, which also calls for advanced telecom connectivity. db dba | David Breecker Associates, Inc. Santa Fe: 505-690-2335 Abiquiu: 505-685-4891 www.BreeckerAssociates.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From BHarris at nmag.gov Tue Sep 9 14:12:18 2008 From: BHarris at nmag.gov (Harris, Brian, WEU NMAGO) Date: Tue, 9 Sep 2008 15:12:18 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] IT and Telecom Oversight Committee Sept. 18 - 19 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: TENTATIVE AGENDA for the FOURTH MEETING of the INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE September 18 and 19, 2008 Rio Rancho Thursday, September 18 10:00 a.m. Call to Order 10:10 a.m. Welcome 10:20 a.m. Status report from workgroup on DoIT Act Mark Duran, Chairman, Information Technology Commission Marlin Mackey, Acting Cabinet Secretary, DoIT Dr. Stephen Easley, Chief Information Officer, DPS 10:30 a.m. Report from DoIT Marlin Mackey, Acting Cabinet Secretary, DoIT 12:00 p.m. Lunch 1:00 p.m. SHARE enterprise accounting Anthony Armijo, Director Financial Control Division, DFA, State Controller 1:45 p.m. Telecommunications infrastructure WireNM - Elisa Storie, Deputy Cabinet Secretary, DoIT Leo Baca, Director Government Affairs, QWEST Dennis Pappas, Director Network Operations, QWEST Charles Ferrell Michael Ripperger, Telecommunications Bureau Chief, New Mexico Public Regulation Commission 3:30 p.m. Homeland Security - Interoperable Communication John Martinez, DHSEM 4:00 p.m. Adjourn Friday, September 19 10:00 a.m. Call to Order 10:10 a.m. Supercomputing facility initiative Dr. Thomas Bowles, Science Advisor, Office of the Governor 12:00 p.m. Lunch 1:00 p.m. Electronic content management of state records Sandra Jaramillo, State Records Administrator, SRCA Angela Lucero, Director, Records Management Division, SRCA 1:45 p.m. IT infrastructure related to Permitting / regulation / inspection systems Dana Tidwell, Chief Information Officer, Regulatrion and Licensing Department 2:45 p.m. HSD and CYFD service systems Terri Gomez, Chief Information Officer, Human Services Department Crawford Spooner, Chief Information Officer, Children, Youth and Families Department 3:15 p.m. Legislation to draft 3:45 p.m. Adjourn There is a possibility that some legislation will be discussed. Here are the members of the committee. Present Sen. John Arthur Smith, Chair Rep. Debbie A. Rodella, Vice Chair Rep. Janice E. Arnold-Jones Sen. Linda M. Lopez Sen. Richard C. Martinez Rep. Don L. Tripp Rep. Luciano "Lucky" Varela Rep. Peter Wirth Sen. Rod Adair Sen. Vernon D. Asbill Rep. Richard D. Vigil Advisory Members Sen. Carlos R. Cisneros Rep. Kathy A. McCoy Sen. Gerald Ortiz y Pino Sen. William H. Payne Rep. Jeannette O. Wallace Sen. Mark Boitano Sen. Pete Campos Sen. Kent L. Cravens Sen. Phil A. Griego Staff Ralph Vincent, Legislative Council Service (LCS) Doug Williams, LCS Brian Harris AAG 827-7479 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From BHarris at nmag.gov Tue Sep 9 15:12:03 2008 From: BHarris at nmag.gov (Harris, Brian, WEU NMAGO) Date: Tue, 9 Sep 2008 16:12:03 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] IT and Telecom Oversight Committee Sept. 18- 19 In-Reply-To: <48C696D2.7261.0068.0@salud.unm.edu> Message-ID: >Dale Alverson asked: Do you think that want a briefing on the FCC Rural Health Care Pilot Program award, the Southwest Telehealth Access Grid; a $15.5 million project being lead by UNM Center for Telehealth?--Dale Alverson< >John Brown asked: CityLink would like to also provide a quick brief<<< The staff member Mr. Vincent indicates that the agenda is full but that there may be time to talk about it at future meetings or at the end of the current one. Here is a link to the Oversight Committee's webpage. http://legis.state.nm.us/lcs/committeedetail.asp?CommCode=ITOC Please note that it is part of the NM State Legislature, and I am not an employee. I merely passed on this agenda to spread the word. Brian Harris 827-7479 >>> "Harris, Brian, WEU NMAGO" 9/9/2008 3:12 PM >>> TENTATIVE AGENDA for the FOURTH MEETING of the INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE September 18 and 19, 2008 Rio Rancho Thursday, September 18 10:00 a.m. Call to Order 10:10 a.m. Welcome 10:20 a.m. Status report from workgroup on DoIT Act Mark Duran, Chairman, Information Technology Commission Marlin Mackey, Acting Cabinet Secretary, DoIT Dr. Stephen Easley, Chief Information Officer, DPS 10:30 a.m. Report from DoIT Marlin Mackey, Acting Cabinet Secretary, DoIT 12:00 p.m. Lunch 1:00 p.m. SHARE enterprise accounting Anthony Armijo, Director Financial Control Division, DFA, State Controller 1:45 p.m. Telecommunications infrastructure WireNM - Elisa Storie, Deputy Cabinet Secretary, DoIT Leo Baca, Director Government Affairs, QWEST Dennis Pappas, Director Network Operations, QWEST Charles Ferrell Michael Ripperger, Telecommunications Bureau Chief, New Mexico Public Regulation Commission 3:30 p.m. Homeland Security - Interoperable Communication John Martinez, DHSEM 4:00 p.m. Adjourn Friday, September 19 10:00 a.m. Call to Order 10:10 a.m. Supercomputing facility initiative Dr. Thomas Bowles, Science Advisor, Office of the Governor 12:00 p.m. Lunch 1:00 p.m. Electronic content management of state records Sandra Jaramillo, State Records Administrator, SRCA Angela Lucero, Director, Records Management Division, SRCA 1:45 p.m. IT infrastructure related to Permitting / regulation / inspection systems Dana Tidwell, Chief Information Officer, Regulatrion and Licensing Department 2:45 p.m. HSD and CYFD service systems Terri Gomez, Chief Information Officer, Human Services Department Crawford Spooner, Chief Information Officer, Children, Youth and Families Department 3:15 p.m. Legislation to draft 3:45 p.m. Adjourn There is a possibility that some legislation will be discussed. Here are the members of the committee. Present Sen. John Arthur Smith, Chair Rep. Debbie A. Rodella, Vice Chair Rep. Janice E. Arnold-Jones Sen. Linda M. Lopez Sen. Richard C. Martinez Rep. Don L. Tripp Rep. Luciano "Lucky" Varela Rep. Peter Wirth Sen. Rod Adair Sen. Vernon D. Asbill Rep. Richard D. Vigil Advisory Members Sen. Carlos R. Cisneros Rep. Kathy A. McCoy Sen. Gerald Ortiz y Pino Sen. William H. Payne Rep. Jeannette O. Wallace Sen. Mark Boitano Sen. Pete Campos Sen. Kent L. Cravens Sen. Phil A. Griego Staff Ralph Vincent, Legislative Council Service (LCS) Doug Williams, LCS Brian Harris AAG 827-7479 From rl at 1st-mile.com Wed Sep 10 11:08:55 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 11:08:55 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] FCC Moves Closer to Regulating the Internet Message-ID: <20080910110855.7d8rq103lco44g8k@www2.dcn.org> FCC Moves Closer to Regulating the Internet www.techlawjournal.com/internet/80908.htm (September 8, 1998) The Federal Communications Commission released a lengthy report on Thursday, September 4, which suggests that the FCC ought to regulate Internet access provided by cable operators such as @Home, Road Runner, Cablevision, and MediaOne. This is the second major policy statement by the FCC this year that seeks to expand its regulatory reach from telecommunications services into computer and Internet services. The Congress, courts, and until recently, the FCC, have held to a distinction between "telecommunication services" and "information services" (also referred to as "basic" and "enhanced," respectively). The former are subject to FCC regulation -- the latter are not. The FCC maintains in this Report that it still adheres to this dichotomy. However, it seeks to redefine certain information services as telecommunications services. The Report argues too that with technological convergence "it will become increasingly difficult to maintain that particular facilities are 'cable' as opposed to 'telecommunications'." And because of this, existing "regulatory categories," claims the Report, "must necessarily collapse of their own weight in the digital communications world of tomorrow." The paper released last week is entitled "Internet Over Cable: Defining the Future in Terms of the Past: FCC Staff Working Paper on Regulatory Categories and the Internet." It was written by Barbara Esbin, Associate Bureau Chief of the Cable Services Bureau, in conjunction with FCC's Office of Plans and Policy (OPP). The Report asserts that its purpose is to start a debate: "This working paper is intended to stimulate discussion and critical comment on these significant issues and their consequences." "The issue of the regulatory status of Internet-based services provided by cable operators over their cable systems arises as a result of revisions to the definition of 'cable services' contained in the 1996 Act," states the Report. The argument that the FCC has authority to regulate Internet access provided by cable operators rests largely on a very minor two word amendment to the definition of "cable service" contained in the 1996 Telecommunications Act. 1984 Cable Act defined cable service as "the one-way transmission to subscribers of video programming or other programming service, and subscriber interaction, if any, which is required for the selection of such video programming or other programming service." The words "one-way transmission" have long been understood to mean that Internet access, which involves interactive two-way communication, is not covered by the 1984 Cable Act. Moreover, the definition of "video programming" as "programming provided by, or generally considered comparable to programming provided by, a television station" would seemingly exclude Internet content from the 1984 Cable Act. However, the 1996 Telecom Act modified the definition of "cable service" by inserting the words "or use," so that the definition now reads, "the one-way transmission to subscribers of video programming or other programming service, and subscriber interaction, if any, which is required for the selection or use of such video programming or other programming service." The Report also contends that the changing nature of the Internet, particularly its assertion that it is becoming increasingly like TV, warrants regulating cable based Internet access like old fashioned cable TV monopolies. Politics of FCC Regulation The FCC is a Byzantine bureaucracy which was created to oversee certain monopolies, including what was once "the phone company," and limited access industries, such as analog broadcast TV and radio, for which there is very limited spectrum. The 1984 Cable Act extended FCC authority to one-way cable transmission of TV programming. While the Congress has recently been intent upon deregulating many of the industries regulated by the FCC, as evidenced by passage of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, the FCC has been delaying or evading implementation of many elements 1996 Act. In contrast, the FCC, as evidenced by the April 10 Report to Congress, and this Report on cable based Internet access, is attempting to extend its regulatory reach into competitive industries. While FCC many personnel would like to preserve and extent their power, the FCC is not acting in isolation. Many telecommunications monopolies which have long been regulated are quite comfortable with the old arrangements. One of their responses to new and unregulated technologies which threaten their position is to prod and lobby the FCC to extend its regulatory reach over these new competitors. The purpose is to restrain or burden them, to make them less competitive. The National Cable Television Association, which represents old media one-way cable monopolies, urged the FCC to regulate cable based Internet services provided over cable systems by cable operators. Similarly, old line analog telephone companies, which rely heavily on public switched telephone networks, have long urged the FCC to regulate the packet switched Internet Protocol telephony service providers. Also, those who benefit from FCC regulation have generally lobbied the FCC to expand its authority. For example, recipients of universal service subsidies want to see the pool of contributors to the universal service fund grow. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Mon Sep 15 10:56:45 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 10:56:45 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Why Broadband Matters? Message-ID: <20080915105645.im7o8nc9gc40gc8s@www2.dcn.org> >From the Benton Foundation: http://tinyurl.com/5jpza4 Why Broadband Matters? Charles Benton The Senate Commerce Committee meets September 16 to hear testimony on the consumer benefits of broadband service. The question of the day is Why Broadband Matters? I could offer a long list of reasons why broadband matters, but the list of reasons is too long to enumerate here because it is over 305 million names long. Broadband matters for every American. Broadband matters... For Families. Broadband is changing the way families learn, communicate, play and prepare for their future. Critically important information about health care, scholarships, colleges, jobs, and community life such as driver's licenses or registering to vote is increasingly on the Internet, and sometimes only on the Internet. For Consumers. The Internet is already transforming the way we live, work, and play. 31 billion emails are now sent each day. More than 12.4 million Americans telecommute full-time, and already more than 14 million Americans have placed a telephone call over the Internet. But the best is yet ahead. For Rural Americans. Nowhere is broadband opportunity as profound as it is in rural America. In too many rural communities, because jobs have migrated to urban areas, high school graduates often feel they have only two choices - go away, or go nowhere. Broadband is the connection to new markets, new jobs, and to distant family and friends. For People with Disabilities. Broadband is an especially promising technology for the 54 million Americans with disabilities -- able to provide breakthrough new benefits not possible in today's legacy phone network. As all Americans increasingly depend on e-mail and the Internet to work and communicate, it becomes even more important to ensure that people with disabilities are not left out of the digital revolution. For Seniors. Policies designed to accelerate the use of broadband could save seniors more than $800 billion by reducing health care costs. These benefits are as substantial as what the federal government is likely to spend on homeland security over the next 25 years, and under the right set of policies, could exceed what the United States currently spends annually for health care for all its citizens. For the Economy. Ubiquitously available broadband could unleash: * an estimated $500 billion in economic growth * create more than 1.2 million high-wage jobs * restore America's global competitiveness * boost business productivity -- which is essential to raising standards of living for all families in America * allow small businesses to reach global markets For Homeland Security. In a study of the communications failures on September 11, 2001, the National Academies of Science found that the Internet held up better than other communications technologies on that fateful day. On 9/11, 95% of cell phone calls at 11 a.m. failed to get through, the central office for the phone system cut off 300,000 landline phones, television stations were knocked off the air, and police and Fire Department radios failed. In contrast, only 2% of Internet addresses remained off-line for an extended period. 9/11 demonstrated the Internet's overall resilience to attacks thru its flexibility, and adaptability. But 7 years after 9/11, America has not done enough to advance the broadband Internet technologies that can help avoid future communications failures. For Public Safety. Katrina, another catastrophic communications failure, highlighted once again how fragile and woefully outdated the emergency communications system in this country has become. During Katrina, 38 Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPS) failed preventing 911 calls from being answered -- which public safety leaders say could have been avoided if they had switched to IP based voice and data communication. Connecting public safety answering points to broadband, like we've connected schools and libraries, is the new post-Katrina communications imperative. For Government. Universal broadband could also have important advantages for the government itself, allowing government workers to communicate in more geographically-dispersed locations in an emergency. In the event of a major 9/11-type attack on Washington, offices could be inaccessible but employees will still need to communicate. Federal workers using broadband enabled phones could immediately work from home or other broadband enabled location -- improving continuity of government. Many government agencies are already making the switch to broadband enabled voice services, but without broadband at home, workers can't connect. Luckily, the Senate's hearing focuses on people rather than pipes. Because even as we come to recognize that broadband networks are the essential communications medium of the 21st century, those who could benefit the most from this economically empowering technology are also those most likely to be left without access because of where they live or how much money they make. The Senate hearing will undoubtedly reach this answer: universal, affordable broadband access is as important to the advancement of the American ideal of equal opportunity in the 21st century as universal access to education and universal phone service was in the last. As broadband becomes more critical for everything from jobs, to education and even participation in modern campaigns - millions do not have access to affordable high-speed broadband - or any broadband choices at all. We have made great progress in extending broadband's reach, but, unfortunately, America faces a lingering broadband gap that is unlikely to be bridged by market forces alone. Now is the time for government leadership -- for making broadband as universal as telephone service is today and bringing its benefits to all Americans as soon as possible. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Thu Sep 25 16:27:07 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2008 16:27:07 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] USDA Rural Broadband Loans: Penasco Valley Telephone Coop Message-ID: <20080925162707.c3ab0rf73kskkwwg@www2.dcn.org> USDA Rural Broadband Loans www.usda.gov/wps/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB?contentidonly=true&contentid=2008/09/0238.xml USDA ANNOUNCES $342 MILLION IN RURAL BROADBAND, TELECOMMUNICATIONS LOANS New Mexico?s Penasco Valley Telephone Cooperative to receive $28,438,000 WASHINGTON, September 24, 2008 - Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer today announced that broadband and telecommunications loans totaling more than $342 million are being awarded to 18 communications firms serving 22 states. The funds will help bring new and improved telecommunications services to rural residents and businesses. "Providing state-of-the-art communications services in rural areas promotes business development, increases job opportunities and improves access to educational services," Schafer said. "The funding announced today will provide more rural Americans with high-quality, affordable broadband services." The loans are being made through the Rural Development Broadband Loan and Loan Guarantee Program, which provides low-interest loans to deploy broadband and telecommunications services to rural communities of 20,000 residents or less, with first priority going to areas without broadband. Rural Development is also providing funding through the Telecommunications Infrastructure Loan Program, which makes loans to local firms working to provide both voice and broadband services in areas with 5,000 or fewer citizens. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Mon Sep 29 15:59:46 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2008 15:59:46 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Senate Passes Broadband Data Improvement Act Message-ID: <20080929155946.e77gxqntkw80c8cs@www2.dcn.org> >From the Benton Foundation http://benton.org/node/17378?utm_campaign=Benton%27s+Headlines&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=2008/09/29/nid-17386& September 29, 2008 Senate Passes Broadband Data Improvement Act Source: US Senate Commerce Committee On Friday, the Senate passed S. 1492, the Broadband Data Improvement Act, which seeks to improve the quality of federal broadband data collection and encourages state initiatives that promote broadband deployment. The Broadband Data Improvement Act specifically would: 1. Direct the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to conduct inquiries into the deployment of advanced telecommunications services on an annual, rather than periodic, basis. 2. Direct the Census Bureau to include a question in its American Community Survey that assesses levels of residential computer use and dial-up versus broadband Internet subscribership. 3. Direct the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to develop broadband metrics that may be used to provide consumers with broadband connection cost and capability information and improve the process of comparing the deployment and penetration of broadband in the United States with other countries. 4. Direct the Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy to conduct a study evaluating the impact of broadband speed and price on small businesses. 5. Establish a program that would provide matching grants to State non-profit, public-private partnerships in support of efforts to more accurately identify barriers to broadband adoption throughout the State. Links to Sources Senate Passes Broadband Data Improvement Act http://commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_id=3bf3c95b-db08-4ba8-8f82-57fb0cc067da&Month=9&Year=2008 -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From pete at ideapete.com Tue Sep 30 11:06:04 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2008 12:06:04 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Economic Disequilibrium or How Complexity Science nearly killed America Message-ID: <48E26A8C.2050004@ideapete.com> http://www.make-digital.com/make/vol15/?pg=173 Here is a beautiful article by George Dyson that is truly one of the clearest examples of the current problems with complexity theory especially its relationship to economics , what it is trying to do and what it actually did with the mess created on wall street it should make every every CTO and CEO sit up and shudder. Basically the credit models created by complexity science geniuses, that are the foundation of most high flying arbitrage financial houses, created there own version of reality that had very little relevance to the real world. These same geniuses made enormous amounts of money by designing this fake world and convincing there neophyte non tech masters they should be paid millions for its discovery conveniently forgetting that its roots were firmly built in fiction Someone shouts the Emperor has no clothes and presto the whole house comes tumbling down The FBI is also apparently digging into this cesspool so expect to see a large number of these bright software phds entering federal prison in the not to distant future It also has relevance to the scary statement by Janet Wing at the institute when she said that future computer models need not be grounded in reality but could create there own. Think also on the connection that not only are these complex models non verifiable but so are most databases and agent modeling systems. Without easy verifiability I would submit they are worse than useless As Dyson points out the tally sticks " stocks" that where used in the 13th century are far superior to the billions of dollars of hardware and software used today. A stick " Stock " lived in the real world and was verifiable at the lowest level of inspection. Sadly today our complex system have proved to be totally non verifiable with the associated collapse of trust. Its also a stark example to our 1st mile friends about the higher relevance of what goes into the pipe rather than the pipe itself and why hi speed verification of what is happening in the real world is so much more important The quicker we realize that the raison d'etre of the digital world is to improve the quality of life and include some moral directives in our work based in reality the more we will be able to sleep at night ( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Wed Oct 1 20:05:16 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2008 21:05:16 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Telecom Knockout - Forbes.com Message-ID: <48E43A6C.8030900@ideapete.com> Wonderful here we go again http://www.forbes.com/magazines/forbes/2008/1013/064.html ( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Thu Oct 2 10:44:06 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2008 11:44:06 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Sprint's WiMax efforts doomed to failure? | News - Wireless - CNET News Message-ID: <48E50866.5050509@ideapete.com> http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10056030-94.html -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Thu Oct 2 11:15:21 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2008 12:15:21 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] 1Gbps Fibre-Optic Service Arrives in Japan on October 1 - Gizmodo Australia Message-ID: <48E50FB9.5020006@ideapete.com> http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2008/09/1gbps_fiberoptic_service_arrives_in_japan_on_october_1-2.html For $56 bucks a month I have a Yen for it ( Ouch ) ( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From john at citylinkfiber.com Thu Oct 2 11:44:04 2008 From: john at citylinkfiber.com (John Brown) Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2008 12:44:04 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] 1Gbps Fibre-Optic Service Arrives in Japan on October 1 - Gizmodo Australia In-Reply-To: <48E50FB9.5020006@ideapete.com> References: <48E50FB9.5020006@ideapete.com> Message-ID: <48E51674.20207@citylinkfiber.com> And GigE to the house is being deployed in Albuquerque now. I like Cogent's CEO :) peter wrote: > http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2008/09/1gbps_fiberoptic_service_arrives_in_japan_on_october_1-2.html > > > For $56 bucks a month I have a Yen for it ( Ouch ) > > ( : ( : pete > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm From mike.byrnes at enmu.edu Thu Oct 2 12:39:43 2008 From: mike.byrnes at enmu.edu (Mike Byrnes) Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2008 13:39:43 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] 1Gbps Fibre-Optic Service Arrives in Japan on October 1 - Gizmodo Australia In-Reply-To: <48E51674.20207@citylinkfiber.com> References: <48E50FB9.5020006@ideapete.com> <48E51674.20207@citylinkfiber.com> Message-ID: <47FF0A3D62C64ADEB1151042D080A7CE@sbdctablet1> John: Hmmm... Are you sure? All I find is a 'place-holder' website at www.citylinkfiber.com. What's the status of GigE deployment in Albuquerque? Are there any customers online yet? Mike -----Original Message----- From: 1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org [mailto:1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org] On Behalf Of John Brown Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2008 12:44 PM To: peter Cc: 1st-Mile-NM Subject: Re: [1st-mile-nm] 1Gbps Fibre-Optic Service Arrives in Japan on October 1 - Gizmodo Australia And GigE to the house is being deployed in Albuquerque now. I like Cogent's CEO :) peter wrote: > http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2008/09/1gbps_fiberoptic_service_arrives_in_japan_ on_october_1-2.html > > > For $56 bucks a month I have a Yen for it ( Ouch ) > > ( : ( : pete > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm _______________________________________________ 1st-mile-nm mailing list 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm From granoff at zianet.com Thu Oct 2 17:32:49 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2008 18:32:49 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: 10.2.8 Message-ID: <20081003003255.44A8D2BA9@velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us> From another list. FYI. >Massive AT&T Reorganization, Possible Layoffs? - >Nation's biggest ISP responds to markets, cable competition , dslreports >AT&T this week announced they're feeling the >strain of the credit crunch, with Chairman and >CEO Randall Stephenson saying the company was >unable to sell any commercial paper (short term >IOU notes) last week for terms longer than >overnight. The company this week also announced >that they've undergone a major reorganization in >order to respond more quickly to cable >competition. Managers tell GigaOM privately that >they're expecting layoffs between 5% and 20% >before long, thanks to declining landline > >http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Massive-ATT-Reorganization-Possible-Layoffs-98143 From rl at 1st-mile.com Mon Oct 6 08:52:44 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 08:52:44 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Annenberg scholars evaluate political differences on technology Message-ID: <20081006085244.kq52ch7q2oocs00k@www2.dcn.org> Annenberg scholars evaluate political differences on technology http://arnic.info/policywatch.php Annenberg Research Network on International Communications Campaign 2008: USC Annenberg Technology and Media Policy Watch Sept. 30 Ernest J. Wilson, Dean, Annenberg School For Communication An informed citizenry is the basis of a robust democracy. This was true at the founding of our American republic, and it is even more true today. That information and data are multiplying is beyond dispute. We have more channels, more information and more data available to us than ever before. It is less clear that their distant cousins ? knowledge and wisdom- are growing apace. Because this is a presidential election year, citizen-voters should have access to the best contextualized knowledge available as they make their decision about who will govern their country for the next four years. The Annenberg School for Communication is committed to fostering knowledge in the public interest, especially as it intersects with our specialty domains of media, journalism and communications. In the spirit of contributing to the public debate and to the commonweal of the nation, we offer the results of a modest project undertaken by our faculty and students to compare and contrast the positions of the Republican and Democratic candidates for president and their parties, in this critical policy domain. We do not pretend that these are the only important communications policy issues; there are certainly others. We view this is a start to help the public and the press navigate the sometimes murky waters of net neutrality, media concentration and other topics. CANDIDATES' OFFICIAL PLATFORMS Barack Obama John McCain TOPICS Media Ownership and Consolidation Ownership by Women and People of Color Public Service Media in the New Digital Landscape Universal Broadband and America's Digital Decline Network Neutrality Copyright, Patents, Access to Knowledge -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Mon Oct 6 08:54:28 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 08:54:28 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Broadband Data Bill Faces Implementation Hurdles Message-ID: <20081006085428.7x1huq8ko4s44sww@www2.dcn.org> Broadband Data Bill Faces Implementation Hurdles www.publicknowledge.org/node/1780 By Art Brodsky on October 3, 2008 Public Knowledge Sometime next year, the new Administration will start to figure out a plan for collecting information about where broadband is, and how to increase deployment. The delay will be necessary because while Congress passed the bill to improve broadband data collection, S. 1492, there isn?t any money actually set aside to pay for the program. Until appropriations bills are passed for the next fiscal year, FY 2010, which starts Oct. 1, 2009, there won?t be any money. As a result, it could be calendar year 2010 before any program gets going. The bill is a worthwhile first step, because it puts Congress on record as wanting more information about broadband. For taking that step alone, the bill?s sponsor, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Inouye (D-HI), should be commended, along with House Telecom Subcommittee Chairman Markey (D-MA), who sponsored a similar bill in the House but supported Inouye?s measure to prevent a legislative deadlock and make certain legislation passed this year. The legislation is by no means a broadband policy any more than a thermometer is a cure for an illness. Having some measurement of a problem is good. However, there are some parts to the bill that raise questions about how effective the data mapping and broadband cheerleading in the bill will be. However, the advantage of having such a delay in implementation is that there will be lots of work to be done in order to make this program useful. One of the big obstacles in the bill is that, being backed by the Communications Workers of America and others who work with state-based groups like the Connected Nation franchise, the bill relies to a great degree on state-based organizations to collect information, which could lead to problems later on. The legendary U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said in 1932 that, ?a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.? However, in carrying the analogy of the states as laboratories a little further, if one laboratory boils water at 212 degrees Fahrenheit, and another laboratory boils water at 500 degrees, then there will be severe problems comparing the results of experiments. By having a state-based approach, rather than a uniform Federal approach, the data collection effort runs the risk of having a variety of information and narratives that can?t be used to put together a complete picture to track the availability and adoption of broadband. Unless one state can be compared with another, it will be impossible to assemble a uniform picture. That means the Commerce Department, which will be responsible for the grants, may have to impose some uniformity through the grant-making process. In collecting state-based data, the broadband inventory will become different from any other essential economic statistic. Everything else is collected by the Federal government. If this experiment doesn?t produce useful data in a couple of years, Congress should go back and start over. On top of the fact that there will be 50 different approaches, unless the federal government imposes some uniformity, another severe challenge to the success of the program will be the quality of the information collected under the plan. Although the FCC collects its own information, the legislation requires states to ?identify and track? several key indicators, including areas that are low in broadband deployment as well as adoption rate. Start with the 50-state approach, which may or may not allow for comparisons. A more basic issue is what type of information will be collected. The legislation is chock full of exemptions and protections for an industry that doesn?t like to submit any useful information, or to have that information made public. Only ?aggregate data? can be used, and any data that is ?privileged or confidential? can be kept secret. Exactly how useful will that information be? We?ll have to wait and see, but anyone who wants to try to find a certain street or address to check if broadband is available and if so, at what speeds and price, won?t have much luck. At the end of August, Fla. Attorney Gen. Bill McCollum hit Comcast with a $150,000 fine for cutting off customers who supposedly used too much data. It turned out that Comcast simply cut off the top 1,000 customers who used the most data. A relevant question would be ? exactly how much data did those people use? If that number is substantially above the 250 gb/month cap Comcast slapped on users, then policymakers could know a little more about Comcast?s network and policies. Comcast went to court asking for that data to be protected as confidential information and a trade secret. Comcast told the court it wanted to protect internal memos on acceptable use policies, ?confidential reports compiling sensitive excessive-use data on Comcast?s Internet subscribers,? proprietary marketing agreements and communications plans for addressing ?excessive use.? Comcast said that if McCollum?s office is ?permitted to provide third parties with these documents, Comcast will lose its unique business advantage and will suffer an irreparable harm to its business.? In a one-page order issued Oct. 1, Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Thomas Wilson granted the protective order. Comcast has opposed release of information before. Earlier this year in the Maryland legislature, Del. Herman Taylor (D-14th district) introduced a bill requiring carriers to report where they offered broadband service. Comcast opposed the legislation based on national security considerations. While defending the need for protecting proprietary information, Comcast lobbyist Sean Looney testified that ?9/11 wasn?t that long ago. We don?t want to make it easier for them to take out the network.? He added that the legislation requiring fuller disclosure could point to where vital public safety resources were, particularly in the wireless network. Verizon and its wireless affiliate also opposed the bill, saying the burdens of reporting were so great that investment in the company?s network would be stifled. So by all means, proceed with the state-based booster groups the bill would set up, and with the attempts at data collection. At this point, however, the likely outcomes are very uncertain. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From pete at ideapete.com Sun Oct 12 14:12:58 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2008 15:12:58 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO what is data anyway Message-ID: <48F2685A.5050901@ideapete.com> On the quest of how truth / morality and honesty drive data ( or not ) I came across this priceless quotation which I though I would share. Call me nuts but it makes so much sense QUOTATION: There is a tendency to mistake data for wisdom, just as there has always been a tendency to confuse logic with values, intelligence with insight. Unobstructed access to facts can produce unlimited good only if it is matched by the desire and ability to find out what they mean and where they lead. Facts are terrible things if left sprawling and unattended. They are too easily regarded as evaluated certainties rather than as the rawest of raw materials crying to be processed into the texture of logic. It requires a very unusual mind, Whitehead said, to undertake the analysis of a fact. The computer can provide a correct number, but it may be an irrelevant number until judgment is pronounced. ATTRIBUTION: Norman Cousins (1912--1990), U.S. editor, author. "Freedom as Teacher," Human Options: An Autobiographical Notebook, Norton (1981) ( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Thu Oct 16 12:06:57 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2008 12:06:57 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Beset by Large Rural Areas, Arizona Aims to Blend Broadband Data Sources Message-ID: <20081016120657.rh563s9d0k4ws8c4@www2.dcn.org> Following is the BroadbandCensus report on Arizona. There are links at the bottom of the web site report, to various Arizona initiatives and state broadband related reports. http://broadbandcensus.com/blog/?p=858 Beset by Large Rural Areas, Arizona Aims to Blend Broadband Data Sources Broadband Census Arizona By Drew Bennett, Special Correspondent, BroadbandCensus.com; and William G. Korver, Reporter, BroadbandCensus.com This is the 16th of a series of articles surveying the state of broadband, and broadband data, within each of the United States and its territories. October 15 ? ?Reliable, affordable access to high-capacity telecommunications infrastructure has become as essential as water, sewer, transportation and electricity service in creating healthy and successful communities in the 21st century.? So begins a 2007 report by the Arizona Department of Commerce, the ?Arizona Broadband Initiative Framework.? The report concludes: ?the opportunity for states to use ubiquitous broadband deployment as a competitive differentiator is quickly passing.? Further, ?the realization of broadband connectivity in parts of rural Arizona will not be accomplished by relying on normal market forces alone.? In sum, the report urges government officials and others to expand and enhance broadband networks in the southwestern state. Arizona is now setting off on a path that a handful of other U.S. states are already on. Officials in the Grand Canyon State sought to learn what other states have done to expand broadband services beyond those provided by market forces. The Arizona Telecommunications and Information Council (ATIC) is tasked with coordinating state, as well as public/private projects, to encourage wide-scale deployment and availability of broadband services. Initiatives include telemedicine projects, grants seeking federal funds to improve broadband and employment in rural areas, improved digital infrastructure in Native American tribal lands, and efforts to establish a broadband authority that could focus state funds on filling existing gaps in broadband access. One of the key infrastructure gaps that the state is seeking to fill arises in smaller, underserved communities in proximity to ?middle-mile? fiber lines that connect larger cities. The Arizona Broadband Connect Initiative, a project being developed by the Government Information Technology Agency (GITA) in cooperation with the state Department of Commerce, seeks to develop ?off-ramps? for these communities that would be owned by the towns and managed by carriers seeking to deliver the last mile of access. Members of ATIC estimate that 30 communities could benefit from such an approach. In order to pursue such an initiative, better and more complete information about the existing infrastructure is needed. ?We don?t think it?s enough just to know where the users are,? ATIC members have commented. ?It will also be useful to policy makers to know where the middle-mile is, where the towers are, and where the rights of way are.? GITA has undertaken a study of best practices in broadband data gathering and infrastructure mapping that looks both outward ? to comparable efforts in other states ?and inward: to diverse state agencies that could contribute to a full-scale broadband mapping project in Arizona. For example, the report compared the broadband mapping approaches of Colorado, which established a statewide public service network; the forging of a ?strong? executive through the establishment of a broadband authority in the Vermont Telecommunications Authority; and the creation of a ?public-private partnership,? such as the approaches taken by the states of North Carolina (through its e-NC Authority) and Kentucky, through its funding of Connected Nation, Inc. Through early results from the assessment study and a survey of officials in other states, GITA and members of ATIC have identified a number of sources that need to be part of any comprehensive data-gathering mission, including proprietary data that is commercially available for purchase, unique state resources, federal data, carrier-contributed information, and survey data focused on Arizona?s unique , geography and market. ATIC members refer to this diversified strategy on broadband data gathering as the ?blended approach? and believe that there is a great deal of information already at states? fingertips that can contribute significantly to a more accurate picture of existing broadband infrastructure. ATIC understands that resource constraints and restrictions on the distribution of information that is deemed proprietary or competitively-sensitive data will be just a few of the obstacles blocking the path toward accurate broadband data acquisition and information-sharing. Still, they aim to develop creative solutions to these problems. ?Each and every data source is imperfect in its own wonderful and at times maddening ways,? says Mark Goldstein, an ATIC member and the project manager of GITA?s broadband assessment study group. ?But my belief is that in the aggregate you can develop meaningful information.? Mark also believes that ?crowdsourcing? may be an important factor in this effort ? ?letting the public fact-check the data,? as he describes it, could help inform better policy that in turn delivers better broadband to the public. ATIC sources summed up what would be required of the state: ?in Arizona, the leadership and the will are needed?identifying key policies that have the backing of the legislature are major factors.? -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Thu Oct 16 13:36:36 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2008 13:36:36 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] NM Integrated Strategic Broadband Initiative: Report Message-ID: <20081016133636.l3g58kjx0c404s4s@www2.dcn.org> A couple of months ago, I noted on this list that Design Nine, Inc. was being contracted by the NM Computing Applications Center (and the Governor's Office) to produce a "New Mexico Integrated Strategic Broadband Initiative" Report, in order to substantiate some necessary and proposed statewide broadband actions. The Report has been submitted and is now available online in three .pdf sections, on the Design Nine web site. The main body of the Report includes a brief Executive Summary and Recommendations; followed by a statewide demographic-economic analysis; a rapid assessment of statewide broadband projects, players and considerations; and conclusions. The Appendix has two referenced sections: supporting documents and letters; and maps and diagrams. The entire Report is over 200 pages. http://www.designnine.com/work/NewMexicoStudy/ The Report was produced in a very short time frame. Surely, there is much that could or should have been included, which has not been. There may be some errors and other omissions. The Report does not make detailed recommendations, but rather suggests areas that need attention, consideration, coordination and actions. The primary recommendation is that a formal, more inclusive, phased process (Initiative) be undertaken immediately. Detailed recommendations and actions should emerge out of that process, not out of this consutants' Report. The State is already initiating some next step actions, based on the Report. This will hopefully be a 'living document', which can serve as the basis for further research, analysis and recommendations. Your help in this regard is appreciated. Please send me any comments or critiques, which may help us move forward more effectively. Progress will be reported on this list. Stay tuned. Thanks in advance. Richard -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From granoff at zianet.com Fri Oct 17 00:07:50 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2008 00:07:50 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] NM Integrated Strategic Broadband Initiative: Report In-Reply-To: <20081016133636.l3g58kjx0c404s4s@www2.dcn.org> References: <20081016133636.l3g58kjx0c404s4s@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: <20081017060437.38E4A2BD2@velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us> This report has major inaccuracies in the first paragraph of the executive summary. I hope no one paid these people to do this poor a job. Marianne Granoff At 01:36 PM 10/16/2008 -0700, Richard Lowenberg wrote: >A couple of months ago, I noted on this list that Design Nine, Inc. was being >contracted by the NM Computing Applications Center (and the Governor's Office) >to produce a "New Mexico Integrated Strategic Broadband Initiative" Report, in >order to substantiate some necessary and proposed statewide broadband actions. > >The Report has been submitted and is now available online in three .pdf >sections, on the Design Nine web site. The main body of the Report >includes a >brief Executive Summary and Recommendations; followed by a statewide >demographic-economic analysis; a rapid assessment of statewide broadband >projects, players and considerations; and conclusions. The Appendix has two >referenced sections: supporting documents and letters; and maps and >diagrams. >The entire Report is over 200 pages. > >http://www.designnine.com/work/NewMexicoStudy/ > >The Report was produced in a very short time frame. Surely, there >is much that >could or should have been included, which has not been. There may be some >errors and other omissions. The Report does not make detailed >recommendations, but rather suggests areas that need attention, consideration, >coordination and actions. The primary recommendation is that a formal, more >inclusive, phased process (Initiative) be undertaken immediately. Detailed >recommendations and actions should emerge out of that process, not out of this >consutants' Report. The State is already initiating some next step actions, >based on the Report. > >This will hopefully be a 'living document', which can serve as the basis for >further research, analysis and recommendations. Your help in this regard is >appreciated. Please send me any comments or critiques, which may >help us move >forward more effectively. Progress will be reported on this >list. Stay tuned. >Thanks in advance. >Richard > > >-- >Richard Lowenberg >1st-Mile Institute >P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 >505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell >rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com > >---------------------------------------------------------------- >This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. >_______________________________________________ >1st-mile-nm mailing list >1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > > >No virus found in this incoming message. >Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com >Version: 8.0.173 / Virus Database: 270.8.1/1728 - Release Date: >10/16/2008 7:38 AM -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Fri Oct 17 14:54:41 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2008 14:54:41 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: NM Integrated Strategic Broadband Initiative: Report Message-ID: <20081017145441.rlguevh36ok4s440@www2.dcn.org> Forwarded from subscriber Mike Byrnes. rl ----- Forwarded message from mike.byrnes at enmu.edu ----- Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2008 14:39:29 -0600 From: Mike Byrnes Reply-To: mike.byrnes at enmu.edu Subject: NM Integrated Strategic Broadband Initiative: Report To: 'Richard Lowenberg' , 1st-mile-nm-bounces at crank.dcn.davis.ca.us Marianne: Please help me understand the "major inaccuracies in the first paragraph of the executive summary" that you found. And, if you read further, what did you think of the rest of the report? The first paragraph of the Exec Summary says: "President Bush visiting Albuquerque in early 2004, called for "Broadband for all by 2007". Early in 2007, noting lack of action, FCC Commissioner, Michael J Copps, announced that. "The United States is the only developed country in the world without a Broadband Strategy." A quick Google search turned up the following: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/03/20040326-9.html "This country needs a national goal for broadband technology, for the spread of broadband technology. We ought to have a universal, affordable access for broadband technology by the year 2007, and then we ought to make sure as soon as possible thereafter, consumers have got plenty of choices when it comes to purchasing the broadband carrier. See, the more choices there are, the more the price will go down. And the more the price goes down, the more users there will be. And the more users there will be, the more likely it is America will stay on the competitive edge of world trade." And 4/23/07 Copps Reiterates Call for a National Broadband Strategy to Address America's Drop in Broadband Rankings. Word | Acrobat April 23, 2007 Commissioner Copps Reiterates Call for a National Broadband Strategy to Address America's Drop in Broadband Rankings In response to the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development's announcement today that the United States has fallen in its country-by-country ranking of broadband penetration, Commissioner Michael J. Copps issued the following statement: "Every year brings more bad news as the United States slides farther down the broadband rankings. It's a national embarrassment and the only way to change it is to develop a broadband strategy like every other industrialized nation has already done. These rankings aren't a beauty contest - they're about our competitiveness as a country and creating economic opportunity for all our people. Bringing high-speed broadband to every corner of the country is the central infrastructure challenge we face. Always in the past, our nation found ways to stay ahead of everyone else in building infrastructure like turnpikes, railroads and highways. Now, in broadband, we're not even an also-ran." --------------------------------- On Fri, 10/17/08, Marianne Granoff wrote: From: Marianne Granoff Subject: Re: [1st-mile-nm] NM Integrated Strategic Broadband Initiative: Report To: "Richard Lowenberg" , 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org Date: Friday, October 17, 2008, 1:07 AM This report has major inaccuracies in the first paragraph of the executive summary. I hope no one paid these people to do this poor a job. Marianne Granoff Mike Byrnes mike.byrnes at enmu.edu Lincoln County SBDC 575-937-9593 ----- End forwarded message ----- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Sat Oct 18 14:20:33 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2008 14:20:33 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Qwest promotion ignites regulatory battle Message-ID: <20081018142033.aw65rah5t9kog80g@www2.dcn.org> http://albuquerque.bizjournals.com/albuquerque/stories/2008/10/20/story1.htm l?b=1224475200^1718194 Friday, October 17, 2008 Qwest promotion ignites regulatory battle New Mexico Business Weekly - by Kevin Robinson-Avila NMBW Staff In the old days, when Qwest Communications International enjoyed a near monopoly on phone service in New Mexico, the company had to fight state regulators when it wanted to increase prices. But now, with Qwest struggling to retain market share against growing competition from wireless and Internet phone companies, the aging Baby Bell is fighting with regulators over the right to lower prices. The battle began in early September, when the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission suspended a 90-day promotion by Qwest based on objections from Santa Fe's Cyber Mesa Telecom. Qwest wanted to offer three months of free service to new customers, and one month of free service for current Qwest customers who reject offers to switch to another phone company. Cyber Mesa, however, said Qwest was using its economic might to sell at below cost, and it accused Qwest of unfairly using its network control to learn about customers who want to switch phone companies and then entice them to retain their service with Qwest. Cyber Mesa President Jane Hill said such practices constitute unfair competition for her small company, which began offering phone service in Albuquerque, Santa Fe and some other cities after the 1996 Telecommunications Act opened the local market to competitors. "Under anti-trust laws, they can't just go in and undercut competition to get their monopoly back," Hill said. "Qwest is prohibited from selling regulated services at below cost." Hill said use of proprietary information to retain customers is also blatantly unfair. "If a customer decides to go with Cyber Mesa and we put in a request to switch the service, it's not fair for Qwest to then take that information to try to retain the customer," she said. Qwest adamantly denies it's selling at below cost, much less using its network control to unfair advantage. Mike Horcasitas, Qwest's local director for public policy, said Qwest customers who accept the offers for free service must sign a one-year contract with Qwest, which allows the company to recover its promotional costs. In addition, Qwest prohibits its wholesale managers in charge of phone switches from communicating with its sales reps about customers. "We use the same marketing lists that everybody else uses for our promotions," Horcasitas said. "The idea that when the wholesale group gets an order to disconnect and then we run to our sales reps to call the customer - that absolutely does not happen and we can prove it to the PRC." In fact, Horcasitas said Qwest has no objections to a PRC hearing, but it strongly objects to suspension of the 90-day promotion. The promotion should be allowed to take effect even as the investigation occurs," he said. "Cyber Mesa should have to demonstrate that harm has been done to get an immediate injunction." Qwest New Mexico President Loretta Armenta said the suspension is doing immense damage because the company loses thousands of customers every month to competitors like Comcast Corp., which began offering Internet phone service in Albuquerque last year. Qwest estimates it lost about 30,000 phone lines just in the first half of 2008, or about 5,000 per month. "We're losing customers every day, all day, because competitors are under-pricing us," Armenta said. "We don't begrudge consumers making smart decisions, but we're asking the PRC to let us make promotional offers like our competitors." PRC Chairman Jason Marks, however, said the Commission suspended the promotion because it came on the heels of a similar offer run by Qwest from June to September. Cyber Mesa already had objected to the first promotion without the PRC suspending it. Under current regulations, any adjustments to Qwest tariffs must be approved by the Commission, although the company can launch temporary promotions to compete with other businesses. But Marks said that running back-to-back promotions brings the "temporary" aspect into question. "It's becoming like glossed-over tariff reductions," Marks said. The PRC has appointed an examiner to investigate the issues and a public hearing is scheduled for Jan. 7. Marks said the hearing is critical to examine Cyber Mesa's objections, but it is also good for Qwest to establish greater clarity for future promotions. "We will resolve this in a way that's fair to everybody," Marks said. "We need to figure out what is the lowest price Qwest can offer in its efforts to retain customers. Once we have a floor established that is above cost, Qwest can freely move between the established floor and price ceilings." -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From josmon at rigozsaurus.com Sat Oct 18 14:53:48 2008 From: josmon at rigozsaurus.com (John Osmon) Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2008 15:53:48 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Qwest promotion ignites regulatory battle In-Reply-To: <20081018142033.aw65rah5t9kog80g@www2.dcn.org> References: <20081018142033.aw65rah5t9kog80g@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: <20081018215348.GN28423@rigozsaurus.com> [...] > "We're losing customers every day, all day, because competitors are > under-pricing us," Armenta said. "We don't begrudge consumers making smart > decisions, but we're asking the PRC to let us make promotional offers like > our competitors." Hmmm... Sounds like it is time for a regulatory change more than anything else. The mandate of the ILECs is to provide the infrastructure -- in the past that meant the both wire and voice service. In the past, you couldn't really separate the two easily. Now, the infrastructure (wire and fiber) is orthogonal to the service (voice). Why not let Qwest participate in the bounty that this creates? IXCs used to carry traffic between LATAs. Why not turn the ILECs into pure infratructure plays? They sell *access* to the folks selling the services -- on a level playing field. Qwest (voice servcies) could sell at any price they wanted. They'd be free to buy access to their customer via Qwest (regulated infrastructure), or any other infrastructure provider. The state would get to regulate *where* services are available -- the market would provide all the services as demand dictated... From granoff at zianet.com Sun Oct 19 11:42:07 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2008 12:42:07 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Qwest promotion ignites regulatory battle In-Reply-To: <20081018215348.GN28423@rigozsaurus.com> References: <20081018142033.aw65rah5t9kog80g@www2.dcn.org> <20081018215348.GN28423@rigozsaurus.com> Message-ID: <20081019184211.25EF12BF3@velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us> Well, the "infrastructure-only" idea is an approach favored by some, but it is not what we have today. The reason that Qwest and other large LECs cannot offer the "promotions" they wish, is that they have so much market power that they could easily under-price all the CLECs "temporarily" until the CLECs had no customers at all. Once Qwest or the other large LEC was the monopoly again, they could raise prices. Qwest is supposed to get approval for promotions. They filed the proposed tariff, Cybermesa said "no that's unfair", and the PRC will decide who is right in a docket. The PRC acts as judge and both sides get to present their sides. The PRC staff also investigates and presents information based on what they have found. That's the system we have today. This is the regulatory process at work. The media may call it a regulatory battle, but it happens every day over and over on different issues in all the regulated industries. Marianne At 03:53 PM 10/18/2008 -0600, John Osmon wrote: >[...] > > "We're losing customers every day, all day, because competitors are > > under-pricing us," Armenta said. "We don't begrudge consumers making smart > > decisions, but we're asking the PRC to let us make promotional offers like > > our competitors." > >Hmmm... Sounds like it is time for a regulatory change more than >anything else. > >The mandate of the ILECs is to provide the infrastructure -- in the past >that meant the both wire and voice service. In the past, you couldn't >really separate the two easily. Now, the infrastructure (wire and fiber) is >orthogonal to the service (voice). > >Why not let Qwest participate in the bounty that this creates? IXCs >used to carry traffic between LATAs. Why not turn the ILECs into pure >infratructure plays? They sell *access* to the folks selling the >services -- on a level playing field. > >Qwest (voice servcies) could sell at any price they wanted. They'd be >free to buy access to their customer via Qwest (regulated >infrastructure), or any other infrastructure provider. The state would >get to regulate *where* services are available -- the market would >provide all the services as demand dictated... > > > >_______________________________________________ >1st-mile-nm mailing list >1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > > >No virus found in this incoming message. >Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com >Version: 8.0.173 / Virus Database: 270.8.1/1732 - Release Date: >10/18/2008 6:01 PM From burge at proactive.to Mon Oct 20 12:25:14 2008 From: burge at proactive.to (Randy Burge) Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2008 13:25:14 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Obama commits to creating a national broadband cabinet-level CTO In-Reply-To: <20081019184211.25EF12BF3@velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us> Message-ID: The Short List for U.S. Chief Technology Officer Barack Obama has pledged to name a cabinet-level CTO to oversee a job-creating national broadband buildout if he's elected. Big names abound By Tom Lowry http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/oct2008/db20081019_25815 5.htm Barack Obama says that the U.S. is not doing nearly enough to create jobs through technology. Shortly after he launched his campaign, the Illinois Senator promised that if elected, he would create the first-ever Cabinet-level post of chief technology officer. The economic crisis has since made it certain that a White House CTO would become one of Obama's most important advisers, should he triumph in November. "Obama sees greater broadband penetration as an enormous economic engine, much like the railroads were a century ago," says Andrew D. Lipman, a veteran communications lawyer in Washington. "That is why the CTO will play such a critical role in any recovery plan." Among the candidates who would be considered for the job, say Washington insiders, are Vint Cerf, Google's (GOOG) "chief internet evangelist," who is often cited as one of the fathers of the Internet; Microsoft (MSFT) chief executive officer Steve Ballmer; Amazon (AMZN) CEO Jeffrey Bezos; and Ed Felten, a prominent professor of computer science and public affairs at Princeton University. An Obama campaign spokesman did not return phone calls seeking comment about potential CTO candidates. Obama?who has effectively used the Internet and social networks throughout his campaign to raise funds, engage voters, and put forward policy positions?has long criticized the Bush administration for not doing more to increase broadband penetration in the U.S., particularly in rural areas. The country ranked 15th among industrial nations in penetration, with a mere 23 out of 100 Americans having access to broadband service, according to a report released earlier this year by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. A White House CTO would be expected to help create incentive programs to expand broadband's reach, particularly tax credits for smaller carriers. But the tech czar would almost certainly be deeply involved in overseeing a federally-backed $50 billion venture capital fund that Obama has proposed to develop more environmentally friendly technology. [snip] http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/oct2008/db20081019_25815 5.htm From carroll at cagleandassociates.com Mon Oct 20 19:54:23 2008 From: carroll at cagleandassociates.com (Carroll Cagle) Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2008 20:54:23 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] New report on "Networked Families" by Pew Internet Project Message-ID: Networked Families "Some analysts have worried that new technologies hurt family togetherness, but we see that technology allows for new kinds of connectedness built around cell phones and the Internet. Family members touch base with each other frequently with their cell phones, and they use those phones to coordinate family life on the fly during their busy lives. ... A lot of families treat the Internet as a place for shared experiences. They don't just withdraw from the family to their own computer for private screen time. They often say, 'Hey -- look at this!' to others in the household." -- Tracy Kennedy, author of a new report called "Networked Families" based on the latest survey data from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/266/report_display.asp -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.gif Type: image/gif Size: 862 bytes Desc: not available URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Mon Oct 27 10:31:37 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 10:31:37 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Telehealth Report Message-ID: <20081027103137.it2sue1llwscgkgc@www2.dcn.org> >From BroadbandCensus: Telemedicine Could Save $197 Billion, But Only With ?Smart Networks? http://broadbandcensus.com/blog/?p=957 By Drew Clark, Editor, BroadbandCensus.com WASHINGTON, October 24 - Broadband-enabled improvements to health care could save $197 billion over 25 years, but only if carriers had the incentives and freedom to deploy so-called ?smart networks,? according a study financed by AT&T. Widespread broadband deployment would be necessary to achieve these savings, according to the study, report author Robert Litan, vice president of research and policy at the Kauffman Foundation. The 63-page report, ?Vital Signs Via Broadband: Remote Health Monitoring Transmits Savings, Enhances Lives,? was presented at a press briefing by Better Health Care Together. The group seeks comprehensive changes in the health care system. (The complete Report can be downloaded at: http://betterhealthcaretogether.org/study ) Senior citizens generally lag in technology adoption. But because they are likely to be the greatest beneficiaries of widespread broadband-enabled health monitoring, it may be necessary for the government to incentive broadband adoption if it wants to realize those savings, said Litan. Among the incentives that should be deployed, said Litan, are investments in internet education, rural broadband infrastructure and ?telecommunications policies that allow broadband providers to experiment with different offering that attract marginal users without sacrificing profits on other users,? according to a summary of recommendations. In his remarks, Litan said: ?We need not only a take-up of broadband, but a take-up of smart broadband, or smart networks.? ?You have to have a reliable service, and it has to be secure, unlike the videos that are interrupted,? he continued. ?The broadband provider has got to have the incentive that will allow for this.? Litan calculated the value that widespread adoption of telemedicine would, over 25 years, save the country $153 billion (in net present value). If, on the other hand, pro-provider telecommunications policies were adopted, an additional $44 billion of savings would be generated. He calculated the average gain for implementing these policies would be $1.75 billion per year. The basic idea is that more extensive use of telemonitoring ? or the remote transmission of vital signs over a telephone or internet connection ? can keep people out of hospitals and save health care costs. ?Remote monitoring technologies can transmit data on a regular, real time basis and prevent hospitalizations by identifying and treating problems by triggering adjustments in care before negative trends reach crisis stage,? Litan said in the report. Litan also said that privacy protections for telemonitoring should be no more restrictive in the broadband environment than they are in the real-world environment. Others speaking at the press conference included Joy Hoffman, executive director of Better Health Care Together, and Neal Neuberger, executive director of the Healthcare Information Management Systems Society?s Institute for e-Health Policy. Neuberger, addressing Litan?s study, said that many telemonitoring applications do not involve video transmission hence do not require super-fast broadband connections. Asked why ?smart networks? were therefor necessary to give priority to particular applications, Litan replied, ?you don?t need a lot of speed, but your need uninterrupted or continuous service. You need priority of service.? ?The ambulance has got to have the freeway, and be ahead of other types of applications,? Litan continued, using an analogy to a real-world highway. Besides AT&T, supporters of Better Health Care Together include the Center for American Progress, the Communications Workers of America, Embarq, Intel, Qwest and Wal-mart. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From pete at ideapete.com Mon Oct 27 11:02:29 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 12:02:29 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Subject:Grappa Wireless Internet In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <49060235.6030604@ideapete.com> Thanks Steve / Robert And everyone who has responded directly It would seem that they are using Motorola Canopy 800 system. In Rio Rancho our company did a bunch of tests with various 802.11 variants and even up to 802.20 Wi-max ( also FOS laser ) and we found some really curious issues with wireless up here in this part of NM such as 1. The faux adobe coatings on the majority of homes had chicken wire over the drywall and exterior coating to bond the plaster. This created a de facto Faraday cage effect and necessitated the use of a receptor booster amplifier as the only means of signal stability ( Best place for signal input device was on the roof structure about 4 feet above the roof clearing the up stand wall ) Attempts to use these buildings as reflectors ( Pool table type ) also fails for similar reasons. ( Different building structures perform better but you have to know that in advance ) 2. Line of site target accuracy issues and echoing was prevalent on all wireless systems except FOS with huge loss of signal ( The signal bends and warps in atmospheric changes ) 3. Weather related issues ( also seasonal ) affected all systems and deteriorated service by some 40 - 60% 4. No company at that time had run pre service due diligence ( In all seasons ) and none had mapped good / average / poor service areas ( Azulstar only tested the signal to truck mounted antennas with good line of site to the service transmitter no more than 1 mile from the central site and not to the customers service point - hence they went out of business when it did not work ) 5. No system could demonstrate good symmetrical performance average was ( performance quoted to actual = Down 60% --- Up 20 - 30% ) 6. Security issues were noted on all systems and interception of both down and up was fairly easy with open source products 7. Multiple issues where noted with signal interference between especially around electrical power high voltage transmission lines ( this rocketed in winter rain and adverse weather conditions and it would seem that the magnetic field of the lines shifts in bad weather and even sunspot type phases ) All the above basically means that the field crews that support wireless must be constantly adjusting the system parameters to make it work an expensive proposition. The added point is that once the issues are understood you can boost the service in huge ways ( Including compression bursts and bit torrent type support ) especially if you are using the system to monitor the system and set realistic goals and know the type of service that the customer really wants. Curious to get comments and further feedback ( : ( : pete > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > Subject: > Re: [FRIAM] Grappa Wireless Internet > From: > Steve Smith > Date: > Sun, 26 Oct 2008 15:18:43 -0600 > To: > The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > > To: > The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > > > Robert Holmes wrote: >> Charming people but their internet service sucks. My connection from >> them is currently running at about 300K instead of the 1.5M I'm >> paying for ($70 per month). > I'm on a similar Motorola 600Mhz System run by the San Ildefonso > corporation Tewacom.com and have a similar experience (paying > $60/month). My service varies from 0-1.5M with ~.3M typical. I get > almost total dropouts for minutes at a time. They continue to insist > that my service is symmetric but it is rare that I get more than 50% > of download on upload. I use: http://speakeasy.net/speedtest/ most > of the time. > > If there is something inherently limited in these systems, I'd like to > understand it. I don't like pestering people trying to do their job > (TewaCom or Grappa) but I also like getting consistent, expected > performance. > >> Also because of the location of their radio towers (Santa Fe ski >> basin) their service gets even worse during the winter. Last winter >> they ended up giving everyone a rebate on one month's fee, though >> personally I'd have rather have the up-time than the cash. > I'm one mile from the TewaCom Xmitter and I get little if any > weather-related problems, but do seem to find dropouts and I seem to > need to reboot the 600Mhz modem somewhere between several times over a > few days to only once in a month. >> As soon as my contact expires, I'm transfering to Qwest, who have >> just started offering DSL in my neighbourhood. > > I switched from 1.5M (nominally down) Satellite WildBlue (56k up) > which was *never* down but averaged .5M down and .05 up with lots of > lag. WildBlue also had monthly quotas (not sliding) which did not > support iTunes-class downloads on a regular basis. > > Previously I was on dialup which I rarely got higher than 28K > connection with effective speeds of maybe 50% of that. > > I think Wireless on this scale makes most sense only when there are no > other choices. If DSL or Cable come available, I think they are a > better answer. > >> >> Robert >> >> On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 4:10 PM, peter > > wrote: >> >> http://grappawireless.com/about.html >> >> Anyone in the group have any experience or comments on these guys >> >> ( : ( : pete >> -- >> >> Peter Baston >> >> *IDEAS* >> >> /www.ideapete.com/ >> >> >> >> >> >> >> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jearnoldjones at aol.com Mon Oct 27 12:16:44 2008 From: jearnoldjones at aol.com (Janice E. Arnold-Jones) Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 15:16:44 -0400 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Telehealth Report In-Reply-To: <20081027103137.it2sue1llwscgkgc@www2.dcn.org> References: <20081027103137.it2sue1llwscgkgc@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: <8CB067FAF5BB3C4-F1C-861@webmail-da01.sysops.aol.com> Folks: At a conference.? Need a template of an MOU, preferably Gov. to Gov, but anything will help..? If you have one, could you forward? Thanks for the help. Janice E. Arnold-Jones Representative, House District 24 7713 Sierra Azul NE Albuquerque, NM 87110 (505) 379-0902 cell (505) 938-3141 work (505) 938-3160 fax -----Original Message----- From: Richard Lowenberg To: 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org Sent: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 11:31 am Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Telehealth Report >From BroadbandCensus: Telemedicine Could Save $197 Billion, But Only With ?Smart Networks? http://broadbandcensus.com/blog/?p=957 By Drew Clark, Editor, BroadbandCensus.com WASHINGTON, October 24 - Broadband-enabled improvements to health care could save $197 billion over 25 years, but only if carriers had the incentives and freedom to deploy so-called ?smart networks,? according a study financed by AT&T. Widespread broadband deployment would be necessary to achieve these savings, according to the study, report author Robert Litan, vice president of research and policy at the Kauffman Foundation. The 63-page report, ?Vital Signs Via Broadband: Remote Health Monitoring Transmits Savings, Enhances Lives,? was presented at a press briefing by Better Health Care Together. The group seeks comprehensive changes in the health care system. (The complete Report can be downloaded at: http://betterhealthcaretogether.org/study ) Senior citizens generally lag in technology adoption. But because they are likely to be the greatest beneficiaries of widespread broadband-enabled health monitoring, it may be necessary for the government to incentive broadband adoption if it wants to realize those savings, said Litan. Among the incentives that should be deployed, said Litan, are investments in internet education, rural broadband infrastructure and ?telecommunications policies that allow broadband providers to experiment with different offering that attract marginal users without sacrificing profits on other users,? according to a summary of recommendations. In his remarks, Litan said: ?We need not only a take-up of broadband, but a take-up of smart broadband, or smart networks.? ?You have to have a reliable service, and it has to be secure, unlike the videos that are interrupted,? he continued. ?The broadband provider has got to have the incentive that will allow for this.? Litan calculated the value that widespread adoption of telemedicine would, over 25 years, save the country $153 billion (in net present value). If, on the other hand, pro-provider telecommunications policies were adopted, an additional $44 billion of savings would be generated. He calculated the average gain for implementing these policies would be $1.75 billion per year. The basic idea is that more extensive use of telemonitoring ? or the remote transmission of vital signs over a telephone or internet connection ? can keep people out of hospitals and save health care costs. ?Remote monitoring technologies can transmit data on a regular, real time basis and prevent hospitalizations by identifying and treating problems by triggering adjustments in care before negative trends reach crisis stage,? Litan said in the report. Litan also said that privacy protections for telemonitoring should be no more restrictive in the broadband environment than they are in the real-world environment. Others speaking at the press conference included Joy Hoffman, executive director of Better Health Care Together, and Neal Neuberger, executive director of the Healthcare Information Management Systems Society?s Institute for e-Health Policy. Neuberger, addressing Litan?s study, said that many telemonitoring applications do not involve video transmission hence do not require super-fast broadband connections. Asked why ?smart networks? were therefor necessary to give priority to particular applications, Litan replied, ?you don?t need a lot of speed, but your need uninterrupted or continuous service. You need priority of service.? ?The ambulance has got to have the freeway, and be ahead of other types of applications,? Litan continued, using an analogy to a real-world highway. Besides AT&T, supporters of Better Health Care Together include the Center for American Progress, the Communications Workers of America, Embarq, Intel, Qwest and Wal-mart. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. _______________________________________________ 1st-mile-nm mailing list 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bob at bobknight.net Mon Oct 27 17:49:41 2008 From: bob at bobknight.net (Bob Knight) Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 18:49:41 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Subject:Grappa Wireless Internet In-Reply-To: <49060235.6030604@ideapete.com> References: <49060235.6030604@ideapete.com> Message-ID: <490661A5.1020305@bobknight.net> Comments embedded. We are 802.11b to MPE (member premises equipment, not customer), 802.11a backbones to a DS-3 upstream. We have some 5+ mile links (longest 11) and I know that the members several hops out get multimegabit downstream as a matter of course. When I say several hops, that can be as much (or more than) as 10+ miles aggregate. This is going to be sent over two hops to our upstream (each 2+ miles), from which I regularly get 10 megabits+ down. Members pay $30 per month. I think that may be a tad too much ($25 seems "right" about now from a gut-sense without looking at cashflow). However, we do need to invest in replacement and upgrade hardware. I'd be *very* disappointed if I were a paying customer getting the "performance" you're getting. Sounds like you're paying for a learning curve. I can get cable and DSL here. I'm not interested, and wouldn't be even if I hadn't co-founded La Canada. The model we have isn't for everyone, but it's worked here for 6+ years. I won't engage in speculation as to what might (will?) kill us off; there are any number of technologies that could and we'll just have to see how the future unfolds. Bob http://www.lcwireless.net peter wrote: > Thanks Steve / Robert > > And everyone who has responded directly It would seem that they are > using Motorola Canopy 800 system. > > In Rio Rancho our company did a bunch of tests with various 802.11 > variants and even up to 802.20 Wi-max ( also FOS laser ) and we found > some really curious issues with wireless up here in this part of NM > such as > > 1. The faux adobe coatings on the majority of homes had chicken wire > over the drywall and exterior coating to bond the plaster. This > created a de facto Faraday cage effect and necessitated the use of a > receptor booster amplifier as the only means of signal stability ( > Best place for signal input device was on the roof structure about 4 > feet above the roof clearing the up stand wall ) Attempts to use > these buildings as reflectors ( Pool table type ) also fails for > similar reasons. ( Different building structures perform better but > you have to know that in advance ) We've had good success (depending on placement) with close to the roof up to 3 feet or so. Depends on the individual situation, as you indicate. Higher is better, of course. > > 2. Line of site target accuracy issues and echoing was prevalent on > all wireless systems except FOS with huge loss of signal ( The signal > bends and warps in atmospheric changes ) Clear LOS with no fresnel interference is critical. If you've got good S/N atmospheric changes generally don't matter. And that includes driving rain and snowstorms. We also have four solar sites. They run well if well-engineered. > > 3. Weather related issues ( also seasonal ) affected all systems and > deteriorated service by some 40 - 60% See above. > > 4. No company at that time had run pre service due diligence ( In all > seasons ) and none had mapped good / average / poor service areas ( > Azulstar only tested the signal to truck mounted antennas with good > line of site to the service transmitter no more than 1 mile from the > central site and not to the customers service point - hence they went > out of business when it did not work ) When another WISP started out here (Eldorado) they thought it was flat. So did we. We learned quickly about CLOS and fresnel and they didn't. We're still here. > > > 5. No system could demonstrate good symmetrical performance average > was ( performance quoted to actual = Down 60% --- Up 20 - 30% ) The very nature of 802.11 makes symmetric performance problematic in some situations. However, I just pulled 8 megabits upstream from the WRAP on my roof to one of our servers. YMMV. > > 6. Security issues were noted on all systems and interception of both > down and up was fairly easy with open source products Not a surprise. WEP is a joke, WPA isn't much better if one has enough iv's. That's why I believe in ssh, https and VPN's for stuff I don't want prying eyes to see. > > 7. Multiple issues where noted with signal interference between > especially around electrical power high voltage transmission lines ( > this rocketed in winter rain and adverse weather conditions and it > would seem that the magnetic field of the lines shifts in bad weather > and even sunspot type phases ) > > All the above basically means that the field crews that support > wireless must be constantly adjusting the system parameters to make it > work an expensive proposition. Really? We're all-volunteer with 300+ members and a core group of, at most, 25 volunteers. I'd be surprised if the busiest volunteer is doing over 10 hours per week. There certainly aren't 200+ hours per week being expended in toto. Adjusting system parameters is occasional and certainly not a daily activity if even weekly. And, when adjustments are made, they're generally confined to a single access point (out of 50+ on the system). > > The added point is that once the issues are understood you can boost > the service in huge ways ( Including compression bursts and bit > torrent type support ) especially if you are using the system to > monitor the system and set realistic goals and know the type of > service that the customer really wants. We do monitor, and we are putting in place some sophisticated traffic shaping on a transparent bridge as an anticipatory measure. However, our DS-3 is being used at no more than 20% capacity down and much less up. Misbehaving torrents are generally dealt with through education and, once educated, members tend to be very well-behaved. > > Curious to get comments and further feedback > > ( : ( : pete > >> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> >> Subject: >> Re: [FRIAM] Grappa Wireless Internet >> From: >> Steve Smith >> Date: >> Sun, 26 Oct 2008 15:18:43 -0600 >> To: >> The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group >> >> To: >> The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group >> >> >> Robert Holmes wrote: >>> Charming people but their internet service sucks. My connection from >>> them is currently running at about 300K instead of the 1.5M I'm >>> paying for ($70 per month). >> I'm on a similar Motorola 600Mhz System run by the San Ildefonso >> corporation Tewacom.com and have a similar experience (paying >> $60/month). My service varies from 0-1.5M with ~.3M typical. I >> get almost total dropouts for minutes at a time. They continue to >> insist that my service is symmetric but it is rare that I get more >> than 50% of download on upload. I use: >> http://speakeasy.net/speedtest/ most of the time. >> >> If there is something inherently limited in these systems, I'd like >> to understand it. I don't like pestering people trying to do their >> job (TewaCom or Grappa) but I also like getting consistent, expected >> performance. >> >>> Also because of the location of their radio towers (Santa Fe ski >>> basin) their service gets even worse during the winter. Last winter >>> they ended up giving everyone a rebate on one month's fee, though >>> personally I'd have rather have the up-time than the cash. >> I'm one mile from the TewaCom Xmitter and I get little if any >> weather-related problems, but do seem to find dropouts and I seem to >> need to reboot the 600Mhz modem somewhere between several times over >> a few days to only once in a month. >>> As soon as my contact expires, I'm transfering to Qwest, who have >>> just started offering DSL in my neighbourhood. >> >> I switched from 1.5M (nominally down) Satellite WildBlue (56k up) >> which was *never* down but averaged .5M down and .05 up with lots of >> lag. WildBlue also had monthly quotas (not sliding) which did not >> support iTunes-class downloads on a regular basis. >> >> Previously I was on dialup which I rarely got higher than 28K >> connection with effective speeds of maybe 50% of that. >> >> I think Wireless on this scale makes most sense only when there are >> no other choices. If DSL or Cable come available, I think they are a >> better answer. >> >>> >>> Robert >>> >>> On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 4:10 PM, peter >> > wrote: >>> >>> http://grappawireless.com/about.html >>> >>> Anyone in the group have any experience or comments on these guys >>> >>> ( : ( : pete >>> -- >>> >>> Peter Baston >>> >>> *IDEAS* >>> >>> /www.ideapete.com/ >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > From BHarris at nmag.gov Tue Oct 28 10:14:58 2008 From: BHarris at nmag.gov (Harris, Brian, WEU NMAGO) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2008 11:14:58 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Subject:Grappa Wireless Internet In-Reply-To: <490661A5.1020305@bobknight.net> Message-ID: Your model is fascinating. Does Qwest provide the DS-3? Has that been reliable and trouble free? Brian -----Original Message----- From: 1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org [mailto:1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org] On Behalf Of Bob Knight Sent: Monday, October 27, 2008 6:50 PM To: peter Cc: friam at redfish.com; 1st-Mile-NM Subject: Re: [1st-mile-nm] Subject:Grappa Wireless Internet Comments embedded. We are 802.11b to MPE (member premises equipment, not customer), 802.11a backbones to a DS-3 upstream. We have some 5+ mile links (longest 11) and I know that the members several hops out get multimegabit downstream as a matter of course. When I say several hops, that can be as much (or more than) as 10+ miles aggregate. This is going to be sent over two hops to our upstream (each 2+ miles), from which I regularly get 10 megabits+ down. Members pay $30 per month. I think that may be a tad too much ($25 seems "right" about now from a gut-sense without looking at cashflow). However, we do need to invest in replacement and upgrade hardware. I'd be *very* disappointed if I were a paying customer getting the "performance" you're getting. Sounds like you're paying for a learning curve. I can get cable and DSL here. I'm not interested, and wouldn't be even if I hadn't co-founded La Canada. The model we have isn't for everyone, but it's worked here for 6+ years. I won't engage in speculation as to what might (will?) kill us off; there are any number of technologies that could and we'll just have to see how the future unfolds. Bob http://www.lcwireless.net peter wrote: > Thanks Steve / Robert > > And everyone who has responded directly It would seem that they are > using Motorola Canopy 800 system. > > In Rio Rancho our company did a bunch of tests with various 802.11 > variants and even up to 802.20 Wi-max ( also FOS laser ) and we found > some really curious issues with wireless up here in this part of NM > such as > > 1. The faux adobe coatings on the majority of homes had chicken wire > over the drywall and exterior coating to bond the plaster. This > created a de facto Faraday cage effect and necessitated the use of a > receptor booster amplifier as the only means of signal stability ( > Best place for signal input device was on the roof structure about 4 > feet above the roof clearing the up stand wall ) Attempts to use > these buildings as reflectors ( Pool table type ) also fails for > similar reasons. ( Different building structures perform better but > you have to know that in advance ) We've had good success (depending on placement) with close to the roof up to 3 feet or so. Depends on the individual situation, as you indicate. Higher is better, of course. > > 2. Line of site target accuracy issues and echoing was prevalent on > all wireless systems except FOS with huge loss of signal ( The signal > bends and warps in atmospheric changes ) Clear LOS with no fresnel interference is critical. If you've got good S/N atmospheric changes generally don't matter. And that includes driving rain and snowstorms. We also have four solar sites. They run well if well-engineered. > > 3. Weather related issues ( also seasonal ) affected all systems and > deteriorated service by some 40 - 60% See above. > > 4. No company at that time had run pre service due diligence ( In all > seasons ) and none had mapped good / average / poor service areas ( > Azulstar only tested the signal to truck mounted antennas with good > line of site to the service transmitter no more than 1 mile from the > central site and not to the customers service point - hence they went > out of business when it did not work ) When another WISP started out here (Eldorado) they thought it was flat. So did we. We learned quickly about CLOS and fresnel and they didn't. We're still here. > > > 5. No system could demonstrate good symmetrical performance average > was ( performance quoted to actual = Down 60% --- Up 20 - 30% ) The very nature of 802.11 makes symmetric performance problematic in some situations. However, I just pulled 8 megabits upstream from the WRAP on my roof to one of our servers. YMMV. > > 6. Security issues were noted on all systems and interception of both > down and up was fairly easy with open source products Not a surprise. WEP is a joke, WPA isn't much better if one has enough iv's. That's why I believe in ssh, https and VPN's for stuff I don't want prying eyes to see. > > 7. Multiple issues where noted with signal interference between > especially around electrical power high voltage transmission lines ( > this rocketed in winter rain and adverse weather conditions and it > would seem that the magnetic field of the lines shifts in bad weather > and even sunspot type phases ) > > All the above basically means that the field crews that support > wireless must be constantly adjusting the system parameters to make it > work an expensive proposition. Really? We're all-volunteer with 300+ members and a core group of, at most, 25 volunteers. I'd be surprised if the busiest volunteer is doing over 10 hours per week. There certainly aren't 200+ hours per week being expended in toto. Adjusting system parameters is occasional and certainly not a daily activity if even weekly. And, when adjustments are made, they're generally confined to a single access point (out of 50+ on the system). > > The added point is that once the issues are understood you can boost > the service in huge ways ( Including compression bursts and bit > torrent type support ) especially if you are using the system to > monitor the system and set realistic goals and know the type of > service that the customer really wants. We do monitor, and we are putting in place some sophisticated traffic shaping on a transparent bridge as an anticipatory measure. However, our DS-3 is being used at no more than 20% capacity down and much less up. Misbehaving torrents are generally dealt with through education and, once educated, members tend to be very well-behaved. > > Curious to get comments and further feedback > > ( : ( : pete > >> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> >> Subject: >> Re: [FRIAM] Grappa Wireless Internet >> From: >> Steve Smith >> Date: >> Sun, 26 Oct 2008 15:18:43 -0600 >> To: >> The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group >> >> To: >> The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group >> >> >> Robert Holmes wrote: >>> Charming people but their internet service sucks. My connection from >>> them is currently running at about 300K instead of the 1.5M I'm >>> paying for ($70 per month). >> I'm on a similar Motorola 600Mhz System run by the San Ildefonso >> corporation Tewacom.com and have a similar experience (paying >> $60/month). My service varies from 0-1.5M with ~.3M typical. I >> get almost total dropouts for minutes at a time. They continue to >> insist that my service is symmetric but it is rare that I get more >> than 50% of download on upload. I use: >> http://speakeasy.net/speedtest/ most of the time. >> >> If there is something inherently limited in these systems, I'd like >> to understand it. I don't like pestering people trying to do their >> job (TewaCom or Grappa) but I also like getting consistent, expected >> performance. >> >>> Also because of the location of their radio towers (Santa Fe ski >>> basin) their service gets even worse during the winter. Last winter >>> they ended up giving everyone a rebate on one month's fee, though >>> personally I'd have rather have the up-time than the cash. >> I'm one mile from the TewaCom Xmitter and I get little if any >> weather-related problems, but do seem to find dropouts and I seem to >> need to reboot the 600Mhz modem somewhere between several times over >> a few days to only once in a month. >>> As soon as my contact expires, I'm transfering to Qwest, who have >>> just started offering DSL in my neighbourhood. >> >> I switched from 1.5M (nominally down) Satellite WildBlue (56k up) >> which was *never* down but averaged .5M down and .05 up with lots of >> lag. WildBlue also had monthly quotas (not sliding) which did not >> support iTunes-class downloads on a regular basis. >> >> Previously I was on dialup which I rarely got higher than 28K >> connection with effective speeds of maybe 50% of that. >> >> I think Wireless on this scale makes most sense only when there are >> no other choices. If DSL or Cable come available, I think they are a >> better answer. >> >>> >>> Robert >>> >>> On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 4:10 PM, peter >> > wrote: >>> >>> http://grappawireless.com/about.html >>> >>> Anyone in the group have any experience or comments on these guys >>> >>> ( : ( : pete >>> -- >>> >>> Peter Baston >>> >>> *IDEAS* >>> >>> /www.ideapete.com/ >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > _______________________________________________ 1st-mile-nm mailing list 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm From rl at 1st-mile.com Tue Oct 28 12:20:47 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2008 12:20:47 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] DarkStrand-LambdaRail News Message-ID: <20081028122047.9gea6ve62o0kwk0o@www2.dcn.org> DarkStrand Launches to Commercialize National Lambda Rail http://gigaom.com/2008/10/27/darkstrand-rides-national-lambda-rail/ Stacey Higginbotham Monday, October 27, 2008 DarkStrand, a three-year-old startup that won the right to offer commercial businesses access to the federally created National LambdaRail in June, will offer Fortune 500 companies access to fat pipes and compete with some of the larger companies. The goal of offering businesses their own fiber transport is nothing new, but still it adds another new player to the wholesale bandwidth market. When it bid for the contract to offer commercial access to the federal fiber network, Dark Strand competed against telecommunications providers like Qwest, Level 3 and AT&T that were also seeking to use the network for IP transport. Mike Stein, DarkStrand?s CEO, is convinced his startup won the bidding process because it wanted to help with commercialization efforts, in addition to providing access to the bandwidth. It?s a neat idea on the surface, but it?s an odd combination of services that I?m not sure make a lot of sense, beyond its ability to get DarkStrand the contract to lease out capacity on the LambdaRail. DarkStrand has exclusive rights to the network of 10-gigabit fiber pipes (soon to be 40-gigabit) connecting federally funded labs in 30 cities. It has so far raised $12 million from angels and has already committed about $5 million to pay for the LambdaRail access and maintenance for the coming year. Under the terms of its contract, it will need to pay about $2 million to $3 million a year in maintenance, as well as $24 million in capital payments. Stein says the company is raising money to continue fulfilling its capital payments, and it is close to signing deals with companies seeking to use the LambdaRail?s pipes. DarkStrand will charge about $100,000 per month or $1 million per year for companies seeking to lease their own fiber. Dark Strand has 80, 10-gigabit slots available on the network, but so far, no paying customers. In part, this may be because Stein has just started selling access in anticipation of service operation beginning in January. Stein says the combined commercialization and transport business will work, because many of the companies buying access to the pipes will also need to find ways of dealing with the large amounts of data they are trying to send ? from fat media files to 3-D imaging. DarkStrand is also working to sign contracts with various labs to shorten the commercialization time frame from several months to six weeks. He cites the example of Disney using the network to send digital TV content from live events in New York to production studios in Los Angeles. This makes sense. However, he also thinks that because Disney owns Pixar, which is already working with Oak Ridge National Lab on an algorithm to make it cheaper to produce animated films, the Mouse House might also sign a contract with DarkStrand to get access to more intellectual property from federal labs. In theory, it?s neat. But DarkStrand doesn?t have an exclusive agreement to get technology out of national labs, and the idea of it as a pre-vetted commercialization partner doesn?t mean much when the actual commercialization gets under way. Many companies have existing development efforts at national labs, and there are many other venture capitalists and IP brokers who also offer similar services. Unlike transport, which can be automated, commercialization is still a relationship-driven effort. Even if DarkStrand can build those relationships, the combination is really more odd than functional. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From josmon at rigozsaurus.com Tue Oct 28 13:02:43 2008 From: josmon at rigozsaurus.com (John Osmon) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2008 14:02:43 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Subject:Grappa Wireless Internet In-Reply-To: <490661A5.1020305@bobknight.net> References: <49060235.6030604@ideapete.com> <490661A5.1020305@bobknight.net> Message-ID: <20081028200243.GA15827@rigozsaurus.com> I don't mean to hijack this thread, but I think it is important for folks on this list to have a good grounding on what works and what doesn't. Wireless is a legitimate 1st mile technology -- it is easier to deploy than fiber and/or copper, but has unique characteristics... On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 06:49:41PM -0600, Bob Knight wrote: [...] > I'd be *very* disappointed if I were a paying customer getting the > "performance" you're getting. Sounds like you're paying for a learning > curve. In general, WISP customers have to suffer through their provider learning the following: - LOS/Fresnel zone issues (how to make the wireless links work) - Interference issues (concentrate on *your* S/N, not what channel other folks are using) - basic networking issues (route early, route often - briding does not scale) - advanced networking issues (wireless is usually constrained by packets per second, and *not* bandwidth) It's a lot of things to take in when you're starting out, so a lot of WISPs can't climb over the learning curve(s). (I weep for the customers of some WISPs.) > > 5. No system could demonstrate good symmetrical performance average > > was ( performance quoted to actual = Down 60% --- Up 20 - 30% ) > The very nature of 802.11 makes symmetric performance problematic in > some situations. However, I just pulled 8 megabits upstream from the > WRAP on my roof to one of our servers. YMMV. The nature of half-duplex connections make this a sticky subject all around. Capture effects and other issues dictate that you will eventually need to move to full duplex as contention issues increase. If the WISP has multiple aggregation towers, the backhaul links will need to move that direction first. > > 6. Security issues were noted on all systems and interception of both > > down and up was fairly easy with open source products > Not a surprise. WEP is a joke, WPA isn't much better if one has enough > iv's. That's why I believe in ssh, https and VPN's for stuff I don't > want prying eyes to see. End-to-end encryption is *always* the right answer. Your best friends should be ssh/https/VPN/TLS. > We do monitor, and we are putting in place some sophisticated traffic > shaping on a transparent bridge as an anticipatory measure. However, our > DS-3 is being used at no more than 20% capacity down and much less up. > Misbehaving torrents are generally dealt with through education and, > once educated, members tend to be very well-behaved. Monitoring is the key. Tracking and trending some key stats will let you *know* when you need to tune/tweak things. From john at citylinkfiber.com Tue Oct 28 22:16:26 2008 From: john at citylinkfiber.com (John Brown) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2008 23:16:26 -0600 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Subject:Grappa Wireless Internet In-Reply-To: <20081028200243.GA15827@rigozsaurus.com> References: <49060235.6030604@ideapete.com> <490661A5.1020305@bobknight.net> <20081028200243.GA15827@rigozsaurus.com> Message-ID: <4907F1AA.3040605@citylinkfiber.com> I agree that wireless is a valid 1st mile technology, like any technology, when deployed properly. Things to consider: Wireless has, at present, limited bandwidth Really usable high bandwidth correlates to high $$ Higher bandwidth tends to shorten the links Certain flavors require Clear Line Of Sight Other flavors only need Near Line Of Sight Environmental issues can be costly Bad neighbor issues Requires "science" and proper planing My personal observations and experience with wireless is that many folks don't do the proper font side planning. Owning your own infrastructure, and thus not relying as much on the local Bell Corp to provide that infrastructure is good. But remember that Bell had Bell Labs, which did TONS of thinking before they deployed something. If you want to own your infrastructure, you have to be willing to properly plan/engineer it to reap the rewards. John Osmon wrote: > I don't mean to hijack this thread, but I think it is important > for folks on this list to have a good grounding on what works > and what doesn't. Wireless is a legitimate 1st mile technology -- it > is easier to deploy than fiber and/or copper, but has unique > characteristics... > > > On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 06:49:41PM -0600, Bob Knight wrote: > [...] >> I'd be *very* disappointed if I were a paying customer getting the >> "performance" you're getting. Sounds like you're paying for a learning >> curve. > > In general, WISP customers have to suffer through their provider > learning the following: > - LOS/Fresnel zone issues (how to make the wireless links work) > - Interference issues (concentrate on *your* S/N, not what channel > other folks are using) > - basic networking issues (route early, route often - briding does > not scale) > - advanced networking issues (wireless is usually constrained by > packets per second, and *not* bandwidth) > > It's a lot of things to take in when you're starting out, so a lot > of WISPs can't climb over the learning curve(s). (I weep for the > customers of some WISPs.) > > >>> 5. No system could demonstrate good symmetrical performance average >>> was ( performance quoted to actual = Down 60% --- Up 20 - 30% ) >> The very nature of 802.11 makes symmetric performance problematic in >> some situations. However, I just pulled 8 megabits upstream from the >> WRAP on my roof to one of our servers. YMMV. > > The nature of half-duplex connections make this a sticky subject all > around. Capture effects and other issues dictate that you will > eventually need to move to full duplex as contention issues increase. > If the WISP has multiple aggregation towers, the backhaul links will > need to move that direction first. > > >>> 6. Security issues were noted on all systems and interception of both >>> down and up was fairly easy with open source products >> Not a surprise. WEP is a joke, WPA isn't much better if one has enough >> iv's. That's why I believe in ssh, https and VPN's for stuff I don't >> want prying eyes to see. > > End-to-end encryption is *always* the right answer. Your best friends > should be ssh/https/VPN/TLS. > > > >> We do monitor, and we are putting in place some sophisticated traffic >> shaping on a transparent bridge as an anticipatory measure. However, our >> DS-3 is being used at no more than 20% capacity down and much less up. >> Misbehaving torrents are generally dealt with through education and, >> once educated, members tend to be very well-behaved. > > Monitoring is the key. Tracking and trending some key stats will let > you *know* when you need to tune/tweak things. > > > > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > From rl at 1st-mile.com Wed Oct 29 11:20:00 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2008 11:20:00 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Qwest: 3Q Net Falls Message-ID: <20081029112000.jwwk3gcz4sk8woow@www2.dcn.org> UPDATE: Qwest Communications 3Q Net Falls 93% On Year-Ago Gain Dow Jones October 29, 2008: 09:03 AM EST http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200810290903DOWJONESDJONLINE000558_FORTUNE5.htm NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Qwest Communications International Inc. (Q) reported a 93% drop in third-quarter profit as the decline in consumer spending and competitive pressure from cable takes its toll on the telecommunications provider. The Denver company said that fewer consumer access lines and a less profitable revenue mix contributed to lower profit margins. Qwest expects a decline in revenue and adjusted earnings for the year and plans to cut 1,200 jobs, or 3%, of its work force, as it becomes increasingly clear that the macroeconomic environment will slow the company's turnaround efforts. "In the quarter, our financial results were again mixed," Chairman and Chief Executive Edward Mueller said in a statement. "Reflecting our cautious outlook on the near-term direction of the economy, we have taken a number of steps to keep our costs aligned with customer demand and maintain maximum financial strength and flexibility." Profit totaled $151 million, or 9 cents a share, versus $2.07 billion, or $ 1.08 a share, a year earlier. Results from a year ago were helped by a tax benefit of $2.1 billion. Revenue fell 1.6% to $3.38 billion from $3.43 billion. Per-share earnings fell below analysts' average estimates of 10 cents, though revenue topped expectations. Like fellow Bells AT&T Inc. (T) and Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ), Qwest continued to be hit by cable competition. The company doubled the number of new digital-subscriber-line customers to 61,000 from the surprisingly weak second quarter, but it is a far cry from year-ago numbers. Cable companies have won the larger share of new high-speed customers, seen as the most crucial of the triple-play services - Internet, television and telephone. Comcast Corp. (CMCSK) said Wednesday that it alone added 382,000 high-speed Internet customers. Unlike its peers, Qwest doesn't have growth drivers in its own television or wireless service. Instead, it partners with DirecTV Group Inc. (DTV) for satellite TV and Verizon Wireless for wireless service. The company added 39,000 video subscribers but lost 45,000 wireless subscribers due to its efforts to move customers over to Verizon Wireless from Sprint Nextel Corp. (S). Verizon Wireless is jointly owned by Verizon Communications and Vodafone PLC (VOD). Total access lines fell 8.9% to 11.9 million, led by a sharp decline in the wholesale business. Qwest expects full-year results to be at the low end of prior forecasts, which means a 2.5% decline in revenue, a 2% decline in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization and $1.5 billion in adjusted free cash flow. The job cuts come just weeks after Qwest settled a contract dispute with its union. Qwest shares traded down 1.9% to $2.55 in premarket action. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Wed Oct 29 11:21:32 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2008 11:21:32 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] New OECD Rankings Message-ID: <20081029112132.tocr82n400co04ko@www2.dcn.org> >From Jim Baller?s list: New OECD rankings through June 2008: US still 15th in penetration and 8th in fiber ?as percent of total subscriptions http://tinyurl.com/ywads5 Om Malik?s commentary http://tinyurl.com/5c9cjk -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Wed Oct 29 11:24:39 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2008 11:24:39 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Palo Alto Fiber Project: Update Message-ID: <20081029112439.2new6nyus8oggsk0@www2.dcn.org> Here's a good report on the Palo Alto fiber project, which is an important municipal example to keep an eye on. rl http://www.mercurynews.com/columns/ci_10795820 Palo Alto fiber-optic project is the right kind of economic development By Chris O'Brien, Mercury News 10/24/2008 In a time of severe belt tightening and modest thinking, the city of Palo Alto is about to make an ambitious bet on its future. But in a neat twist, it won't have to ante up a dime. The city is negotiating a deal with a consortium of tech companies to build out an ultra-high-speed broadband network that would deliver blazing fast 100-megabit-per-second connections to every home and business in Palo Alto. That's about 10 times as fast as what people typically receive through their cable or DSL modems. More important, it's just the kind of creative, innovative approach toward economic development worthy of Silicon Valley. "There's a vision that you're entering into the real 21st century with this kind of capacity," said Joe Saccio, Palo Alto's deputy director for administrative services. "It's an economic tool and, hopefully, it can create new kinds of jobs and allow new applications and new software for consumers." It hasn't been easy to get to this point. And there's still a chance that the project might not succeed. But if it does, Palo Alto will get to boast to all its valley neighbors that it wears the crown of connectivity. And I'll bet it will only become more of a magnet for start-ups and bigger companies who want to experiment with new online services. While this project has been a big deal in Palo Alto, it hasn't gotten much attention around the rest of the region. So here's a little background. Palo Alto originally built a fiber-optic backbone in 1996. It's one of just a few dozen municipalities across the country to undertake such a project known as "fiber to the premises" or FTTP. Such projects aren't popular with the local cable companies and DSL companies. Andrew Johnson, a Comcast spokesman, noted that his company competes hard for customers and continues to invest in upgrades to its network. However, it has some concerns about the fairness of competing against the Palo Alto network. "The latest version of the Palo Alto fiber-to-the-home plan is being positioned as a wholesale open network, but the operation appears to put our regulators in the dual role of being both regulator and competitor," Johnson wrote in an e-mail. "This structure does not create a level playing field." In the case of Palo Alto, the city currently manages the backbone, and if you want to use it, you have to pay to have a line run from the ring to your house or business. That's not cheap, in case you're curious. The city also uses it for such things as running its traffic lights and its own computer networks. The project is operated outside the city's budget under the name of the Dark Fiber Fund. The fund takes in $2.6 million each year from private licensees and other town agencies that use the network, which more than covers the $1.6 million it costs each year to operate. So far, so good. Right? The problem was that the city council intended this to benefit everyone. And so in 2005, the council directed the city's staff to figure out how to make that happen. And just to make things interesting, the council set a few rules: No taxpayer funds could be used, no money could be borrowed, no bonds could be issued. Ongoing negotiations So it's taken some time. But there was a breakthrough this year when a Canadian company called Axia agreed to join a consortium of two other companies to bid on the project: PacketFront and 180 Connect. Axia offered to commit $30 million to building out the network. Palo Alto's city council has instructed staff to try to reach an agreement, and negotiations are still in progress. If approved, the consortium would run the network as a wholesale operation, and third parties would come in, lease space on the network, and sell services directly to consumers and businesses. The city council envisions the new broadband network enabling all sorts of new services for businesses and consumers, such as automated meter reading services for energy savings, or more robust video services like 3-D high-definition TV. So what's in it for the consortium members? The consortium would get to manage the network and keep the profits. And it would also get access to a portion of the network at a deep discount to use as it wishes. In addition, according to a letter Axia sent the city earlier this year, the strong demand and community support make it confident it can turn a profit. And it hopes the success of the project can be used as a showcase to convince other communities to build their own networks. So what could go wrong? Plenty. For some perspective on the challenges, I chatted earlier this month with Steve Christensen, chief executive of Broadweave Networks, a broadband company that recently bought a fiber-optic network from the city of Provo, Utah, because it was losing money. Provo's mistakes Christensen said the biggest problem in Provo was the split between the wholesale operator (the city) and the private service providers who sold service to homes and businesses. When something went wrong, customers were confused and frustrated about whom to call to fix things, make changes and handle other questions. When looking at Palo Alto's plan, Christensen said he liked the fact the city wanted to build an open network, something that would help it adapt to technology changes and make sure it could buy equipment from different vendors to keep a lid on prices. And the fact that the city isn't putting in its own money and has the right to buy back the network for $1 in 25 years is also a good safeguard. Still, I wondered whether Palo Alto customers would, like those in Provo, be confused by the fact that there would still be wholesalers and service providers. When I asked Saccio about this, he said any agreement with the consortium would likely include benchmarks for customer service. He didn't seem too concerned that this would be an issue. Let's hope that confidence is warranted. The three companies actually putting up the cash apparently think it is. Kudos to the Palo Alto City Council and staff for pushing this stone uphill. And here's hoping other local governments will figure out innovative approaches to economic development. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Tue Nov 4 19:45:33 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Tue, 04 Nov 2008 19:45:33 -0800 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] FCC OKs use of white spaces to deliver broadband Message-ID: <20081104194533.152dosl9wkc4k0g0@www2.dcn.org> FCC OKs use of white spaces to deliver broadband By JOELLE TESSLER ? Associated Press (1 hour ago) WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Federal Communications Commission voted Tuesday to open up unused, unlicensed portions of the television airwaves known as "white spaces" to deliver wireless broadband service. The vote is a big victory for public interest groups and technology companies such as Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. that say white spaces could be used to bring broadband to rural America and other underserved parts of the country. "White spaces are the blank pages on which we which we will write our broadband future," said Jonathan Adelstein, one of two Democrats on the five-member commission. Adelstein added that white spaces could represent a "third channel" to reach consumers beyond the telephone and cable networks that represent the primary competition in today's broadband market. The vote came over the objections of the nation's big TV broadcasters, which argue that using the fallow spectrum to deliver wireless Internet access could disrupt their over-the-air signals. Manufacturers and users of wireless microphones ? including sports leagues, church leaders and performers of all stripes ? have also raised concerns about interference. The next step for opponents could be a fight on Capitol Hill or a lawsuit to stop the FCC plan from taking effect. "Every American who values interference-free TV should be concerned by today's commission vote," the National Association of Broadcasters said in a statement. Four commissioners voted to approve the plan with one commissioner ? Republican Deborah Tate ? dissenting in part. Among her concerns, Tate raised questions about how potential interference problems would be handled. Last month, a technical report by FCC engineers concluded that interference could be eliminated with the use of wireless transmitter devices that rely on spectrum-sensing and "geolocation" technologies to detect nearby broadcast signals. The FCC plan will allow the use of white spaces to provide broadband following the upcoming transition from analog to digital TV broadcasting in February, which will free up additional wireless spectrum. That space could also be used for improved communications networks to connect police officers, firefighters and other emergency responders. Supporters say the vacant spaces between TV channels ? which would be available for free, unlicensed use, as Wi-Fi is ? are particularly well-suited to providing broadband since they can penetrate walls, carry a great deal of data and reach a wide geographic area. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, one of three Republicans on the commission, called white spaces "a very valuable national asset." Opening up this spectrum to high-speed wireless connections has been a high priority for Internet companies, which stand to benefit as more Americans get online. Technology and equipment makers, meanwhile, are counting on a multibillion dollar market for advanced wireless devices to transmit and receive signals, including laptops, personal digital assistants and TV set-top boxes. Microsoft said the FCC vote "ushers in a new era of wireless broadband innovation." With partial dissents by the two Democrats on the five-member panel, the FCC also voted Tuesday to approve Verizon Wireless' planned $28 billion purchase of Alltel Corp. in a deal that will create the nation's largest wireless carrier. Verizon Wireless, a joint venture between Verizon and Vodafone Group PLC, plans to buy Alltel of Little Rock, Ark., for $5.9 billion plus the assumption of $22.2 billion in debt. The Justice Department approved the deal last week after Verizon agreed to sell assets in 22 states to address government concerns about reduced competition. The FCC is requiring the company to sell assets in five additional markets and to honor Alltel's existing roaming agreements with other wireless carriers for four years. In addition, the FCC voted unanimously to allow Sprint Nextel Corp. to spin off and merge its new WiMax wireless broadband network with that of Clearwire Corp., which already has a WiMax-like network in parts of the country. Google, Intel Corp. and a group of cable companies are investing billions into the $14.6 billion venture, which will carry Clearwire's name. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Fri Nov 7 10:12:04 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2008 10:12:04 -0800 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Obama's Science and Innovation Plans Message-ID: <20081107101204.g0qtca6074swok8k@www2.dcn.org> >From this week's State Science and Technology Institute newsletter: http://www.ssti.org Federal TBED Funding and Programs Could Expand under Obama Administration After two years of campaigning, President-elect Barack Obama has begun shaping the agenda for his coming administration. Though nothing is certain at this point, throughout his campaign, President-elect Obama reiterated his support for TBED-related initiatives and plans to increase funding for research and innovation. His Plan for Science and Innovation, released in September, makes a wide range of TBED commitments, touching on clean energy investment, STEM education, entrepreneurship and basic research. Last month the New York Times, with research from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), estimated the annual cost of Obama's innovation plan at $85.6 billion. The president-elect pledged during the campaign to double the current level of funding for basic research over the next ten years at federal science agencies and to fully fund the America Competes Act, signed by President George Bush, at $5.9 billion annually. In order to foster private sector innovation, the Obama plan would make the research and development tax credit permanent, double funding for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, create an Advanced Manufacturing Fund to increase collaboration between university researchers and industry and invest in a nationwide network of public-private incubators. The plan would also increase research spending on defense and homeland security, including DARPA and Homeland Security ARPA. The plan also called for: restoring the role of White House science advisor to a senior-level position, the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology would report directly to the President and would serve as Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP); and, strengthening the role of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), which would offer private sector and academic insight into federal innovation policy. Also included in the plan was a new $500 million Technology Investment Fund that would build on existing federal education technology programs by offering matching grants to ensure that technology is integrated in public schools. The funds would be used to introduce new high-tech learning tools, build a new technology-based curriculum and help connect teachers through social networks to increase collaboration. In order to improve the quality and number of science and technology educators, the plan called for 40,000 Teaching Service scholarships of up to $25,000 each to increase the number of teachers in high-need subjects and underserved regions. Federal science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education policy would be coordinated by a new STEM Education Committee in OSTP. This committee would also be charged with devising a new method of tracking student achievement in STEM subjects. At the university-level, the plan calls for tripling the number of National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships from 1,000 to 3,000 and creating a new Opportunity Tax Credit for college students. A Community College Partnership Program would help enhance STEM education at two-year schools to encourage community college students to transition into STEM programs at four-year universities. Clean energy and green-collar jobs programs took center stage in Obama's plan to strengthen the U.S. economy. His New Energy for America plan called for investing $150 billion over the next ten years to catalyze private efforts to help commercialize clean energy advancements and to build the infrastructure for new fuel and electricity technology. An additional $50 billion over the next five years would capitalize a federal Clean Technologies Deployment Venture Capital Fund to invest in promising energy technology projects. A new $1 billion program would allocate funds to states to help convert manufacturing centers into producers of clean energy technology. The plan also supported job training programs for military veterans and disadvantaged youth to get the skills needed to find work in the green economy. Find out more about President-elect Obama's Plan for Science and Innovation at: http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/issues/FactSheetScience.pdf ITIF has published a breakdown of the costs of Obama's innovation plan at: http://www.itif.org/index.php?id=176 ------- To stay posted on the Presidential transition, log on to the President-Elect transition web site: www.change.gov --------------------------------- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From pete at ideapete.com Sat Nov 15 11:33:57 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2008 12:33:57 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Mike Ripperger contact Message-ID: <491F2425.5080907@ideapete.com> Does anyone have a contact for Mike Ripperger I have Mike.Ripperger at state.nm.us but its bouncing back ( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From granoff at zianet.com Sat Nov 15 20:31:51 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2008 21:31:51 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Mike Ripperger contact In-Reply-To: <491F2425.5080907@ideapete.com> References: <491F2425.5080907@ideapete.com> Message-ID: <20081116043203.C45AF26CC@velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us> At 12:33 PM 11/15/2008 -0700, peter wrote: >Does anyone have a contact for Mike Ripperger > >I have Mike.Ripperger at state.nm.us >but its bouncing back That's the correct email. Try (505) 827-6902 his office - on Monday. Maybe their mail as down temporarily? >( : ( : pete >-- >Peter Baston >IDEAS >www.ideapete.com > > > >_______________________________________________ >1st-mile-nm mailing list >1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > > >No virus found in this incoming message. >Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com >Version: 8.0.175 / Virus Database: 270.9.4/1790 - Release Date: >11/15/2008 9:32 AM -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Sun Nov 16 11:28:24 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2008 11:28:24 -0800 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Colorado Broadband Summit Message-ID: <20081116112824.kegeures80c44og8@www2.dcn.org> I attended the Colorado Broadband Summit on Friday, at Level 3 headquarters in Broomfield, CO. The State of Colorado is moving forward with a long range broadband initiative, as part of Governor Ritter's more comprehensive Innovation Initiative. The Broadband Task Force and the State IT Department have just initiated a contracted statewide broadband mapping project, as step one. Among many others, I met John Richardson (IEEE, retired), who sent me a recent IEEE paper (attached), with recommendations for U.S broadband effort. The 1st-Mile web site has a link to an excellent 2005 IEEE broadband policy paper: www.1st-mile.com/resources/ospn-references/ftth-policycase/view -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: IEEE-BB-Paper.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 63053 bytes Desc: not available URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Wed Nov 19 09:17:59 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2008 09:17:59 -0800 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] ICT Could Cut U.S. Emissions by 22 Percent, Save Billions Message-ID: <20081119091759.a3zb60iyo0g0g8ok@www2.dcn.org> ICT Could Cut U.S. Emissions by 22 Percent, Save Billions www.climatebiz.com/news/2008/11/18/ict-could-cut-us-emissions-22-percent-save-billions ClimateBiz Published November 18, 2008 OAKLAND, Calif. -- Properly deployed information and communications technology (ICT) could cut U.S.-based carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 22 percent by 2020, according to new research. ICT could also save the country up to $240 billion in gross energy and fuel costs, according to the Boston Consulting Group and The Climate Group. The organizations unveiled the U.S. addendum to a previously released report called "SMART 2020: Enabling the low carbon economy in the information age," which used a global scope. The original report found that ICT's global carbon footprint could nearly double by 2020, but it has the potential to help other sectors cut emissions up to five times that amount. An examination of opportunities in the U.S. focused on four areas of technology that already exist: A smart electrical grid, efficient road transportation, smart buildings, and travel substitution. A smart electrical grid and more efficient road transportation have the potential to tamp down two large sources of emissions. A smart grid, for example, could cut emissions by as much as 480 million metric tons and same up to $35 billion in energy and fuel costs. More efficient road transportation could trim nearly as much emissions and save another $115 billion and trim nearly as much emissions. Smart buildings and travel substitution, such as virtual meetings and flex-work, could combined avoid nearly 500 million metric tons of CO2 and save the U.S. up to $170 billion. The report also calls on the federal government to recognize ICT's role in combating climate change, much the same as Japan and Europe already has done. A national body to establish CO2 standards and metrics could coordinate public-private collaboration, while the government also should encourage the widespread adoption of broadband and monetize carbon to reward energy efficiency and emissions reductions. To download the Report, go to: www.greenercomputing.com/resources/resource/smart-2020-enabling-low-carbon-economy-it -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From granoff at zianet.com Sat Nov 22 19:35:11 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2008 20:35:11 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: NTIA Seeks Nominations for Online Safety and Technology Working Group Message-ID: <20081123033523.DC7BE2688@velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us> From another list. FYI. >http://www.ntia.doc.gov/frnotices/2008/FR_OnlineSafety_081121.pdf > > > Fed. Reg. Notice Friday November 21, 2008 > > DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE > > National Telecommunications and Information Administration > > Notice: Call for Nominations, Online Safety and Technology Working Group > > AGENCY: National Telecommunications and Information Administration > > ACTION: Notice and Request for Nominations > of Representatives to Serve on Working Group > > SUMMARY: The National Telecommunications > and Information Administration (NTIA) is > seeking nominations of individuals to represent > the business community, public interest groups, > and other appropriate groups interested in > serving on the NTIA Online Safety and > Technology Working Group (OSTWG) for a single > fifteen (15) month term to commence in January > 2009. At the conclusion of the working > group???s term, the OSTWG will provide a report > to the Assistant Secretary for Communications > and Information and NTIA Administrator and to > Congress on ways to promote and to preserve a > safe environment for children using the Internet. > > DATES: Nominations must be postmarked or > electronically transmitted on or before December 12, 2008. > > ADDRESSES: An organization wishing to > submit a nomination of an individual to > represent that organization???s interests > relevant to the work of the OSTWG should send > the individual???s resume or curriculum vita > and a biographical statement summarizing the > individual???s interest in serving on the > working group and relevant qualifications to > the attention of Tim Sloan by mail to Office of > the Assistant Secretary, National > Telecommunications and Information > Administration, 1401 Constitution Avenue N.W., > Room 4725, Washington, DC 20230; by facsimile > transmission to (202) 482?6173; or by > electronic mail to ostwg at ntia.doc.gov. > Individuals may also self-nominate by > submitting the same information listed above, > as well as an indication of support from the > organization or group that the individual will represent. > FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Eric Stark > at (202) 482?1880 or estark at ntia.doc.gov; or > Tim Sloan at (202) 482?1899 or tsloan at ntia.doc.gov. >. > > SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On October 10, > 2008, the President signed into law the > ??????Broadband Data Improvement Act?????? (the > Act), Pub. L. No. 110?385. Section 214 of that > Act directs NTIA to establish the OSTWG to review and evaluate: > ? The status of industry efforts to promote > online safety through educational efforts, > parental control technology, blocking and > filtering software, age-appropriate labels for > content or other technologies or initiatives > designed to promote a safe online environment for children; > ? The status of industry efforts to promote > online safety among providers of electronic > communications services and remote computing > services by reporting apparent child > pornography, including any obstacles to such reporting; > ? The practices of electronic > communications service providers and remote > computing service providers related to record > retention in connection with crimes against children; and > ? The development of technologies to help > parents shield their children from inappropriate material on the Internet. > The OSTWG must report its findings and > recommendations to the Assistant Secretary and > to Congress within one (1) year after its first meeting. > > MORE . . . . . From rl at 1st-mile.com Tue Nov 25 16:18:23 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:18:23 -0800 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] FCC publishes list of services eligible for E-Rate Message-ID: <20081125161823.8zfehw5h4w4c8kww@www2.dcn.org> http://tinyurl.com/5vgddd FCC 08-265 Released: November 21, 2008 RELEASE OF FUNDING YEAR 2009 ELIGIBLE SERVICES LIST FOR SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES UNIVERSAL SERVICE MECHANISM CC Docket No. 02-6 By this public notice, the Commission releases the funding year 2009 Eligible Services List (ESL) for the schools and libraries universal service support mechanism (commonly known as E-rate) pursuant to section 54.522 of the Commission?s rules. On July 31, 2008, the Commission released a public notice seeking comment on the ESL proposed by the universal service fund?s administrator, the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC), for funding year 2009, as required by section 54.522. We decline to adopt any of the changes to the ESL proposed by USAC. As such, the funding year 2009 ESL we release today is the same as the funding year 2008 ESL. In addition, section 54.522 requires the Commission to issue a public notice attaching the final ESL for the upcoming funding year at least 60 days prior to the opening of the funding window for the schools and libraries universal service program. We authorize USAC to open the annual application filing window no earlier than November 25, 2008. Because the filing window will open less than 60 days after the release of this public notice, we therefore waive on our own motion section 54.522 of the Commission's rules requiring publication of the ESL at least 60 days prior to the commencement of the filing window. We conclude that this action will facilitate the application process for E-rate beneficiaries applying for discounts for funding year 2009. For further information, contact Cara Voth, James Bachtell or Gina Spade in the Telecommunications Access Policy Division, Wireline Competition Bureau at (202) 418-7400, TTY (202) 418-0484. Action taken by the Commission on November 21, 2008: Chairman Kevin J. Martin and Commissioners Michael J. Copps, Jonathan S. Adelstein, Deborah Taylor Tate and Robert M. McDowell. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Thu Nov 27 07:48:55 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2008 07:48:55 -0800 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] NMCAC-Darkstrand Announcement Message-ID: <20081127074855.2f7ojnn2okc0og40@www2.dcn.org> Darkstrand-NM New Mexico Computing Applications Center Brings One of the World's Fastest Supercomputers to Darkstrand Network New Partnership Brings Greater Speed, Bandwidth and Research Brainshare Critical for Corporate America to Maintain Global Competitive Advantage www.marketwatch.com/news/story/New-Mexico-Computing-Applications-Center/story.aspx?guid={D4AF20EE-6BA1-4250-835E-D62F6400253E} Nov. 19, 2008 AUSTIN, Texas, Nov 19, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Today, Darkstrand, a pioneer in corporate high-speed connectivity bridging research and commercialization, announced a strategic partnership agreement with the New Mexico Computing Applications Center (NMCAC), a premier research institution dedicated to applications-driven high-speed computer problem solving. NMCAC currently hosts the 12th fastest supercomputer in the world, according to the biannual TOP500 Project, known as "Encanto," and this alliance opens a virtual gateway for corporate America to the vast supercomputing resources and expertise that NMCAC holds. Corporations with connectivity to the Darkstrand fiber optic network will now have the power to drive innovative, high-performance computing (HPC) initiatives in real-time collaboration with NMCAC supercomputer and its affiliated institutions. "The state of New Mexico and NMCAC are on the forefront of an economic development explosion," said Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico. "By bringing together New Mexico's scientific talent, the power of Encanto, and this advanced networking technology we are creating a new model of innovation that can bring sources of revenue to New Mexico from companies, not only within our state borders, but throughout the world." Darkstrand changes the game, allowing companies to leverage research labs and universities nationwide. For the first time, corporations can actively collaborate in the entire R&D cycle, beginning with discovery, moving through prototype development and ending with commercialization. This new collaborative R&D and collaborative model is taking shape because of the power of the Darkstrand network to drive massive production data seamlessly between geographic locations on dedicated 10 G circuits. This capability enables companies located anywhere in the United States to work intimately with researchers and HPC applications at NMCAC member institutions. "Darkstrand was created to liberate innovation in American corporations by leveraging the technology and minds of academia that can connect ideas with computing capability," said Michael Stein, CEO and Founder of Darkstrand. "Today's partnership with NMCAC further extends the reach of our network, giving companies the unleashed power and speed they need to solve workflow problems using high-performance computing tools." In the coming months, Darkstrand and NMCAC will work on a joint implementation plan that creates a seamless corporate path from discovery to commercialization. Darkstrand and NMCAC will also work with the state of New Mexico on public sector initiatives like education and healthcare, with the goal of extending the state's reach into all geographic areas for access to information and critical services. "Our supercomputer was created to drive groundbreaking research for education and commerce in the state of New Mexico, and our ability to partner with the Darkstrand Network will advance innovation and collaboration by providing the hardware and the subject matter expertise that corporations are looking for," said Thomas J. Bowles, PhD, Science Advisor for Governor Richardson. "NMCAC brings to the corporate doorstep a wide range of R&D expertise in sectors like health, biotechnology, digital film and media, energy, and oil and gas." In addition to direct access to the NMCAC, the Darkstrand partnership will connect companies with NMCAC-affiliate research institutions, including Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, University of New Mexico, New Mexico State University and New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. Encanto, the NMCAC and its affiliates will connect directly to the Darkstrand Network, which is currently upgrading its backbone to 40 Gig speed. The NMCAC Encanto supercomputer is located at Intel Corporation's Fab 7 plant in Rio Rancho. The 172 Teraflop supercomputer was built using advanced technology from Intel and Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI). The NMCAC is located in Albuquerque, but will be connected in a network of gateway sites at the national labs, universities and colleges across New Mexico and ultimately throughout the US and globally. For more information on the NMCAC, please visit: http://www.newmexicosupercomputer.com/. In June 2008, Darkstrand developed a business alliance with the NLR, acquiring one half of National LambdaRail's (NLR) 15,000-route mile optical network that is currently spread across 30 U.S. cities. NLR's unparalleled network supports large-scale digital production work for research groups that need multi-gigabit speed and access to high-performance computing power. The NLR is the backbone of the Darkstrand Network, providing a direct-line from the knowledge-driven science world such as NMCAC to results-oriented enterprises that will ultimately enable U.S. companies to innovate and more effectively compete globally. About Darkstrand Darkstrand, Inc. leverages enterprise-level network bandwidth to close the collaboration gap between corporations and research communities. Darkstrand is a pivotal corporate partner for solving real workflow, development and collaborative challenges, linking teams, facilities and suppliers into one ecosystem in a high-speed, networked grid environment via the National LambdaRail (NLR), a vast 15,000-route mile optical network spread across 30 U.S. cities. Darkstrand shortens time to insight and expands productivity for companies wanting a competitive edge. Based in Chicago, Illinois, Darkstrand was established in 2005, and has raised $12 million to date from private investors. For more information, visit http://www.darkstrand.com. About New Mexico Computing Applications Center The New Mexico Computing Applications Center was approved by New Mexico's Legislature in 2007 and began operations in 2008 as a resource for applications-driven high-speed computer problem solving. Working closely with the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Labs and the State's three research universities, the NMCAC is dedicated to serving the needs of the people of New Mexico as well as tackling some of the nation's most pressing problems like energy and the environment using high-speed computing. The Center works with federal institutions, other states and private companies to run their own applications or develop new ones using its 172 teraflop SGi supercomputer named 'Encanto' which is based at Intel's New Mexico headquarters in Rio Rancho just a few miles from Albuquerque. SOURCE: Darkstrand, Inc. Copyright Business Wire 2008 -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From john at citylinkfiber.com Thu Nov 27 18:52:15 2008 From: john at citylinkfiber.com (John Brown) Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2008 19:52:15 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] NMCAC-Darkstrand Announcement In-Reply-To: <20081127074855.2f7ojnn2okc0og40@www2.dcn.org> References: <20081127074855.2f7ojnn2okc0og40@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: <492F5CDF.3060103@citylinkfiber.com> Nice announcement. It does miss some important details. 1. Does this mean that UNM/ABQ-G / NM Lambda Rail has now approved commercial use of its network ??? 2. If 1 is true, then when would Sandoval County expect to connect ? Last I remember the hold up for Sandoval County connecting was the commercial intent by Sandoval County.... 3. If 1 is true, where is the publicly available document that describes how a tax payer funded service is now available for private sector / corporate use. Same document should also allow any other private sector entity to connect. 4. Why isn't DarkStrand registered to do business in NM ?? I'm not bashing anyone and see this release as an indicator that such a valuable tax payer funded resource is now available to other private sector entities. Richard Lowenberg wrote: > Darkstrand-NM > > New Mexico Computing Applications Center Brings One of the World's Fastest > Supercomputers to Darkstrand Network > > New Partnership Brings Greater Speed, Bandwidth and Research Brainshare Critical > for Corporate America to Maintain Global Competitive Advantage > > www.marketwatch.com/news/story/New-Mexico-Computing-Applications-Center/story.aspx?guid={D4AF20EE-6BA1-4250-835E-D62F6400253E} > > Nov. 19, 2008 > > AUSTIN, Texas, Nov 19, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Today, Darkstrand, a pioneer in > corporate high-speed connectivity bridging research and commercialization, > announced a strategic partnership agreement with the New Mexico Computing > Applications Center (NMCAC), a premier research institution dedicated to > applications-driven high-speed computer problem solving. NMCAC currently hosts > the 12th fastest supercomputer in the world, according to the biannual TOP500 > Project, known as "Encanto," and this alliance opens a virtual gateway for > corporate America to the vast supercomputing resources and expertise that NMCAC > holds. Corporations with connectivity to the Darkstrand fiber optic network will > now have the power to drive innovative, high-performance computing (HPC) > initiatives in real-time collaboration with NMCAC supercomputer and its > affiliated institutions. > > "The state of New Mexico and NMCAC are on the forefront of an economic > development explosion," said Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico. "By > bringing together New Mexico's scientific talent, the power of Encanto, and > this advanced networking technology we are creating a new model of innovation > that can bring sources of revenue to New Mexico from companies, not only within > our state borders, but throughout the world." > > Darkstrand changes the game, allowing companies to leverage research labs and > universities nationwide. For the first time, corporations can actively > collaborate in the entire R&D cycle, beginning with discovery, moving through > prototype development and ending with commercialization. This new collaborative > R&D and collaborative model is taking shape because of the power of the > Darkstrand network to drive massive production data seamlessly between > geographic locations on dedicated 10 G circuits. This capability enables > companies located anywhere in the United States to work intimately with > researchers and HPC applications at NMCAC member institutions. > > "Darkstrand was created to liberate innovation in American corporations by > leveraging the technology and minds of academia that can connect ideas with > computing capability," said Michael Stein, CEO and Founder of Darkstrand. > "Today's partnership with NMCAC further extends the reach of our network, > giving companies the unleashed power and speed they need to solve workflow > problems using high-performance computing tools." > > In the coming months, Darkstrand and NMCAC will work on a joint implementation > plan that creates a seamless corporate path from discovery to > commercialization. Darkstrand and NMCAC will also work with the state of New > Mexico on public sector initiatives like education and healthcare, with the > goal of extending the state's reach into all geographic areas for access to > information and critical services. > > "Our supercomputer was created to drive groundbreaking research for education > and commerce in the state of New Mexico, and our ability to partner with the > Darkstrand Network will advance innovation and collaboration by providing the > hardware and the subject matter expertise that corporations are looking for," > said Thomas J. Bowles, PhD, Science Advisor for Governor Richardson. "NMCAC > brings to the corporate doorstep a wide range of R&D expertise in sectors like > health, biotechnology, digital film and media, energy, and oil and gas." > > In addition to direct access to the NMCAC, the Darkstrand partnership will > connect companies with NMCAC-affiliate research institutions, including Los > Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, University of New > Mexico, New Mexico State University and New Mexico Institute of Mining and > Technology. Encanto, the NMCAC and its affiliates will connect directly to the > Darkstrand Network, which is currently upgrading its backbone to 40 Gig speed. > The NMCAC Encanto supercomputer is located at Intel Corporation's Fab 7 plant in > Rio Rancho. The 172 Teraflop supercomputer was built using advanced technology > from Intel and Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI). The NMCAC is located in > Albuquerque, but will be connected in a network of gateway sites at the > national labs, universities and colleges across New Mexico and ultimately > throughout the US and globally. For more information on the NMCAC, please > visit: http://www.newmexicosupercomputer.com/. > > In June 2008, Darkstrand developed a business alliance with the NLR, acquiring > one half of National LambdaRail's (NLR) 15,000-route mile optical network that > is currently spread across 30 U.S. cities. NLR's unparalleled network supports > large-scale digital production work for research groups that need multi-gigabit > speed and access to high-performance computing power. The NLR is the backbone of > the Darkstrand Network, providing a direct-line from the knowledge-driven > science world such as NMCAC to results-oriented enterprises that will > ultimately enable U.S. companies to innovate and more effectively compete > globally. > > About Darkstrand > Darkstrand, Inc. leverages enterprise-level network bandwidth to close the > collaboration gap between corporations and research communities. Darkstrand is > a pivotal corporate partner for solving real workflow, development and > collaborative challenges, linking teams, facilities and suppliers into one > ecosystem in a high-speed, networked grid environment via the National > LambdaRail (NLR), a vast 15,000-route mile optical network spread across 30 > U.S. cities. Darkstrand shortens time to insight and expands productivity for > companies wanting a competitive edge. Based in Chicago, Illinois, Darkstrand > was established in 2005, and has raised $12 million to date from private > investors. For more information, visit http://www.darkstrand.com. > > About New Mexico Computing Applications Center > The New Mexico Computing Applications Center was approved by New Mexico's > Legislature in 2007 and began operations in 2008 as a resource for > applications-driven high-speed computer problem solving. Working closely with > the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Labs and the State's three > research universities, the NMCAC is dedicated to serving the needs of the > people of New Mexico as well as tackling some of the nation's most pressing > problems like energy and the environment using high-speed computing. The > Center works with federal institutions, other states and private companies to > run their own applications or develop new ones using its 172 teraflop SGi > supercomputer named 'Encanto' which is based at Intel's New Mexico headquarters > in Rio Rancho just a few miles from Albuquerque. > > SOURCE: Darkstrand, Inc. > > Copyright Business Wire 2008 > > From pete at ideapete.com Thu Nov 27 20:33:57 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2008 21:33:57 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] NMCAC-Darkstrand Announcement In-Reply-To: <492F5CDF.3060103@citylinkfiber.com> References: <20081127074855.2f7ojnn2okc0og40@www2.dcn.org> <492F5CDF.3060103@citylinkfiber.com> Message-ID: <492F74B5.10901@ideapete.com> John If you check the data at Internet 2 ( When Lmdr wanted to take over I2) that is exactly why I2 broke of the involvement with Lmdr when they found a corporate entity Darkstarnd was involved The whole move was a take over attemt to monpolise the next ultra high speed network as you say funded by taxpayers by a for profit entity ( based out of Chicago the home of our new president ) The I2 board saw this as a total conflict of interest to the original Lmdr and I2 mission apparently Lmdr directors including the NMLmdr entity obviously are not so fussy about taking this kind of double money that does not belong to them The PRC should yank the operational approval of everyone involved which is probably why there local operator sponsored by UNM will have a different name What next will UNM CIRT go public to spend more of our dollars ? ( : ( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ John Brown wrote: > Nice announcement. > > It does miss some important details. > > 1. Does this mean that UNM/ABQ-G / NM Lambda Rail has now approved > commercial use of its network ??? > > 2. If 1 is true, then when would Sandoval County expect to connect ? > Last I remember the hold up for Sandoval County connecting was > the commercial intent by Sandoval County.... > > 3. If 1 is true, where is the publicly available document that describes > how a tax payer funded service is now available for private sector / > corporate use. Same document should also allow any other private > sector entity to connect. > > 4. Why isn't DarkStrand registered to do business in NM ?? > > > I'm not bashing anyone and see this release as an indicator that such a > valuable tax payer funded resource is now available to other private > sector entities. > > > > Richard Lowenberg wrote: > >> Darkstrand-NM >> >> New Mexico Computing Applications Center Brings One of the World's Fastest >> Supercomputers to Darkstrand Network >> >> New Partnership Brings Greater Speed, Bandwidth and Research Brainshare Critical >> for Corporate America to Maintain Global Competitive Advantage >> >> www.marketwatch.com/news/story/New-Mexico-Computing-Applications-Center/story.aspx?guid={D4AF20EE-6BA1-4250-835E-D62F6400253E} >> >> Nov. 19, 2008 >> >> AUSTIN, Texas, Nov 19, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Today, Darkstrand, a pioneer in >> corporate high-speed connectivity bridging research and commercialization, >> announced a strategic partnership agreement with the New Mexico Computing >> Applications Center (NMCAC), a premier research institution dedicated to >> applications-driven high-speed computer problem solving. NMCAC currently hosts >> the 12th fastest supercomputer in the world, according to the biannual TOP500 >> Project, known as "Encanto," and this alliance opens a virtual gateway for >> corporate America to the vast supercomputing resources and expertise that NMCAC >> holds. Corporations with connectivity to the Darkstrand fiber optic network will >> now have the power to drive innovative, high-performance computing (HPC) >> initiatives in real-time collaboration with NMCAC supercomputer and its >> affiliated institutions. >> >> "The state of New Mexico and NMCAC are on the forefront of an economic >> development explosion," said Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico. "By >> bringing together New Mexico's scientific talent, the power of Encanto, and >> this advanced networking technology we are creating a new model of innovation >> that can bring sources of revenue to New Mexico from companies, not only within >> our state borders, but throughout the world." >> >> Darkstrand changes the game, allowing companies to leverage research labs and >> universities nationwide. For the first time, corporations can actively >> collaborate in the entire R&D cycle, beginning with discovery, moving through >> prototype development and ending with commercialization. This new collaborative >> R&D and collaborative model is taking shape because of the power of the >> Darkstrand network to drive massive production data seamlessly between >> geographic locations on dedicated 10 G circuits. This capability enables >> companies located anywhere in the United States to work intimately with >> researchers and HPC applications at NMCAC member institutions. >> >> "Darkstrand was created to liberate innovation in American corporations by >> leveraging the technology and minds of academia that can connect ideas with >> computing capability," said Michael Stein, CEO and Founder of Darkstrand. >> "Today's partnership with NMCAC further extends the reach of our network, >> giving companies the unleashed power and speed they need to solve workflow >> problems using high-performance computing tools." >> >> In the coming months, Darkstrand and NMCAC will work on a joint implementation >> plan that creates a seamless corporate path from discovery to >> commercialization. Darkstrand and NMCAC will also work with the state of New >> Mexico on public sector initiatives like education and healthcare, with the >> goal of extending the state's reach into all geographic areas for access to >> information and critical services. >> >> "Our supercomputer was created to drive groundbreaking research for education >> and commerce in the state of New Mexico, and our ability to partner with the >> Darkstrand Network will advance innovation and collaboration by providing the >> hardware and the subject matter expertise that corporations are looking for," >> said Thomas J. Bowles, PhD, Science Advisor for Governor Richardson. "NMCAC >> brings to the corporate doorstep a wide range of R&D expertise in sectors like >> health, biotechnology, digital film and media, energy, and oil and gas." >> >> In addition to direct access to the NMCAC, the Darkstrand partnership will >> connect companies with NMCAC-affiliate research institutions, including Los >> Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, University of New >> Mexico, New Mexico State University and New Mexico Institute of Mining and >> Technology. Encanto, the NMCAC and its affiliates will connect directly to the >> Darkstrand Network, which is currently upgrading its backbone to 40 Gig speed. >> The NMCAC Encanto supercomputer is located at Intel Corporation's Fab 7 plant in >> Rio Rancho. The 172 Teraflop supercomputer was built using advanced technology >> from Intel and Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI). The NMCAC is located in >> Albuquerque, but will be connected in a network of gateway sites at the >> national labs, universities and colleges across New Mexico and ultimately >> throughout the US and globally. For more information on the NMCAC, please >> visit: http://www.newmexicosupercomputer.com/. >> >> In June 2008, Darkstrand developed a business alliance with the NLR, acquiring >> one half of National LambdaRail's (NLR) 15,000-route mile optical network that >> is currently spread across 30 U.S. cities. NLR's unparalleled network supports >> large-scale digital production work for research groups that need multi-gigabit >> speed and access to high-performance computing power. The NLR is the backbone of >> the Darkstrand Network, providing a direct-line from the knowledge-driven >> science world such as NMCAC to results-oriented enterprises that will >> ultimately enable U.S. companies to innovate and more effectively compete >> globally. >> >> About Darkstrand >> Darkstrand, Inc. leverages enterprise-level network bandwidth to close the >> collaboration gap between corporations and research communities. Darkstrand is >> a pivotal corporate partner for solving real workflow, development and >> collaborative challenges, linking teams, facilities and suppliers into one >> ecosystem in a high-speed, networked grid environment via the National >> LambdaRail (NLR), a vast 15,000-route mile optical network spread across 30 >> U.S. cities. Darkstrand shortens time to insight and expands productivity for >> companies wanting a competitive edge. Based in Chicago, Illinois, Darkstrand >> was established in 2005, and has raised $12 million to date from private >> investors. For more information, visit http://www.darkstrand.com. >> >> About New Mexico Computing Applications Center >> The New Mexico Computing Applications Center was approved by New Mexico's >> Legislature in 2007 and began operations in 2008 as a resource for >> applications-driven high-speed computer problem solving. Working closely with >> the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Labs and the State's three >> research universities, the NMCAC is dedicated to serving the needs of the >> people of New Mexico as well as tackling some of the nation's most pressing >> problems like energy and the environment using high-speed computing. The >> Center works with federal institutions, other states and private companies to >> run their own applications or develop new ones using its 172 teraflop SGi >> supercomputer named 'Encanto' which is based at Intel's New Mexico headquarters >> in Rio Rancho just a few miles from Albuquerque. >> >> SOURCE: Darkstrand, Inc. >> >> Copyright Business Wire 2008 >> >> >> > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gbauers at unm.edu Fri Nov 28 08:34:31 2008 From: gbauers at unm.edu (Gary Bauerschmidt) Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2008 09:34:31 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] NMCAC-Darkstrand Announcement In-Reply-To: <492F5CDF.3060103@citylinkfiber.com> References: <20081127074855.2f7ojnn2okc0og40@www2.dcn.org> <492F5CDF.3060103@citylinkfiber.com> Message-ID: <49301D97.3010202@unm.edu> Hey John, wanted to reply to your questions before rumors spin out of control. Thanks for raising these questions! You're right important details are missing, but the answer to number one is no. NM Lambda Rail is a non-profit organization that has restrictions in commercial use. ABQ-G (just a catchy name) being a department of UNM of course has commercial use prohibitions. If anyone connecting to NMLR has commercial uses in addition to their research needs their commercial traffic will have to go through another provider. Another reason why partnerships are so important. If New Mexico is going to cost effectively bring connectivity to as much of our state as possible, we ALL have to partner together. Only by pooling our resources and sharing use will NM be successful in increasing broadband connectivity as the recent report that Richard worked so hard on stated. Gary Bauerschmidt Associate Director, ITS University of New Mexico John Brown wrote: > Nice announcement. > > It does miss some important details. > > 1. Does this mean that UNM/ABQ-G / NM Lambda Rail has now approved > commercial use of its network ??? > > 2. If 1 is true, then when would Sandoval County expect to connect ? > Last I remember the hold up for Sandoval County connecting was > the commercial intent by Sandoval County.... > > 3. If 1 is true, where is the publicly available document that describes > how a tax payer funded service is now available for private sector / > corporate use. Same document should also allow any other private > sector entity to connect. > > 4. Why isn't DarkStrand registered to do business in NM ?? > > > I'm not bashing anyone and see this release as an indicator that such a > valuable tax payer funded resource is now available to other private > sector entities. > > > > Richard Lowenberg wrote: >> Darkstrand-NM >> >> New Mexico Computing Applications Center Brings One of the World's Fastest >> Supercomputers to Darkstrand Network >> >> New Partnership Brings Greater Speed, Bandwidth and Research Brainshare Critical >> for Corporate America to Maintain Global Competitive Advantage >> >> www.marketwatch.com/news/story/New-Mexico-Computing-Applications-Center/story.aspx?guid={D4AF20EE-6BA1-4250-835E-D62F6400253E} >> >> Nov. 19, 2008 >> >> AUSTIN, Texas, Nov 19, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Today, Darkstrand, a pioneer in >> corporate high-speed connectivity bridging research and commercialization, >> announced a strategic partnership agreement with the New Mexico Computing >> Applications Center (NMCAC), a premier research institution dedicated to >> applications-driven high-speed computer problem solving. NMCAC currently hosts >> the 12th fastest supercomputer in the world, according to the biannual TOP500 >> Project, known as "Encanto," and this alliance opens a virtual gateway for >> corporate America to the vast supercomputing resources and expertise that NMCAC >> holds. Corporations with connectivity to the Darkstrand fiber optic network will >> now have the power to drive innovative, high-performance computing (HPC) >> initiatives in real-time collaboration with NMCAC supercomputer and its >> affiliated institutions. >> >> "The state of New Mexico and NMCAC are on the forefront of an economic >> development explosion," said Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico. "By >> bringing together New Mexico's scientific talent, the power of Encanto, and >> this advanced networking technology we are creating a new model of innovation >> that can bring sources of revenue to New Mexico from companies, not only within >> our state borders, but throughout the world." >> >> Darkstrand changes the game, allowing companies to leverage research labs and >> universities nationwide. For the first time, corporations can actively >> collaborate in the entire R&D cycle, beginning with discovery, moving through >> prototype development and ending with commercialization. This new collaborative >> R&D and collaborative model is taking shape because of the power of the >> Darkstrand network to drive massive production data seamlessly between >> geographic locations on dedicated 10 G circuits. This capability enables >> companies located anywhere in the United States to work intimately with >> researchers and HPC applications at NMCAC member institutions. >> >> "Darkstrand was created to liberate innovation in American corporations by >> leveraging the technology and minds of academia that can connect ideas with >> computing capability," said Michael Stein, CEO and Founder of Darkstrand. >> "Today's partnership with NMCAC further extends the reach of our network, >> giving companies the unleashed power and speed they need to solve workflow >> problems using high-performance computing tools." >> >> In the coming months, Darkstrand and NMCAC will work on a joint implementation >> plan that creates a seamless corporate path from discovery to >> commercialization. Darkstrand and NMCAC will also work with the state of New >> Mexico on public sector initiatives like education and healthcare, with the >> goal of extending the state's reach into all geographic areas for access to >> information and critical services. >> >> "Our supercomputer was created to drive groundbreaking research for education >> and commerce in the state of New Mexico, and our ability to partner with the >> Darkstrand Network will advance innovation and collaboration by providing the >> hardware and the subject matter expertise that corporations are looking for," >> said Thomas J. Bowles, PhD, Science Advisor for Governor Richardson. "NMCAC >> brings to the corporate doorstep a wide range of R&D expertise in sectors like >> health, biotechnology, digital film and media, energy, and oil and gas." >> >> In addition to direct access to the NMCAC, the Darkstrand partnership will >> connect companies with NMCAC-affiliate research institutions, including Los >> Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, University of New >> Mexico, New Mexico State University and New Mexico Institute of Mining and >> Technology. Encanto, the NMCAC and its affiliates will connect directly to the >> Darkstrand Network, which is currently upgrading its backbone to 40 Gig speed. >> The NMCAC Encanto supercomputer is located at Intel Corporation's Fab 7 plant in >> Rio Rancho. The 172 Teraflop supercomputer was built using advanced technology >> from Intel and Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI). The NMCAC is located in >> Albuquerque, but will be connected in a network of gateway sites at the >> national labs, universities and colleges across New Mexico and ultimately >> throughout the US and globally. For more information on the NMCAC, please >> visit: http://www.newmexicosupercomputer.com/. >> >> In June 2008, Darkstrand developed a business alliance with the NLR, acquiring >> one half of National LambdaRail's (NLR) 15,000-route mile optical network that >> is currently spread across 30 U.S. cities. NLR's unparalleled network supports >> large-scale digital production work for research groups that need multi-gigabit >> speed and access to high-performance computing power. The NLR is the backbone of >> the Darkstrand Network, providing a direct-line from the knowledge-driven >> science world such as NMCAC to results-oriented enterprises that will >> ultimately enable U.S. companies to innovate and more effectively compete >> globally. >> >> About Darkstrand >> Darkstrand, Inc. leverages enterprise-level network bandwidth to close the >> collaboration gap between corporations and research communities. Darkstrand is >> a pivotal corporate partner for solving real workflow, development and >> collaborative challenges, linking teams, facilities and suppliers into one >> ecosystem in a high-speed, networked grid environment via the National >> LambdaRail (NLR), a vast 15,000-route mile optical network spread across 30 >> U.S. cities. Darkstrand shortens time to insight and expands productivity for >> companies wanting a competitive edge. Based in Chicago, Illinois, Darkstrand >> was established in 2005, and has raised $12 million to date from private >> investors. For more information, visit http://www.darkstrand.com. >> >> About New Mexico Computing Applications Center >> The New Mexico Computing Applications Center was approved by New Mexico's >> Legislature in 2007 and began operations in 2008 as a resource for >> applications-driven high-speed computer problem solving. Working closely with >> the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Labs and the State's three >> research universities, the NMCAC is dedicated to serving the needs of the >> people of New Mexico as well as tackling some of the nation's most pressing >> problems like energy and the environment using high-speed computing. The >> Center works with federal institutions, other states and private companies to >> run their own applications or develop new ones using its 172 teraflop SGi >> supercomputer named 'Encanto' which is based at Intel's New Mexico headquarters >> in Rio Rancho just a few miles from Albuquerque. >> >> SOURCE: Darkstrand, Inc. >> >> Copyright Business Wire 2008 >> >> > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm From pete at ideapete.com Fri Nov 28 16:40:46 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2008 17:40:46 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] NMCAC-Darkstrand Announcement In-Reply-To: <49301D97.3010202@unm.edu> References: <20081127074855.2f7ojnn2okc0og40@www2.dcn.org> <492F5CDF.3060103@citylinkfiber.com> <49301D97.3010202@unm.edu> Message-ID: <49308F8E.5030801@ideapete.com> Hey Gary I understand that Mike Stein of Darkstrand has issued a press release saying that his company ( with absolutely no fiber network management experience ) beat out Qwest / ATT / L3 for the national commercialization on 15000 route miles of NLR . Let me see no experience and it breaks the law , yup makes perfect sense ! When was this supposed RFP issued and who adjudicated it I would also like to know how many NLR and NMLR members are now paid consultants to Darkstrand ( Lovely name for a company with special irony with the Cult of Darkstrand world of Warcraft ) then again it could be the same people ( : ( : Perhaps our Qwest and ATT members can comment as what I hear from telco sources is that what Darkstrand is proposing is not legally permissible and that is also the opinion of the fiber operator mentioned ( Especially ironic in the L3 and Qwest provided large parts of the local infrastructure ( Including the gigapop for UNM funded in part with corporate lobbying efforts and sponsorships by the promise of joint ventures who after they delivered were told to take a hike by UNM ) How does this also make sense when I2 after looking at NLR plan said it was just not allowable under law. Gary I know you get a paycheck from NMLR but how does your email of no we are not, jive with Darkstands comments and what do you mean by partner ( Including the above comment ) when most plans I have seen are just targeted at making a precious needed resource scarce and jacking up prices. Or does not and working together change depending on the price tag for UNM Lastly Richard where is the plan and is Bill taking it to DC or ??? ( : ( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ Gary Bauerschmidt wrote: > Hey John, > wanted to reply to your questions before rumors spin out of control. > Thanks for raising these questions! > > You're right important details are missing, but the answer to number one > is no. NM Lambda Rail is a non-profit organization that has > restrictions in commercial use. ABQ-G (just a catchy name) being a > department of UNM of course has commercial use prohibitions. > > If anyone connecting to NMLR has commercial uses in addition to their > research needs their commercial traffic will have to go through another > provider. Another reason why partnerships are so important. If New > Mexico is going to cost effectively bring connectivity to as much of our > state as possible, we ALL have to partner together. Only by pooling our > resources and sharing use will NM be successful in increasing broadband > connectivity as the recent report that Richard worked so hard on stated. > > Gary Bauerschmidt > Associate Director, ITS > University of New Mexico > > John Brown wrote: > >> Nice announcement. >> >> It does miss some important details. >> >> 1. Does this mean that UNM/ABQ-G / NM Lambda Rail has now approved >> commercial use of its network ??? >> >> 2. If 1 is true, then when would Sandoval County expect to connect ? >> Last I remember the hold up for Sandoval County connecting was >> the commercial intent by Sandoval County.... >> >> 3. If 1 is true, where is the publicly available document that describes >> how a tax payer funded service is now available for private sector / >> corporate use. Same document should also allow any other private >> sector entity to connect. >> >> 4. Why isn't DarkStrand registered to do business in NM ?? >> >> >> I'm not bashing anyone and see this release as an indicator that such a >> valuable tax payer funded resource is now available to other private >> sector entities. >> >> >> >> Richard Lowenberg wrote: >> >>> Darkstrand-NM >>> >>> New Mexico Computing Applications Center Brings One of the World's Fastest >>> Supercomputers to Darkstrand Network >>> >>> New Partnership Brings Greater Speed, Bandwidth and Research Brainshare Critical >>> for Corporate America to Maintain Global Competitive Advantage >>> >>> www.marketwatch.com/news/story/New-Mexico-Computing-Applications-Center/story.aspx?guid={D4AF20EE-6BA1-4250-835E-D62F6400253E} >>> >>> Nov. 19, 2008 >>> >>> AUSTIN, Texas, Nov 19, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Today, Darkstrand, a pioneer in >>> corporate high-speed connectivity bridging research and commercialization, >>> announced a strategic partnership agreement with the New Mexico Computing >>> Applications Center (NMCAC), a premier research institution dedicated to >>> applications-driven high-speed computer problem solving. NMCAC currently hosts >>> the 12th fastest supercomputer in the world, according to the biannual TOP500 >>> Project, known as "Encanto," and this alliance opens a virtual gateway for >>> corporate America to the vast supercomputing resources and expertise that NMCAC >>> holds. Corporations with connectivity to the Darkstrand fiber optic network will >>> now have the power to drive innovative, high-performance computing (HPC) >>> initiatives in real-time collaboration with NMCAC supercomputer and its >>> affiliated institutions. >>> >>> "The state of New Mexico and NMCAC are on the forefront of an economic >>> development explosion," said Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico. "By >>> bringing together New Mexico's scientific talent, the power of Encanto, and >>> this advanced networking technology we are creating a new model of innovation >>> that can bring sources of revenue to New Mexico from companies, not only within >>> our state borders, but throughout the world." >>> >>> Darkstrand changes the game, allowing companies to leverage research labs and >>> universities nationwide. For the first time, corporations can actively >>> collaborate in the entire R&D cycle, beginning with discovery, moving through >>> prototype development and ending with commercialization. This new collaborative >>> R&D and collaborative model is taking shape because of the power of the >>> Darkstrand network to drive massive production data seamlessly between >>> geographic locations on dedicated 10 G circuits. This capability enables >>> companies located anywhere in the United States to work intimately with >>> researchers and HPC applications at NMCAC member institutions. >>> >>> "Darkstrand was created to liberate innovation in American corporations by >>> leveraging the technology and minds of academia that can connect ideas with >>> computing capability," said Michael Stein, CEO and Founder of Darkstrand. >>> "Today's partnership with NMCAC further extends the reach of our network, >>> giving companies the unleashed power and speed they need to solve workflow >>> problems using high-performance computing tools." >>> >>> In the coming months, Darkstrand and NMCAC will work on a joint implementation >>> plan that creates a seamless corporate path from discovery to >>> commercialization. Darkstrand and NMCAC will also work with the state of New >>> Mexico on public sector initiatives like education and healthcare, with the >>> goal of extending the state's reach into all geographic areas for access to >>> information and critical services. >>> >>> "Our supercomputer was created to drive groundbreaking research for education >>> and commerce in the state of New Mexico, and our ability to partner with the >>> Darkstrand Network will advance innovation and collaboration by providing the >>> hardware and the subject matter expertise that corporations are looking for," >>> said Thomas J. Bowles, PhD, Science Advisor for Governor Richardson. "NMCAC >>> brings to the corporate doorstep a wide range of R&D expertise in sectors like >>> health, biotechnology, digital film and media, energy, and oil and gas." >>> >>> In addition to direct access to the NMCAC, the Darkstrand partnership will >>> connect companies with NMCAC-affiliate research institutions, including Los >>> Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, University of New >>> Mexico, New Mexico State University and New Mexico Institute of Mining and >>> Technology. Encanto, the NMCAC and its affiliates will connect directly to the >>> Darkstrand Network, which is currently upgrading its backbone to 40 Gig speed. >>> The NMCAC Encanto supercomputer is located at Intel Corporation's Fab 7 plant in >>> Rio Rancho. The 172 Teraflop supercomputer was built using advanced technology >>> from Intel and Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI). The NMCAC is located in >>> Albuquerque, but will be connected in a network of gateway sites at the >>> national labs, universities and colleges across New Mexico and ultimately >>> throughout the US and globally. For more information on the NMCAC, please >>> visit: http://www.newmexicosupercomputer.com/. >>> >>> In June 2008, Darkstrand developed a business alliance with the NLR, acquiring >>> one half of National LambdaRail's (NLR) 15,000-route mile optical network that >>> is currently spread across 30 U.S. cities. NLR's unparalleled network supports >>> large-scale digital production work for research groups that need multi-gigabit >>> speed and access to high-performance computing power. The NLR is the backbone of >>> the Darkstrand Network, providing a direct-line from the knowledge-driven >>> science world such as NMCAC to results-oriented enterprises that will >>> ultimately enable U.S. companies to innovate and more effectively compete >>> globally. >>> >>> About Darkstrand >>> Darkstrand, Inc. leverages enterprise-level network bandwidth to close the >>> collaboration gap between corporations and research communities. Darkstrand is >>> a pivotal corporate partner for solving real workflow, development and >>> collaborative challenges, linking teams, facilities and suppliers into one >>> ecosystem in a high-speed, networked grid environment via the National >>> LambdaRail (NLR), a vast 15,000-route mile optical network spread across 30 >>> U.S. cities. Darkstrand shortens time to insight and expands productivity for >>> companies wanting a competitive edge. Based in Chicago, Illinois, Darkstrand >>> was established in 2005, and has raised $12 million to date from private >>> investors. For more information, visit http://www.darkstrand.com. >>> >>> About New Mexico Computing Applications Center >>> The New Mexico Computing Applications Center was approved by New Mexico's >>> Legislature in 2007 and began operations in 2008 as a resource for >>> applications-driven high-speed computer problem solving. Working closely with >>> the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Labs and the State's three >>> research universities, the NMCAC is dedicated to serving the needs of the >>> people of New Mexico as well as tackling some of the nation's most pressing >>> problems like energy and the environment using high-speed computing. The >>> Center works with federal institutions, other states and private companies to >>> run their own applications or develop new ones using its 172 teraflop SGi >>> supercomputer named 'Encanto' which is based at Intel's New Mexico headquarters >>> in Rio Rancho just a few miles from Albuquerque. >>> >>> SOURCE: Darkstrand, Inc. >>> >>> Copyright Business Wire 2008 >>> >>> >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> 1st-mile-nm mailing list >> 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm >> > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Thomas.Bowles at state.nm.us Fri Nov 28 12:22:56 2008 From: Thomas.Bowles at state.nm.us (Bowles, Thomas, GOV) Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2008 13:22:56 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] NMCAC-Darkstrand Announcement References: <20081127074855.2f7ojnn2okc0og40@www2.dcn.org> <492F5CDF.3060103@citylinkfiber.com> Message-ID: <031266925C010E4D9D6FE1B44ED586D8063E7ED7@CEXMB2.nmes.lcl> Hi John, A couple of points. 1) As Gary said, nothing has changed with regards to use of LamdbdaRail. However, as you are aware, LambdaRail is now partnered with Darkstrand, who are installing new switches and providing access to business on separate waves from LambdaRail. There is info on the web about the merger, but basically LambdaRail benefits by having a partner to share expenses with, thus reducing the costs to LambdaRail member institutions. However, LambdaRail and Darkstrand provide different services to different sets of customers. 2) I expect Darkstrand will get registered in New Mexico, but at this point (as far as I am aware) they are not providing services to anyone in New Mexico. As soon as they do, I assume they will have to get registered. I also thought I should provide some clarification on the relationship between Darkstrand and NMCAC. The MOU is a very general one and simply says that we will work together to find projects that are of mutual benefit. Darkstrand has three focus areas: broadband internet connectivity, marketing and consulting, and high performance computing. NMCAC can assist Darsktrand on the HPC side by providing access to a supercomputer and computing talent. Darkstand can assist NMCAC by acting as a broker between NMCAC and businesses who need to draw on HPC expertise. All of that is done under a set of specified conditions that are aligned with the mission of the NMCAC - i.e., we only partner with firms in which the State will benefit through economic development and education and workforce development. The only connectivity that the NMCAC provides is through the fiber link from Rio Rancho to the PoP at 505 Marquette. Any institution or business partnering with the NMCAC needs to arrange for their own connectivity from their location to the PoP at 505 Marquette. In that sense, whether it is Darkstrand or some other company is irrelevant to the NMAC - we provide HPC expertise, not broadband connectivity. This is in line with the desire of the NMCAC to partner with any and all businesses that will provide benefit to the State. Best wishes, Tom Thomas J. Bowles, Ph.D. Science Advisor to NM Governor Bill Richardson State Capitol Building Suite 400 Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 Tel: (505) 476-2244 Fax: (505) 476-2226 Email: Thomas.Bowles at state.nm.us -----Original Message----- From: 1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org on behalf of John Brown Sent: Thu 11/27/2008 7:52 PM To: Richard Lowenberg Cc: 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org Subject: Re: [1st-mile-nm] NMCAC-Darkstrand Announcement Nice announcement. It does miss some important details. 1. Does this mean that UNM/ABQ-G / NM Lambda Rail has now approved commercial use of its network ??? 2. If 1 is true, then when would Sandoval County expect to connect ? Last I remember the hold up for Sandoval County connecting was the commercial intent by Sandoval County.... 3. If 1 is true, where is the publicly available document that describes how a tax payer funded service is now available for private sector / corporate use. Same document should also allow any other private sector entity to connect. 4. Why isn't DarkStrand registered to do business in NM ?? I'm not bashing anyone and see this release as an indicator that such a valuable tax payer funded resource is now available to other private sector entities. Richard Lowenberg wrote: > Darkstrand-NM > > New Mexico Computing Applications Center Brings One of the World's Fastest > Supercomputers to Darkstrand Network > > New Partnership Brings Greater Speed, Bandwidth and Research Brainshare Critical > for Corporate America to Maintain Global Competitive Advantage > > www.marketwatch.com/news/story/New-Mexico-Computing-Applications-Center/story.aspx?guid={D4AF20EE-6BA1-4250-835E-D62F6400253E} > > Nov. 19, 2008 > > AUSTIN, Texas, Nov 19, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Today, Darkstrand, a pioneer in > corporate high-speed connectivity bridging research and commercialization, > announced a strategic partnership agreement with the New Mexico Computing > Applications Center (NMCAC), a premier research institution dedicated to > applications-driven high-speed computer problem solving. NMCAC currently hosts > the 12th fastest supercomputer in the world, according to the biannual TOP500 > Project, known as "Encanto," and this alliance opens a virtual gateway for > corporate America to the vast supercomputing resources and expertise that NMCAC > holds. Corporations with connectivity to the Darkstrand fiber optic network will > now have the power to drive innovative, high-performance computing (HPC) > initiatives in real-time collaboration with NMCAC supercomputer and its > affiliated institutions. > > "The state of New Mexico and NMCAC are on the forefront of an economic > development explosion," said Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico. "By > bringing together New Mexico's scientific talent, the power of Encanto, and > this advanced networking technology we are creating a new model of innovation > that can bring sources of revenue to New Mexico from companies, not only within > our state borders, but throughout the world." > > Darkstrand changes the game, allowing companies to leverage research labs and > universities nationwide. For the first time, corporations can actively > collaborate in the entire R&D cycle, beginning with discovery, moving through > prototype development and ending with commercialization. This new collaborative > R&D and collaborative model is taking shape because of the power of the > Darkstrand network to drive massive production data seamlessly between > geographic locations on dedicated 10 G circuits. This capability enables > companies located anywhere in the United States to work intimately with > researchers and HPC applications at NMCAC member institutions. > > "Darkstrand was created to liberate innovation in American corporations by > leveraging the technology and minds of academia that can connect ideas with > computing capability," said Michael Stein, CEO and Founder of Darkstrand. > "Today's partnership with NMCAC further extends the reach of our network, > giving companies the unleashed power and speed they need to solve workflow > problems using high-performance computing tools." > > In the coming months, Darkstrand and NMCAC will work on a joint implementation > plan that creates a seamless corporate path from discovery to > commercialization. Darkstrand and NMCAC will also work with the state of New > Mexico on public sector initiatives like education and healthcare, with the > goal of extending the state's reach into all geographic areas for access to > information and critical services. > > "Our supercomputer was created to drive groundbreaking research for education > and commerce in the state of New Mexico, and our ability to partner with the > Darkstrand Network will advance innovation and collaboration by providing the > hardware and the subject matter expertise that corporations are looking for," > said Thomas J. Bowles, PhD, Science Advisor for Governor Richardson. "NMCAC > brings to the corporate doorstep a wide range of R&D expertise in sectors like > health, biotechnology, digital film and media, energy, and oil and gas." > > In addition to direct access to the NMCAC, the Darkstrand partnership will > connect companies with NMCAC-affiliate research institutions, including Los > Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, University of New > Mexico, New Mexico State University and New Mexico Institute of Mining and > Technology. Encanto, the NMCAC and its affiliates will connect directly to the > Darkstrand Network, which is currently upgrading its backbone to 40 Gig speed. > The NMCAC Encanto supercomputer is located at Intel Corporation's Fab 7 plant in > Rio Rancho. The 172 Teraflop supercomputer was built using advanced technology > from Intel and Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI). The NMCAC is located in > Albuquerque, but will be connected in a network of gateway sites at the > national labs, universities and colleges across New Mexico and ultimately > throughout the US and globally. For more information on the NMCAC, please > visit: http://www.newmexicosupercomputer.com/. > > In June 2008, Darkstrand developed a business alliance with the NLR, acquiring > one half of National LambdaRail's (NLR) 15,000-route mile optical network that > is currently spread across 30 U.S. cities. NLR's unparalleled network supports > large-scale digital production work for research groups that need multi-gigabit > speed and access to high-performance computing power. The NLR is the backbone of > the Darkstrand Network, providing a direct-line from the knowledge-driven > science world such as NMCAC to results-oriented enterprises that will > ultimately enable U.S. companies to innovate and more effectively compete > globally. > > About Darkstrand > Darkstrand, Inc. leverages enterprise-level network bandwidth to close the > collaboration gap between corporations and research communities. Darkstrand is > a pivotal corporate partner for solving real workflow, development and > collaborative challenges, linking teams, facilities and suppliers into one > ecosystem in a high-speed, networked grid environment via the National > LambdaRail (NLR), a vast 15,000-route mile optical network spread across 30 > U.S. cities. Darkstrand shortens time to insight and expands productivity for > companies wanting a competitive edge. Based in Chicago, Illinois, Darkstrand > was established in 2005, and has raised $12 million to date from private > investors. For more information, visit http://www.darkstrand.com. > > About New Mexico Computing Applications Center > The New Mexico Computing Applications Center was approved by New Mexico's > Legislature in 2007 and began operations in 2008 as a resource for > applications-driven high-speed computer problem solving. Working closely with > the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Labs and the State's three > research universities, the NMCAC is dedicated to serving the needs of the > people of New Mexico as well as tackling some of the nation's most pressing > problems like energy and the environment using high-speed computing. The > Center works with federal institutions, other states and private companies to > run their own applications or develop new ones using its 172 teraflop SGi > supercomputer named 'Encanto' which is based at Intel's New Mexico headquarters > in Rio Rancho just a few miles from Albuquerque. > > SOURCE: Darkstrand, Inc. > > Copyright Business Wire 2008 > > _______________________________________________ 1st-mile-nm mailing list 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm ______________________________________________________________________ This inbound email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. ______________________________________________________________________ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gbauers at unm.edu Fri Nov 28 20:07:17 2008 From: gbauers at unm.edu (Gary Bauerschmidt) Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2008 21:07:17 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] NMCAC-Darkstrand Announcement In-Reply-To: <49308F8E.5030801@ideapete.com> References: <20081127074855.2f7ojnn2okc0og40@www2.dcn.org> <492F5CDF.3060103@citylinkfiber.com> <49301D97.3010202@unm.edu> <49308F8E.5030801@ideapete.com> Message-ID: <4930BFF5.1020407@unm.edu> Hi Pete, I don't know anything about the RFPs issued at the National level. I'm way busy with work around here! No paychecks from NMLR. I wish I had more money paid to me than my university salary. Wait, disclaimer: I do get fees for refereeing soccer matches :) As for the Gigapop there are no sponsorships. And relationships with both L3 and Qwest are still good with ongoing partnerships and new ventures. Both have presence at the GigaPop. No corporate lobbying and certainly no funding has ever been received. Actually the bulk of the funding for the GigaPop came from a NSF grant to enhance connectivity. This was done a number of years ago by two folks with great vision and persistence. And no it wasn't me :) Lou Sullo and Art St George were the visionaries. Price tags are certainly a critical factor especially nowadays with the economic situation. But I'm also a believer in working together is the way to build back our country's infrastructure to be among the world's best including, most importantly broadband connectivity. Gary peter wrote: > Hey Gary > > I understand that Mike Stein of Darkstrand has issued a press release > saying that his company ( with absolutely no fiber network > management experience ) beat out Qwest / ATT / L3 for the national > commercialization on 15000 route miles of NLR . Let me see no > experience and it breaks the law , yup makes perfect sense ! > > When was this supposed RFP issued and who adjudicated it > > I would also like to know how many NLR and NMLR members are now paid > consultants to Darkstrand ( Lovely name for a company with special > irony with the Cult of Darkstrand world of Warcraft ) then again it > could be the same people ( : ( : > > Perhaps our Qwest and ATT members can comment as what I hear from > telco sources is that what Darkstrand is proposing is not legally > permissible and that is also the opinion of the fiber operator > mentioned ( Especially ironic in the L3 and Qwest provided large > parts of the local infrastructure ( Including the gigapop for UNM > funded in part with corporate lobbying efforts and sponsorships by > the promise of joint ventures who after they delivered were told to > take a hike by UNM ) > > How does this also make sense when I2 after looking at NLR plan said > it was just not allowable under law. > > Gary I know you get a paycheck from NMLR but how does your email of > no we are not, jive with Darkstands comments and what do you mean by > partner ( Including the above comment ) when most plans I have seen > are just targeted at making a precious needed resource scarce and > jacking up prices. > > Or does not and working together change depending on the price tag > for UNM > > Lastly Richard where is the plan and is Bill taking it to DC or ??? > > ( : ( : pete > > Peter Baston > > *IDEAS* > > /www.ideapete.com/ > > > > > > > > > Gary Bauerschmidt wrote: >> Hey John, wanted to reply to your questions before rumors spin out >> of control. Thanks for raising these questions! >> >> You're right important details are missing, but the answer to >> number one is no. NM Lambda Rail is a non-profit organization that >> has restrictions in commercial use. ABQ-G (just a catchy name) >> being a department of UNM of course has commercial use >> prohibitions. >> >> If anyone connecting to NMLR has commercial uses in addition to >> their research needs their commercial traffic will have to go >> through another provider. Another reason why partnerships are so >> important. If New Mexico is going to cost effectively bring >> connectivity to as much of our state as possible, we ALL have to >> partner together. Only by pooling our resources and sharing use >> will NM be successful in increasing broadband connectivity as the >> recent report that Richard worked so hard on stated. >> >> Gary Bauerschmidt Associate Director, ITS University of New Mexico >> >> John Brown wrote: >> >>> Nice announcement. >>> >>> It does miss some important details. >>> >>> 1. Does this mean that UNM/ABQ-G / NM Lambda Rail has now >>> approved commercial use of its network ??? >>> >>> 2. If 1 is true, then when would Sandoval County expect to >>> connect ? Last I remember the hold up for Sandoval County >>> connecting was the commercial intent by Sandoval County.... >>> >>> 3. If 1 is true, where is the publicly available document that >>> describes how a tax payer funded service is now available for >>> private sector / corporate use. Same document should also allow >>> any other private sector entity to connect. >>> >>> 4. Why isn't DarkStrand registered to do business in NM ?? >>> >>> >>> I'm not bashing anyone and see this release as an indicator that >>> such a valuable tax payer funded resource is now available to >>> other private sector entities. >>> >>> >>> >>> Richard Lowenberg wrote: >>> >>>> Darkstrand-NM >>>> >>>> New Mexico Computing Applications Center Brings One of the >>>> World's Fastest Supercomputers to Darkstrand Network >>>> >>>> New Partnership Brings Greater Speed, Bandwidth and Research >>>> Brainshare Critical for Corporate America to Maintain Global >>>> Competitive Advantage >>>> >>>> www.marketwatch.com/news/story/New-Mexico-Computing-Applications-Center/story.aspx?guid={D4AF20EE-6BA1-4250-835E-D62F6400253E} >>>> >>>> >>>> Nov. 19, 2008 >>>> >>>> AUSTIN, Texas, Nov 19, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Today, >>>> Darkstrand, a pioneer in corporate high-speed connectivity >>>> bridging research and commercialization, announced a strategic >>>> partnership agreement with the New Mexico Computing >>>> Applications Center (NMCAC), a premier research institution >>>> dedicated to applications-driven high-speed computer problem >>>> solving. NMCAC currently hosts the 12th fastest supercomputer >>>> in the world, according to the biannual TOP500 Project, known >>>> as "Encanto," and this alliance opens a virtual gateway for >>>> corporate America to the vast supercomputing resources and >>>> expertise that NMCAC holds. Corporations with connectivity to >>>> the Darkstrand fiber optic network will now have the power to >>>> drive innovative, high-performance computing (HPC) initiatives >>>> in real-time collaboration with NMCAC supercomputer and its >>>> affiliated institutions. >>>> >>>> "The state of New Mexico and NMCAC are on the forefront of an >>>> economic development explosion," said Bill Richardson, Governor >>>> of New Mexico. "By bringing together New Mexico's scientific >>>> talent, the power of Encanto, and this advanced networking >>>> technology we are creating a new model of innovation that can >>>> bring sources of revenue to New Mexico from companies, not only >>>> within our state borders, but throughout the world." >>>> >>>> Darkstrand changes the game, allowing companies to leverage >>>> research labs and universities nationwide. For the first time, >>>> corporations can actively collaborate in the entire R&D cycle, >>>> beginning with discovery, moving through prototype development >>>> and ending with commercialization. This new collaborative R&D >>>> and collaborative model is taking shape because of the power of >>>> the Darkstrand network to drive massive production data >>>> seamlessly between geographic locations on dedicated 10 G >>>> circuits. This capability enables companies located anywhere in >>>> the United States to work intimately with researchers and HPC >>>> applications at NMCAC member institutions. >>>> >>>> "Darkstrand was created to liberate innovation in American >>>> corporations by leveraging the technology and minds of academia >>>> that can connect ideas with computing capability," said Michael >>>> Stein, CEO and Founder of Darkstrand. "Today's partnership with >>>> NMCAC further extends the reach of our network, giving >>>> companies the unleashed power and speed they need to solve >>>> workflow problems using high-performance computing tools." >>>> >>>> In the coming months, Darkstrand and NMCAC will work on a joint >>>> implementation plan that creates a seamless corporate path from >>>> discovery to commercialization. Darkstrand and NMCAC will also >>>> work with the state of New Mexico on public sector initiatives >>>> like education and healthcare, with the goal of extending the >>>> state's reach into all geographic areas for access to >>>> information and critical services. >>>> >>>> "Our supercomputer was created to drive groundbreaking research >>>> for education and commerce in the state of New Mexico, and our >>>> ability to partner with the Darkstrand Network will advance >>>> innovation and collaboration by providing the hardware and the >>>> subject matter expertise that corporations are looking for," >>>> said Thomas J. Bowles, PhD, Science Advisor for Governor >>>> Richardson. "NMCAC brings to the corporate doorstep a wide >>>> range of R&D expertise in sectors like health, biotechnology, >>>> digital film and media, energy, and oil and gas." >>>> >>>> In addition to direct access to the NMCAC, the Darkstrand >>>> partnership will connect companies with NMCAC-affiliate >>>> research institutions, including Los Alamos National >>>> Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, University of New >>>> Mexico, New Mexico State University and New Mexico Institute of >>>> Mining and Technology. Encanto, the NMCAC and its affiliates >>>> will connect directly to the Darkstrand Network, which is >>>> currently upgrading its backbone to 40 Gig speed. The NMCAC >>>> Encanto supercomputer is located at Intel Corporation's Fab 7 >>>> plant in Rio Rancho. The 172 Teraflop supercomputer was built >>>> using advanced technology from Intel and Silicon Graphics, Inc. >>>> (SGI). The NMCAC is located in Albuquerque, but will be >>>> connected in a network of gateway sites at the national labs, >>>> universities and colleges across New Mexico and ultimately >>>> throughout the US and globally. For more information on the >>>> NMCAC, please visit: http://www.newmexicosupercomputer.com/. >>>> >>>> In June 2008, Darkstrand developed a business alliance with the >>>> NLR, acquiring one half of National LambdaRail's (NLR) >>>> 15,000-route mile optical network that is currently spread >>>> across 30 U.S. cities. NLR's unparalleled network supports >>>> large-scale digital production work for research groups that >>>> need multi-gigabit speed and access to high-performance >>>> computing power. The NLR is the backbone of the Darkstrand >>>> Network, providing a direct-line from the knowledge-driven >>>> science world such as NMCAC to results-oriented enterprises >>>> that will ultimately enable U.S. companies to innovate and more >>>> effectively compete globally. >>>> >>>> About Darkstrand Darkstrand, Inc. leverages enterprise-level >>>> network bandwidth to close the collaboration gap between >>>> corporations and research communities. Darkstrand is a pivotal >>>> corporate partner for solving real workflow, development and >>>> collaborative challenges, linking teams, facilities and >>>> suppliers into one ecosystem in a high-speed, networked grid >>>> environment via the National LambdaRail (NLR), a vast >>>> 15,000-route mile optical network spread across 30 U.S. cities. >>>> Darkstrand shortens time to insight and expands productivity >>>> for companies wanting a competitive edge. Based in Chicago, >>>> Illinois, Darkstrand was established in 2005, and has raised >>>> $12 million to date from private investors. For more >>>> information, visit http://www.darkstrand.com. >>>> >>>> About New Mexico Computing Applications Center The New Mexico >>>> Computing Applications Center was approved by New Mexico's >>>> Legislature in 2007 and began operations in 2008 as a resource >>>> for applications-driven high-speed computer problem solving. >>>> Working closely with the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia >>>> National Labs and the State's three research universities, the >>>> NMCAC is dedicated to serving the needs of the people of New >>>> Mexico as well as tackling some of the nation's most pressing >>>> problems like energy and the environment using high-speed >>>> computing. The Center works with federal institutions, other >>>> states and private companies to run their own applications or >>>> develop new ones using its 172 teraflop SGi supercomputer named >>>> 'Encanto' which is based at Intel's New Mexico headquarters in >>>> Rio Rancho just a few miles from Albuquerque. >>>> >>>> SOURCE: Darkstrand, Inc. >>>> >>>> Copyright Business Wire 2008 >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> _______________________________________________ 1st-mile-nm >>> mailing list 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >>> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm >>> >> _______________________________________________ 1st-mile-nm mailing >> list 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm >> >> From pete at ideapete.com Fri Nov 28 21:46:43 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2008 22:46:43 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] NMCAC-Darkstrand Announcement In-Reply-To: <4930BFF5.1020407@unm.edu> References: <20081127074855.2f7ojnn2okc0og40@www2.dcn.org> <492F5CDF.3060103@citylinkfiber.com> <49301D97.3010202@unm.edu> <49308F8E.5030801@ideapete.com> <4930BFF5.1020407@unm.edu> Message-ID: <4930D743.9080308@ideapete.com> Yes I know of both who where the original promoters to Abq Chamber Com Ind who in turn were promised joint cooperation by Louis Caldera and thats not correct the Chamber and aligned businesses did a huge amount of lobbying and sponsorship for the POP. It would seem that what Darkstrand is saying and what UNM is saying and what Tom Bowle's just said are not aligned in any way shape or form. Tom is talking about an MOU for the NMCAC you are talking about the fact that non commercial use with NMLR and its associates is not happening and this thread started when JB pointed out that Darkstrand is posting press releases about its sole rights to the commercialization of LMDR with a service map ( attached that shows multiple primary connections across NM in which it does not have a license to do business ) and nationwide. All this from a company with zip experience in either fiber deployment design or operation They are in fact claiming a for profit service right, that currently seems nebulous, of a not for profits assets, , advertising a service that they are not permitted to supply across state lines in a state NM where they cannot do business, Anyone out there from the PRC and familiar with ICC regulations want to chime in. Its sad Mike R is ill in Denver he would have made sense of this straight away. Be well Gary and a happy thanksgiving and coming festive season to you and yours and everyone at CIRT and IT ( : ( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ Gary Bauerschmidt wrote: > Hi Pete, > > I don't know anything about the RFPs issued at the National level. I'm > way busy with work around here! No paychecks from NMLR. I wish I had > more money paid to me than my university salary. Wait, disclaimer: I > do get fees for refereeing soccer matches :) > > As for the Gigapop there are no sponsorships. And relationships with > both L3 and Qwest are still good with ongoing partnerships and new > ventures. Both have presence at the GigaPop. > > No corporate lobbying and certainly no funding has ever been received. > Actually the bulk of the funding for the GigaPop came from a NSF grant > to enhance connectivity. This was done a number of years ago > by two folks with great vision and persistence. And no it wasn't me :) > Lou Sullo and Art St George were the visionaries. > > Price tags are certainly a critical factor especially nowadays with > the economic situation. But I'm also a believer in working together is > the way to build back our country's infrastructure to be among the > world's best including, most importantly broadband connectivity. > > Gary > > > peter wrote: >> Hey Gary >> >> I understand that Mike Stein of Darkstrand has issued a press release >> saying that his company ( with absolutely no fiber network >> management experience ) beat out Qwest / ATT / L3 for the national >> commercialization on 15000 route miles of NLR . Let me see no >> experience and it breaks the law , yup makes perfect sense ! >> >> When was this supposed RFP issued and who adjudicated it >> >> I would also like to know how many NLR and NMLR members are now paid >> consultants to Darkstrand ( Lovely name for a company with special >> irony with the Cult of Darkstrand world of Warcraft ) then again it >> could be the same people ( : ( : >> >> Perhaps our Qwest and ATT members can comment as what I hear from >> telco sources is that what Darkstrand is proposing is not legally >> permissible and that is also the opinion of the fiber operator >> mentioned ( Especially ironic in the L3 and Qwest provided large >> parts of the local infrastructure ( Including the gigapop for UNM >> funded in part with corporate lobbying efforts and sponsorships by >> the promise of joint ventures who after they delivered were told to >> take a hike by UNM ) >> >> How does this also make sense when I2 after looking at NLR plan said >> it was just not allowable under law. >> >> Gary I know you get a paycheck from NMLR but how does your email of >> no we are not, jive with Darkstands comments and what do you mean by >> partner ( Including the above comment ) when most plans I have seen >> are just targeted at making a precious needed resource scarce and >> jacking up prices. >> >> Or does not and working together change depending on the price tag >> for UNM >> >> Lastly Richard where is the plan and is Bill taking it to DC or ??? >> >> ( : ( : pete >> >> Peter Baston >> >> *IDEAS* >> >> /www.ideapete.com/ >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> Gary Bauerschmidt wrote: >>> Hey John, wanted to reply to your questions before rumors spin out >>> of control. Thanks for raising these questions! >>> >>> You're right important details are missing, but the answer to >>> number one is no. NM Lambda Rail is a non-profit organization that >>> has restrictions in commercial use. ABQ-G (just a catchy name) >>> being a department of UNM of course has commercial use >>> prohibitions. >>> >>> If anyone connecting to NMLR has commercial uses in addition to >>> their research needs their commercial traffic will have to go >>> through another provider. Another reason why partnerships are so >>> important. If New Mexico is going to cost effectively bring >>> connectivity to as much of our state as possible, we ALL have to >>> partner together. Only by pooling our resources and sharing use >>> will NM be successful in increasing broadband connectivity as the >>> recent report that Richard worked so hard on stated. >>> >>> Gary Bauerschmidt Associate Director, ITS University of New Mexico >>> >>> John Brown wrote: >>> >>>> Nice announcement. >>>> >>>> It does miss some important details. >>>> >>>> 1. Does this mean that UNM/ABQ-G / NM Lambda Rail has now >>>> approved commercial use of its network ??? >>>> >>>> 2. If 1 is true, then when would Sandoval County expect to >>>> connect ? Last I remember the hold up for Sandoval County >>>> connecting was the commercial intent by Sandoval County.... >>>> >>>> 3. If 1 is true, where is the publicly available document that >>>> describes how a tax payer funded service is now available for >>>> private sector / corporate use. Same document should also allow >>>> any other private sector entity to connect. >>>> >>>> 4. Why isn't DarkStrand registered to do business in NM ?? >>>> >>>> >>>> I'm not bashing anyone and see this release as an indicator that >>>> such a valuable tax payer funded resource is now available to >>>> other private sector entities. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Richard Lowenberg wrote: >>>> >>>>> Darkstrand-NM >>>>> >>>>> New Mexico Computing Applications Center Brings One of the >>>>> World's Fastest Supercomputers to Darkstrand Network >>>>> >>>>> New Partnership Brings Greater Speed, Bandwidth and Research >>>>> Brainshare Critical for Corporate America to Maintain Global >>>>> Competitive Advantage >>>>> >>>>> www.marketwatch.com/news/story/New-Mexico-Computing-Applications-Center/story.aspx?guid={D4AF20EE-6BA1-4250-835E-D62F6400253E} >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Nov. 19, 2008 >>>>> >>>>> AUSTIN, Texas, Nov 19, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Today, >>>>> Darkstrand, a pioneer in corporate high-speed connectivity >>>>> bridging research and commercialization, announced a strategic >>>>> partnership agreement with the New Mexico Computing Applications >>>>> Center (NMCAC), a premier research institution >>>>> dedicated to applications-driven high-speed computer problem >>>>> solving. NMCAC currently hosts the 12th fastest supercomputer >>>>> in the world, according to the biannual TOP500 Project, known >>>>> as "Encanto," and this alliance opens a virtual gateway for >>>>> corporate America to the vast supercomputing resources and >>>>> expertise that NMCAC holds. Corporations with connectivity to >>>>> the Darkstrand fiber optic network will now have the power to >>>>> drive innovative, high-performance computing (HPC) initiatives >>>>> in real-time collaboration with NMCAC supercomputer and its >>>>> affiliated institutions. >>>>> >>>>> "The state of New Mexico and NMCAC are on the forefront of an >>>>> economic development explosion," said Bill Richardson, Governor >>>>> of New Mexico. "By bringing together New Mexico's scientific >>>>> talent, the power of Encanto, and this advanced networking >>>>> technology we are creating a new model of innovation that can >>>>> bring sources of revenue to New Mexico from companies, not only >>>>> within our state borders, but throughout the world." >>>>> >>>>> Darkstrand changes the game, allowing companies to leverage >>>>> research labs and universities nationwide. For the first time, >>>>> corporations can actively collaborate in the entire R&D cycle, >>>>> beginning with discovery, moving through prototype development >>>>> and ending with commercialization. This new collaborative R&D >>>>> and collaborative model is taking shape because of the power of >>>>> the Darkstrand network to drive massive production data >>>>> seamlessly between geographic locations on dedicated 10 G >>>>> circuits. This capability enables companies located anywhere in >>>>> the United States to work intimately with researchers and HPC >>>>> applications at NMCAC member institutions. >>>>> >>>>> "Darkstrand was created to liberate innovation in American >>>>> corporations by leveraging the technology and minds of academia >>>>> that can connect ideas with computing capability," said Michael >>>>> Stein, CEO and Founder of Darkstrand. "Today's partnership with >>>>> NMCAC further extends the reach of our network, giving >>>>> companies the unleashed power and speed they need to solve >>>>> workflow problems using high-performance computing tools." >>>>> >>>>> In the coming months, Darkstrand and NMCAC will work on a joint >>>>> implementation plan that creates a seamless corporate path from >>>>> discovery to commercialization. Darkstrand and NMCAC will also >>>>> work with the state of New Mexico on public sector initiatives >>>>> like education and healthcare, with the goal of extending the >>>>> state's reach into all geographic areas for access to information >>>>> and critical services. >>>>> >>>>> "Our supercomputer was created to drive groundbreaking research >>>>> for education and commerce in the state of New Mexico, and our >>>>> ability to partner with the Darkstrand Network will advance >>>>> innovation and collaboration by providing the hardware and the >>>>> subject matter expertise that corporations are looking for," said >>>>> Thomas J. Bowles, PhD, Science Advisor for Governor >>>>> Richardson. "NMCAC brings to the corporate doorstep a wide >>>>> range of R&D expertise in sectors like health, biotechnology, >>>>> digital film and media, energy, and oil and gas." >>>>> >>>>> In addition to direct access to the NMCAC, the Darkstrand >>>>> partnership will connect companies with NMCAC-affiliate >>>>> research institutions, including Los Alamos National >>>>> Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, University of New >>>>> Mexico, New Mexico State University and New Mexico Institute of >>>>> Mining and Technology. Encanto, the NMCAC and its affiliates >>>>> will connect directly to the Darkstrand Network, which is >>>>> currently upgrading its backbone to 40 Gig speed. The NMCAC >>>>> Encanto supercomputer is located at Intel Corporation's Fab 7 >>>>> plant in Rio Rancho. The 172 Teraflop supercomputer was built >>>>> using advanced technology from Intel and Silicon Graphics, Inc. >>>>> (SGI). The NMCAC is located in Albuquerque, but will be >>>>> connected in a network of gateway sites at the national labs, >>>>> universities and colleges across New Mexico and ultimately >>>>> throughout the US and globally. For more information on the >>>>> NMCAC, please visit: http://www.newmexicosupercomputer.com/. >>>>> >>>>> In June 2008, Darkstrand developed a business alliance with the >>>>> NLR, acquiring one half of National LambdaRail's (NLR) >>>>> 15,000-route mile optical network that is currently spread >>>>> across 30 U.S. cities. NLR's unparalleled network supports >>>>> large-scale digital production work for research groups that >>>>> need multi-gigabit speed and access to high-performance >>>>> computing power. The NLR is the backbone of the Darkstrand >>>>> Network, providing a direct-line from the knowledge-driven science >>>>> world such as NMCAC to results-oriented enterprises >>>>> that will ultimately enable U.S. companies to innovate and more >>>>> effectively compete globally. >>>>> >>>>> About Darkstrand Darkstrand, Inc. leverages enterprise-level >>>>> network bandwidth to close the collaboration gap between >>>>> corporations and research communities. Darkstrand is a pivotal >>>>> corporate partner for solving real workflow, development and >>>>> collaborative challenges, linking teams, facilities and >>>>> suppliers into one ecosystem in a high-speed, networked grid >>>>> environment via the National LambdaRail (NLR), a vast >>>>> 15,000-route mile optical network spread across 30 U.S. cities. >>>>> Darkstrand shortens time to insight and expands productivity >>>>> for companies wanting a competitive edge. Based in Chicago, >>>>> Illinois, Darkstrand was established in 2005, and has raised >>>>> $12 million to date from private investors. For more >>>>> information, visit http://www.darkstrand.com. >>>>> >>>>> About New Mexico Computing Applications Center The New Mexico >>>>> Computing Applications Center was approved by New Mexico's >>>>> Legislature in 2007 and began operations in 2008 as a resource >>>>> for applications-driven high-speed computer problem solving. >>>>> Working closely with the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia >>>>> National Labs and the State's three research universities, the >>>>> NMCAC is dedicated to serving the needs of the people of New >>>>> Mexico as well as tackling some of the nation's most pressing >>>>> problems like energy and the environment using high-speed >>>>> computing. The Center works with federal institutions, other >>>>> states and private companies to run their own applications or >>>>> develop new ones using its 172 teraflop SGi supercomputer named >>>>> 'Encanto' which is based at Intel's New Mexico headquarters in >>>>> Rio Rancho just a few miles from Albuquerque. >>>>> >>>>> SOURCE: Darkstrand, Inc. >>>>> >>>>> Copyright Business Wire 2008 >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ 1st-mile-nm >>>> mailing list 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >>>> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm >>>> >>> _______________________________________________ 1st-mile-nm mailing >>> list 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >>> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm >>> >>> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Fri Nov 28 21:15:12 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2008 22:15:12 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] NMCAC-Darkstrand Announcement In-Reply-To: <031266925C010E4D9D6FE1B44ED586D8063E7ED7@CEXMB2.nmes.lcl> References: <20081127074855.2f7ojnn2okc0og40@www2.dcn.org> <492F5CDF.3060103@citylinkfiber.com> <031266925C010E4D9D6FE1B44ED586D8063E7ED7@CEXMB2.nmes.lcl> Message-ID: <4930CFE0.9050909@ideapete.com> Hi Tom That does not seem to gibe with the press releases coming out of Chicago http://gigaom.com/2008/10/27/darkstrand-rides-national-lambda-rail/ http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081027-darkstrand-lights-up-lambdarail-for-commercial-use.html This is a direct quote/ " When it ( Darkstrand ) bid for the contract to offer commercial access to the federal fiber network, Dark Strand competed against telecommunications providers like Qwest, Level 3 and AT&T that were also seeking to use the network for IP transport. /Sadly no one i have talked to knows anything about a bid or contract neither does Garry and he should know, anyone on this list know ?. They are not talking about an MOU they are talking about a done deal and if thats incorrect shouldn't the State put out a disclaimer The maps posted indicate they are already claiming the exclusive commercial rights for the entire NLR network although they are a startup with zero experience at this type of work but are still "Quote Looking for clients ". Can you post network map of the switches and on routes they are supposed to be working on as this would need close cooperation with L3 and Qwest and as far as they know thats news to them to. If the pop at 505 ( do you mean the gigapop ) is the source connector how on earth can they claim NLR access out to businesses unless John B found a financier ( : ( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ Bowles, Thomas, GOV wrote: > > Hi John, > > A couple of points. > > 1) As Gary said, nothing has changed with regards to use of > LamdbdaRail. However, as you are aware, LambdaRail is now partnered > with Darkstrand, who are installing new switches and providing access > to business on separate waves from LambdaRail. There is info on the > web about the merger, but basically LambdaRail benefits by having a > partner to share expenses with, thus reducing the costs to LambdaRail > member institutions. However, LambdaRail and Darkstrand provide > different services to different sets of customers. > > 2) I expect Darkstrand will get registered in New Mexico, but at this > point (as far as I am aware) they are not providing services to anyone > in New Mexico. As soon as they do, I assume they will have to get > registered. > > I also thought I should provide some clarification on the relationship > between Darkstrand and NMCAC. The MOU is a very general one and simply > says that we will work together to find projects that are of mutual > benefit. Darkstrand has three focus areas: broadband internet > connectivity, marketing and consulting, and high performance > computing. NMCAC can assist Darsktrand on the HPC side by providing > access to a supercomputer and computing talent. Darkstand can assist > NMCAC by acting as a broker between NMCAC and businesses who need to > draw on HPC expertise. All of that is done under a set of specified > conditions that are aligned with the mission of the NMCAC - i.e., we > only partner with firms in which the State will benefit through > economic development and education and workforce development. The only > connectivity that the NMCAC provides is through the fiber link from > Rio Rancho to the PoP at 505 Marquette. Any institution or business > partnering with the NMCAC needs to arrange for their own connectivity > from their location to the PoP at 505 Marquette. In that sense, > whether it is Darkstrand or some other company is irrelevant to the > NMAC - we provide HPC expertise, not broadband connectivity. This is > in line with the desire of the NMCAC to partner with any and all > businesses that will provide benefit to the State. > > Best wishes, > Tom > > Thomas J. Bowles, Ph.D. > Science Advisor to NM Governor Bill Richardson > State Capitol Building > Suite 400 > Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 > Tel: (505) 476-2244 > Fax: (505) 476-2226 > Email: Thomas.Bowles at state.nm.us > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: 1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org on behalf of John Brown > Sent: Thu 11/27/2008 7:52 PM > To: Richard Lowenberg > Cc: 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > Subject: Re: [1st-mile-nm] NMCAC-Darkstrand Announcement > > Nice announcement. > > It does miss some important details. > > 1. Does this mean that UNM/ABQ-G / NM Lambda Rail has now approved > commercial use of its network ??? > > 2. If 1 is true, then when would Sandoval County expect to connect ? > Last I remember the hold up for Sandoval County connecting was > the commercial intent by Sandoval County.... > > 3. If 1 is true, where is the publicly available document that describes > how a tax payer funded service is now available for private sector / > corporate use. Same document should also allow any other private > sector entity to connect. > > 4. Why isn't DarkStrand registered to do business in NM ?? > > > I'm not bashing anyone and see this release as an indicator that such a > valuable tax payer funded resource is now available to other private > sector entities. > > > > Richard Lowenberg wrote: > > Darkstrand-NM > > > > New Mexico Computing Applications Center Brings One of the World's > Fastest > > Supercomputers to Darkstrand Network > > > > New Partnership Brings Greater Speed, Bandwidth and Research > Brainshare Critical > > for Corporate America to Maintain Global Competitive Advantage > > > > > www.marketwatch.com/news/story/New-Mexico-Computing-Applications-Center/story.aspx?guid={D4AF20EE-6BA1-4250-835E-D62F6400253E} > > > > Nov. 19, 2008 > > > > AUSTIN, Texas, Nov 19, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Today, Darkstrand, a > pioneer in > > corporate high-speed connectivity bridging research and > commercialization, > > announced a strategic partnership agreement with the New Mexico > Computing > > Applications Center (NMCAC), a premier research institution dedicated to > > applications-driven high-speed computer problem solving. NMCAC > currently hosts > > the 12th fastest supercomputer in the world, according to the > biannual TOP500 > > Project, known as "Encanto," and this alliance opens a virtual > gateway for > > corporate America to the vast supercomputing resources and expertise > that NMCAC > > holds. Corporations with connectivity to the Darkstrand fiber optic > network will > > now have the power to drive innovative, high-performance computing (HPC) > > initiatives in real-time collaboration with NMCAC supercomputer and its > > affiliated institutions. > > > > "The state of New Mexico and NMCAC are on the forefront of an economic > > development explosion," said Bill Richardson, Governor of New > Mexico. "By > > bringing together New Mexico's scientific talent, the power of > Encanto, and > > this advanced networking technology we are creating a new model of > innovation > > that can bring sources of revenue to New Mexico from companies, not > only within > > our state borders, but throughout the world." > > > > Darkstrand changes the game, allowing companies to leverage research > labs and > > universities nationwide. For the first time, corporations can actively > > collaborate in the entire R&D cycle, beginning with discovery, > moving through > > prototype development and ending with commercialization. This new > collaborative > > R&D and collaborative model is taking shape because of the power of the > > Darkstrand network to drive massive production data seamlessly between > > geographic locations on dedicated 10 G circuits. This capability enables > > companies located anywhere in the United States to work intimately with > > researchers and HPC applications at NMCAC member institutions. > > > > "Darkstrand was created to liberate innovation in American > corporations by > > leveraging the technology and minds of academia that can connect > ideas with > > computing capability," said Michael Stein, CEO and Founder of > Darkstrand. > > "Today's partnership with NMCAC further extends the reach of our > network, > > giving companies the unleashed power and speed they need to solve > workflow > > problems using high-performance computing tools." > > > > In the coming months, Darkstrand and NMCAC will work on a joint > implementation > > plan that creates a seamless corporate path from discovery to > > commercialization. Darkstrand and NMCAC will also work with the > state of New > > Mexico on public sector initiatives like education and healthcare, > with the > > goal of extending the state's reach into all geographic areas for > access to > > information and critical services. > > > > "Our supercomputer was created to drive groundbreaking research for > education > > and commerce in the state of New Mexico, and our ability to partner > with the > > Darkstrand Network will advance innovation and collaboration by > providing the > > hardware and the subject matter expertise that corporations are > looking for," > > said Thomas J. Bowles, PhD, Science Advisor for Governor Richardson. > "NMCAC > > brings to the corporate doorstep a wide range of R&D expertise in > sectors like > > health, biotechnology, digital film and media, energy, and oil and gas." > > > > In addition to direct access to the NMCAC, the Darkstrand > partnership will > > connect companies with NMCAC-affiliate research institutions, > including Los > > Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, University > of New > > Mexico, New Mexico State University and New Mexico Institute of > Mining and > > Technology. Encanto, the NMCAC and its affiliates will connect > directly to the > > Darkstrand Network, which is currently upgrading its backbone to 40 > Gig speed. > > The NMCAC Encanto supercomputer is located at Intel Corporation's > Fab 7 plant in > > Rio Rancho. The 172 Teraflop supercomputer was built using advanced > technology > > from Intel and Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI). The NMCAC is located in > > Albuquerque, but will be connected in a network of gateway sites at the > > national labs, universities and colleges across New Mexico and > ultimately > > throughout the US and globally. For more information on the NMCAC, > please > > visit: http://www.newmexicosupercomputer.com/. > > > > In June 2008, Darkstrand developed a business alliance with the NLR, > acquiring > > one half of National LambdaRail's (NLR) 15,000-route mile optical > network that > > is currently spread across 30 U.S. cities. NLR's unparalleled > network supports > > large-scale digital production work for research groups that need > multi-gigabit > > speed and access to high-performance computing power. The NLR is the > backbone of > > the Darkstrand Network, providing a direct-line from the > knowledge-driven > > science world such as NMCAC to results-oriented enterprises that will > > ultimately enable U.S. companies to innovate and more effectively > compete > > globally. > > > > About Darkstrand > > Darkstrand, Inc. leverages enterprise-level network bandwidth to > close the > > collaboration gap between corporations and research communities. > Darkstrand is > > a pivotal corporate partner for solving real workflow, development and > > collaborative challenges, linking teams, facilities and suppliers > into one > > ecosystem in a high-speed, networked grid environment via the National > > LambdaRail (NLR), a vast 15,000-route mile optical network spread > across 30 > > U.S. cities. Darkstrand shortens time to insight and expands > productivity for > > companies wanting a competitive edge. Based in Chicago, Illinois, > Darkstrand > > was established in 2005, and has raised $12 million to date from private > > investors. For more information, visit http://www.darkstrand.com. > > > > About New Mexico Computing Applications Center > > The New Mexico Computing Applications Center was approved by New > Mexico's > > Legislature in 2007 and began operations in 2008 as a resource for > > applications-driven high-speed computer problem solving. Working > closely with > > the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Labs and the > State's three > > research universities, the NMCAC is dedicated to serving the needs > of the > > people of New Mexico as well as tackling some of the nation's most > pressing > > problems like energy and the environment using high-speed > computing. The > > Center works with federal institutions, other states and private > companies to > > run their own applications or develop new ones using its 172 > teraflop SGi > > supercomputer named 'Encanto' which is based at Intel's New Mexico > headquarters > > in Rio Rancho just a few miles from Albuquerque. > > > > SOURCE: Darkstrand, Inc. > > > > Copyright Business Wire 2008 > > > > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > > ______________________________________________________________________ > This inbound email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security > System. > ______________________________________________________________________ > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Thomas.Bowles at state.nm.us Sat Nov 29 11:25:20 2008 From: Thomas.Bowles at state.nm.us (Bowles, Thomas, GOV) Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2008 12:25:20 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] NMCAC-Darkstrand Announcement References: <20081127074855.2f7ojnn2okc0og40@www2.dcn.org> <492F5CDF.3060103@citylinkfiber.com> <031266925C010E4D9D6FE1B44ED586D8063E7ED7@CEXMB2.nmes.lcl> <4930CFE0.9050909@ideapete.com> Message-ID: <031266925C010E4D9D6FE1B44ED586D8063E7EDD@CEXMB2.nmes.lcl> Hi Peter, My statement about an MOU refers specifically and exclusively to the MOU between the NMCAC and Darkstrand, which in its entirety says only that we will explore ways that we can work together and does not include any agreements about access to the supercomputer or the Darkstrand network nor does it make any mention of any financial issues other than to say that subsequent agreements will be needed to define those. The other issues you discuss have to do with the merger of Darkstrand and LambdaRail. The NMCAC plays no role whatsoever in that. As I mentioned in my previous message, if a company or institution wants to partner with the NCMAC, they have to join the NMCAC as members. We provide the connectivity between Rio Rancho and the PoP in downtown Albuquerque. If a NMCAC member wants to hook up to the PoP in Albuquerque, that is their responsibility - the NMCAC does not provide any connectivity beyond the PoP. If you have issues with the merger of LambdaRail and Darkstrand, you need to address those to the NLR member states and the hordes of lawyers who were involved in that merger. That is an issue that is completely separate from the MOU that the NMCAC signed with Darkstrand. Best wishes, Tom Thomas J. Bowles, Ph.D. Science Advisor to NM Governor Bill Richardson State Capitol Building Suite 400 Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 Tel: (505) 476-2244 Fax: (505) 476-2226 Email: Thomas.Bowles at state.nm.us -----Original Message----- From: 1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org on behalf of peter Sent: Fri 11/28/2008 10:15 PM To: Bowles, Thomas, GOV Cc: Salazar, Maynard, DoIT; Elisa.Storie at sate.nm.us; liebrock at cs.nmt.edu; Behrmann, Nicolas, DoIT; Richard Lowenberg; Martinez, Lenny, GOV; 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org; Mackey, Marlin, DoIT; tommills4 at comcast.net; Helgesen, Stephan, EDD; edmundo at elportalstrategies.com Subject: Re: [1st-mile-nm] NMCAC-Darkstrand Announcement Hi Tom That does not seem to gibe with the press releases coming out of Chicago http://gigaom.com/2008/10/27/darkstrand-rides-national-lambda-rail/ http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081027-darkstrand-lights-up-lambdarail-for-commercial-use.html This is a direct quote/ " When it ( Darkstrand ) bid for the contract to offer commercial access to the federal fiber network, Dark Strand competed against telecommunications providers like Qwest, Level 3 and AT&T that were also seeking to use the network for IP transport. /Sadly no one i have talked to knows anything about a bid or contract neither does Garry and he should know, anyone on this list know ?. They are not talking about an MOU they are talking about a done deal and if thats incorrect shouldn't the State put out a disclaimer The maps posted indicate they are already claiming the exclusive commercial rights for the entire NLR network although they are a startup with zero experience at this type of work but are still "Quote Looking for clients ". Can you post network map of the switches and on routes they are supposed to be working on as this would need close cooperation with L3 and Qwest and as far as they know thats news to them to. If the pop at 505 ( do you mean the gigapop ) is the source connector how on earth can they claim NLR access out to businesses unless John B found a financier ( : ( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ Bowles, Thomas, GOV wrote: > > Hi John, > > A couple of points. > > 1) As Gary said, nothing has changed with regards to use of > LamdbdaRail. However, as you are aware, LambdaRail is now partnered > with Darkstrand, who are installing new switches and providing access > to business on separate waves from LambdaRail. There is info on the > web about the merger, but basically LambdaRail benefits by having a > partner to share expenses with, thus reducing the costs to LambdaRail > member institutions. However, LambdaRail and Darkstrand provide > different services to different sets of customers. > > 2) I expect Darkstrand will get registered in New Mexico, but at this > point (as far as I am aware) they are not providing services to anyone > in New Mexico. As soon as they do, I assume they will have to get > registered. > > I also thought I should provide some clarification on the relationship > between Darkstrand and NMCAC. The MOU is a very general one and simply > says that we will work together to find projects that are of mutual > benefit. Darkstrand has three focus areas: broadband internet > connectivity, marketing and consulting, and high performance > computing. NMCAC can assist Darsktrand on the HPC side by providing > access to a supercomputer and computing talent. Darkstand can assist > NMCAC by acting as a broker between NMCAC and businesses who need to > draw on HPC expertise. All of that is done under a set of specified > conditions that are aligned with the mission of the NMCAC - i.e., we > only partner with firms in which the State will benefit through > economic development and education and workforce development. The only > connectivity that the NMCAC provides is through the fiber link from > Rio Rancho to the PoP at 505 Marquette. Any institution or business > partnering with the NMCAC needs to arrange for their own connectivity > from their location to the PoP at 505 Marquette. In that sense, > whether it is Darkstrand or some other company is irrelevant to the > NMAC - we provide HPC expertise, not broadband connectivity. This is > in line with the desire of the NMCAC to partner with any and all > businesses that will provide benefit to the State. > > Best wishes, > Tom > > Thomas J. Bowles, Ph.D. > Science Advisor to NM Governor Bill Richardson > State Capitol Building > Suite 400 > Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 > Tel: (505) 476-2244 > Fax: (505) 476-2226 > Email: Thomas.Bowles at state.nm.us > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: 1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org on behalf of John Brown > Sent: Thu 11/27/2008 7:52 PM > To: Richard Lowenberg > Cc: 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > Subject: Re: [1st-mile-nm] NMCAC-Darkstrand Announcement > > Nice announcement. > > It does miss some important details. > > 1. Does this mean that UNM/ABQ-G / NM Lambda Rail has now approved > commercial use of its network ??? > > 2. If 1 is true, then when would Sandoval County expect to connect ? > Last I remember the hold up for Sandoval County connecting was > the commercial intent by Sandoval County.... > > 3. If 1 is true, where is the publicly available document that describes > how a tax payer funded service is now available for private sector / > corporate use. Same document should also allow any other private > sector entity to connect. > > 4. Why isn't DarkStrand registered to do business in NM ?? > > > I'm not bashing anyone and see this release as an indicator that such a > valuable tax payer funded resource is now available to other private > sector entities. > > > > Richard Lowenberg wrote: > > Darkstrand-NM > > > > New Mexico Computing Applications Center Brings One of the World's > Fastest > > Supercomputers to Darkstrand Network > > > > New Partnership Brings Greater Speed, Bandwidth and Research > Brainshare Critical > > for Corporate America to Maintain Global Competitive Advantage > > > > > www.marketwatch.com/news/story/New-Mexico-Computing-Applications-Center/story.aspx?guid={D4AF20EE-6BA1-4250-835E-D62F6400253E} > > > > Nov. 19, 2008 > > > > AUSTIN, Texas, Nov 19, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Today, Darkstrand, a > pioneer in > > corporate high-speed connectivity bridging research and > commercialization, > > announced a strategic partnership agreement with the New Mexico > Computing > > Applications Center (NMCAC), a premier research institution dedicated to > > applications-driven high-speed computer problem solving. NMCAC > currently hosts > > the 12th fastest supercomputer in the world, according to the > biannual TOP500 > > Project, known as "Encanto," and this alliance opens a virtual > gateway for > > corporate America to the vast supercomputing resources and expertise > that NMCAC > > holds. Corporations with connectivity to the Darkstrand fiber optic > network will > > now have the power to drive innovative, high-performance computing (HPC) > > initiatives in real-time collaboration with NMCAC supercomputer and its > > affiliated institutions. > > > > "The state of New Mexico and NMCAC are on the forefront of an economic > > development explosion," said Bill Richardson, Governor of New > Mexico. "By > > bringing together New Mexico's scientific talent, the power of > Encanto, and > > this advanced networking technology we are creating a new model of > innovation > > that can bring sources of revenue to New Mexico from companies, not > only within > > our state borders, but throughout the world." > > > > Darkstrand changes the game, allowing companies to leverage research > labs and > > universities nationwide. For the first time, corporations can actively > > collaborate in the entire R&D cycle, beginning with discovery, > moving through > > prototype development and ending with commercialization. This new > collaborative > > R&D and collaborative model is taking shape because of the power of the > > Darkstrand network to drive massive production data seamlessly between > > geographic locations on dedicated 10 G circuits. This capability enables > > companies located anywhere in the United States to work intimately with > > researchers and HPC applications at NMCAC member institutions. > > > > "Darkstrand was created to liberate innovation in American > corporations by > > leveraging the technology and minds of academia that can connect > ideas with > > computing capability," said Michael Stein, CEO and Founder of > Darkstrand. > > "Today's partnership with NMCAC further extends the reach of our > network, > > giving companies the unleashed power and speed they need to solve > workflow > > problems using high-performance computing tools." > > > > In the coming months, Darkstrand and NMCAC will work on a joint > implementation > > plan that creates a seamless corporate path from discovery to > > commercialization. Darkstrand and NMCAC will also work with the > state of New > > Mexico on public sector initiatives like education and healthcare, > with the > > goal of extending the state's reach into all geographic areas for > access to > > information and critical services. > > > > "Our supercomputer was created to drive groundbreaking research for > education > > and commerce in the state of New Mexico, and our ability to partner > with the > > Darkstrand Network will advance innovation and collaboration by > providing the > > hardware and the subject matter expertise that corporations are > looking for," > > said Thomas J. Bowles, PhD, Science Advisor for Governor Richardson. > "NMCAC > > brings to the corporate doorstep a wide range of R&D expertise in > sectors like > > health, biotechnology, digital film and media, energy, and oil and gas." > > > > In addition to direct access to the NMCAC, the Darkstrand > partnership will > > connect companies with NMCAC-affiliate research institutions, > including Los > > Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, University > of New > > Mexico, New Mexico State University and New Mexico Institute of > Mining and > > Technology. Encanto, the NMCAC and its affiliates will connect > directly to the > > Darkstrand Network, which is currently upgrading its backbone to 40 > Gig speed. > > The NMCAC Encanto supercomputer is located at Intel Corporation's > Fab 7 plant in > > Rio Rancho. The 172 Teraflop supercomputer was built using advanced > technology > > from Intel and Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI). The NMCAC is located in > > Albuquerque, but will be connected in a network of gateway sites at the > > national labs, universities and colleges across New Mexico and > ultimately > > throughout the US and globally. For more information on the NMCAC, > please > > visit: http://www.newmexicosupercomputer.com/. > > > > In June 2008, Darkstrand developed a business alliance with the NLR, > acquiring > > one half of National LambdaRail's (NLR) 15,000-route mile optical > network that > > is currently spread across 30 U.S. cities. NLR's unparalleled > network supports > > large-scale digital production work for research groups that need > multi-gigabit > > speed and access to high-performance computing power. The NLR is the > backbone of > > the Darkstrand Network, providing a direct-line from the > knowledge-driven > > science world such as NMCAC to results-oriented enterprises that will > > ultimately enable U.S. companies to innovate and more effectively > compete > > globally. > > > > About Darkstrand > > Darkstrand, Inc. leverages enterprise-level network bandwidth to > close the > > collaboration gap between corporations and research communities. > Darkstrand is > > a pivotal corporate partner for solving real workflow, development and > > collaborative challenges, linking teams, facilities and suppliers > into one > > ecosystem in a high-speed, networked grid environment via the National > > LambdaRail (NLR), a vast 15,000-route mile optical network spread > across 30 > > U.S. cities. Darkstrand shortens time to insight and expands > productivity for > > companies wanting a competitive edge. Based in Chicago, Illinois, > Darkstrand > > was established in 2005, and has raised $12 million to date from private > > investors. For more information, visit http://www.darkstrand.com. > > > > About New Mexico Computing Applications Center > > The New Mexico Computing Applications Center was approved by New > Mexico's > > Legislature in 2007 and began operations in 2008 as a resource for > > applications-driven high-speed computer problem solving. Working > closely with > > the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Labs and the > State's three > > research universities, the NMCAC is dedicated to serving the needs > of the > > people of New Mexico as well as tackling some of the nation's most > pressing > > problems like energy and the environment using high-speed > computing. The > > Center works with federal institutions, other states and private > companies to > > run their own applications or develop new ones using its 172 > teraflop SGi > > supercomputer named 'Encanto' which is based at Intel's New Mexico > headquarters > > in Rio Rancho just a few miles from Albuquerque. > > > > SOURCE: Darkstrand, Inc. > > > > Copyright Business Wire 2008 > > > > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > > ______________________________________________________________________ > This inbound email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security > System. > ______________________________________________________________________ > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > ______________________________________________________________________ This inbound email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. ______________________________________________________________________ Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail, including all attachments is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited unless specifically provided under the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender and destroy all copies of this message. -- This email has been scanned by the Sybari - Antigen Email System. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From granoff at zianet.com Tue Dec 2 08:50:15 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2008 09:50:15 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: GigaLaw.com Daily News, December 2, 2008 Message-ID: <20081202165033.4B7E92BC9@velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us> FYI. From another list >After Brief Drop, Spam Rising Again, Researchers Say > Spammers knocked offline two weeks ago when their hosting > company, McColo Corp., was shut down are finally coming back > online, security researchers said. Spam volumes, which dropped > about 80 percent when McColo was shut down on November 11, remained > relatively flat since then until a few days ago when they started > climbing up, said Matt Sergeant, senior antispam technologist at > MessageLabs, now owned by Symantec. > Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10109148-83.html > > >FCC Chairman Pushing for Vote on Free WiFi Plan > Outgoing Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin > Martin is pushing for action in December on a plan to offer free, > pornography-free wireless Internet service to all Americans, > despite objections from the wireless industry and some consumer > groups. The proposal to allow a no-smut, free wireless Internet > service is part of a proposal to auction off a chunk of airwaves. > Read more: > http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122809560499668087.html (Source: > The Wall Street Journal) > > >Judge Rules Against Limits on Internet Wine Sales > Massachusetts consumers may soon be able to order wine on the > Internet from anywhere in the country -- from the largest wine > makers to the smallest family vineyards. A federal judge ruled that > the state's restrictions on direct shipments of wine purchased over > the Internet discriminated against out-of-state wineries. > Read more: > http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081201/NEWS/812010304(Source: > Cape Cod Times) > From rl at 1st-mile.com Wed Dec 3 12:11:15 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Wed, 03 Dec 2008 12:11:15 -0800 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] National Broadband Strategy Week Message-ID: <20081203121115.66fxk7qccg0sw08c@www2.dcn.org> There are numerous online postings coming out about this week?s broadband strategy meetings in DC. Here?s one: --------- National Broadband Strategy Week Begins Today, 10 a.m., in Dirksen Senate Building http://broadbandcensus.com/blog/?p=1098 News By Drew Clark, Editor, BroadbandCensus.com WASHINGTON, December 2 ? A total of 55 companies and non-profit organizations, including major corporate entities such as AT&T, Cisco Systems, Google, Intel and Verizon Communications, have signed on to a ?call to action for a national broadband strategy.? The document has been crafted by a wide range of parties over the past year under the stewardship of James Baller, senior principal of the Baller Herbst Law Group, and the final version was released late Monday. Verizon was a last-minute addition to the group of signatories, having joined the list in between the first and the second public versions e-mailed by Baller. Among the major trade groups that signed on to the ?call to action? were the wireless association CTIA, the Telecommunications Industry Association, and the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, the Utilities Telecom Council, and the Wireless Communications Associations International Among the major non-profit groups include American Library Association, Communications Workers of America, EDUCAUSE, Free Press, OneEconomy, Connected Nation, Internet2, Media Access Project, the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors, the New America Foundation and Public Knowledge. BroadbandCensus.com is also a signatory to the ?call to action.? Baller released the final version in anticipation of a 10 a.m. press conference in room G-50 of the Dirkson Senate Office Building. ?What?s most remarkable about this initiative is that so large and diverse a group of organizations agreed not only on the terms of our call to action statement, but also to continue to work together to build consensus on the substance of a national broadband strategy,? Baller said in a statement. He also said that the call to action commits its signatories ?to continue to work together to address key issues and priorities and to hold an event to present more specific recommendations to President Obama, Congress and the American people.? The ?call to action? includes general principles about the need for advanced communications capabilities, highlights the fact that ?too many Americans still do not have access to affordable broadband,? and sets five goals for a comprehensive government strategy that would promote broadband. The five goals are that (a) every American home and institution should have access to broadband, (b) access to the Internet should be open to all users and content providers, (c) network operators ?must have the right to manage their networks responsibly, pursuant to clear and workable guidelines and standards,? (d) the broadband marketplace ?should be? competitive; and (e) U.S. broadband networks should have the performance and capacity necessary to allow this country to be competitive in the global marketplace. The document then outlines policies to stimulate investment, policies to stimulate adoption and use, and measures for ?a system for regular and timely collection and publication of data? on broadband deployment, adoption and use. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Wed Dec 3 12:13:42 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Wed, 03 Dec 2008 12:13:42 -0800 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Benton Foundation: Broadband Action Plan Message-ID: <20081203121342.2uutui1wggscs804@www2.dcn.org> The Benton Foundation has released an excellent report, with .pdf at: http://www.benton.org/initiatives/broadband_benefits/action_plan An Action Plan for America Using Technology and Innovation to Address our Nation?s Critical Challenges. A report for the next administration. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From ggomes at soundviewnet.com Wed Dec 3 13:01:58 2008 From: ggomes at soundviewnet.com (Gary Gomes) Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 14:01:58 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] National Broadband Strategy Week In-Reply-To: <20081203121115.66fxk7qccg0sw08c@www2.dcn.org> References: <20081203121115.66fxk7qccg0sw08c@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: <45286C35C5284216BF1327DFDC86D58A@GARY> Should we be surprised that QWEST, COMCAST and Time Warner are not signatories? Gary -----Original Message----- From: 1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org [mailto:1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org] On Behalf Of Richard Lowenberg Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2008 1:11 PM To: 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org Subject: [1st-mile-nm] National Broadband Strategy Week There are numerous online postings coming out about this week?s broadband strategy meetings in DC. Here?s one: --------- National Broadband Strategy Week Begins Today, 10 a.m., in Dirksen Senate Building http://broadbandcensus.com/blog/?p=1098 News By Drew Clark, Editor, BroadbandCensus.com WASHINGTON, December 2 ? A total of 55 companies and non-profit organizations, including major corporate entities such as AT&T, Cisco Systems, Google, Intel and Verizon Communications, have signed on to a ?call to action for a national broadband strategy.? The document has been crafted by a wide range of parties over the past year under the stewardship of James Baller, senior principal of the Baller Herbst Law Group, and the final version was released late Monday. Verizon was a last-minute addition to the group of signatories, having joined the list in between the first and the second public versions e-mailed by Baller. Among the major trade groups that signed on to the ?call to action? were the wireless association CTIA, the Telecommunications Industry Association, and the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, the Utilities Telecom Council, and the Wireless Communications Associations International Among the major non-profit groups include American Library Association, Communications Workers of America, EDUCAUSE, Free Press, OneEconomy, Connected Nation, Internet2, Media Access Project, the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors, the New America Foundation and Public Knowledge. BroadbandCensus.com is also a signatory to the ?call to action.? Baller released the final version in anticipation of a 10 a.m. press conference in room G-50 of the Dirkson Senate Office Building. ?What?s most remarkable about this initiative is that so large and diverse a group of organizations agreed not only on the terms of our call to action statement, but also to continue to work together to build consensus on the substance of a national broadband strategy,? Baller said in a statement. He also said that the call to action commits its signatories ?to continue to work together to address key issues and priorities and to hold an event to present more specific recommendations to President Obama, Congress and the American people.? The ?call to action? includes general principles about the need for advanced communications capabilities, highlights the fact that ?too many Americans still do not have access to affordable broadband,? and sets five goals for a comprehensive government strategy that would promote broadband. The five goals are that (a) every American home and institution should have access to broadband, (b) access to the Internet should be open to all users and content providers, (c) network operators ?must have the right to manage their networks responsibly, pursuant to clear and workable guidelines and standards,? (d) the broadband marketplace ?should be? competitive; and (e) U.S. broadband networks should have the performance and capacity necessary to allow this country to be competitive in the global marketplace. The document then outlines policies to stimulate investment, policies to stimulate adoption and use, and measures for ?a system for regular and timely collection and publication of data? on broadband deployment, adoption and use. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. _______________________________________________ 1st-mile-nm mailing list 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm From rl at 1st-mile.com Wed Dec 3 20:54:45 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Wed, 03 Dec 2008 20:54:45 -0800 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] John Perry Barlow: Jan. 30, Santa Fe Message-ID: <20081203205445.ek23phj4e80ggoc4@www2.dcn.org> FYI. John Perry Barlow will be speaking in Santa Fe, on Jan. 30, 2009, as part of the "Rebels Reformers and Revolutionaries", Beyong the Lecture Series, at the College of Santa Fe. He will be discussing "Civil Liberties in the Electronic Frontiers", at 7:00 at the Forum. Free. Barlow co-founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and has written and spoken widely on the social and economic nature of networked societies. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Perry_Barlow -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From ggomes at soundviewnet.com Thu Dec 4 11:10:14 2008 From: ggomes at soundviewnet.com (Gary Gomes) Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 12:10:14 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] New Mexico is slowest Internet in US Message-ID: <49BBCE4BD90C4B1AA57994AC98F3590D@GARY> Another QWEST victory - the latest Internet survey from PC Magazine has New Mexico dead last. So much for our PRC's great "settlement". New Mexico Population: 1,969,915 Area: 121,589 square miles Average speed: 322 Kbps SurfSpeed rank: 50th Satisfied users: 36 percent Median monthly price of broadband: $35 Broadband penetration: 45.0 percent There's tons to see and do in New Mexico, but surfing the Internet quickly isn't one of them. It's the slowest state in America on our SurfSpeed test, with an average speed of 322 Kbps; New Mexicans jaunt through the tubes at about 40 percent the rate of nearby Nevadans. DSL connections held back the state on our test, with Qwest's 381 Kbps pulling the average slightly up and EarthLink's 277 Kbps bringing it down. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: winmail.dat Type: application/ms-tnef Size: 6146 bytes Desc: not available URL: From ggomes at soundviewnet.com Thu Dec 4 11:19:02 2008 From: ggomes at soundviewnet.com (Gary Gomes) Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 12:19:02 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] New Mexico is slowest Internet in US Message-ID: <9C77363D3E6F48F1BEAAA738007E6294@GARY> I neglected to mention that one New Mexico provider, CityLink Fiber, did get a positive comment- In the modern world of Internet service, two things go without saying: Fiber optic service is dramatically faster, and satellite service is substantially slower. Our results support these shocking statements. Among satellite services, including industry leader HughesNet and competitors like WildBlue , SurfSpeeds averaged just 145 kilobits per second (Kbps). Taken as a whole, DSL and cable connections were more than five times as fast. And fiber optic connections, including the well-publicized Verizon FiOS and lesser-known regional carriers like Utah's Mstar and New Mexico's CityLink Fiber , were 152 percent faster than that. Clearly, if you can switch up, you should. The fiber market will only grow, too, as companies install more and more lines. According to the Telecommunications Industry Association's 2008 Market Review and Forecast, "During the next four years, more fiber will be deployed than during the so-called overbuilding years of the late 1990s and early 2000s." Gary _____________________________________________ From: Gary Gomes [mailto:ggomes at soundviewnet.com] Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2008 12:10 PM To: '1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org' Subject: New Mexico is slowest Internet in US Another QWEST victory - the latest Internet survey from PC Magazine has New Mexico dead last. So much for our PRC's great "settlement". New Mexico Population: 1,969,915 Area: 121,589 square miles Average speed: 322 Kbps SurfSpeed rank: 50th Satisfied users: 36 percent Median monthly price of broadband: $35 Broadband penetration: 45.0 percent There's tons to see and do in New Mexico, but surfing the Internet quickly isn't one of them. It's the slowest state in America on our SurfSpeed test, with an average speed of 322 Kbps; New Mexicans jaunt through the tubes at about 40 percent the rate of nearby Nevadans. DSL connections held back the state on our test, with Qwest's 381 Kbps pulling the average slightly up and EarthLink's 277 Kbps bringing it down. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: winmail.dat Type: application/ms-tnef Size: 7798 bytes Desc: not available URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Fri Dec 5 13:18:36 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2008 13:18:36 -0800 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Open Letter on Telecom Stimulus Spending Message-ID: <20081205131836.j48ax4scf4kcckk0@www2.dcn.org> Clear and to the point, from Esme Vos. rl ---- Open letter to President-elect Obama: please don?t send the stimulus money to the telecom incumbents www.muniwireless.com/2008/12/03/no-stimulus-package-money-to-incumbents/ December 3, 2008 at 9:22 PM by Esme Vos According to a senior aide to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the federal government?s economic stimulus package will include investment in broadband Internet infrastructure and funds to upgrade and repair the national power grid alongside more traditional funding for road and bridge repair. Already incumbents like AT&T are lining up for this money. Please don?t give it to them. That would be a huge mistake, even if conditions such as ?net neutrality? are attached to the package. AT&T will just throw lawyers and lobbyists at Washington to obstruct true net neutrality and line-sharing. The FCC will spend too much time chasing after the incumbents. Three things need to be done in the US to address the country?s lack of broadband competition: * The existing copper network of AT&T has to be opened up to competitors. Period. * Functional separation: AT&T and Verizon should be forced to separate out their network business from their service business. * Give the stimulus money to local governments which will lay and own the fiber networks, then they can open it up to AT&T and other service providers who want to deliver service ? giving small local providers a huge price discount so that AT&T cannot outspend them in marketing. All three are being done in the EU because European regulators have found out how difficult it is to enforce ?net neutrality? and line-sharing rules against the incumbents. By the time a fine is imposed on the incumbent and the lawsuit is concluded, five years have passed and the original plaintiff, a small ISP, has long gone out of business. The French regulator, ARCEP, was burned so many times by France Telecom?s anti-competitve actions that ARCEP is now leading the charge in Europe for open networks ? it is advocating true functional separation and fiber duct sharing. Recently, ARCEP concluded that one of the critical conditions for rapid deployment of fiber networks is a set of guidelines for operators, installers, owners and users to share the fiber local loop. It?s not surprising that France has gone from a broadband laggard to one where residents of main cities can get 50 Mbps symmetrical broadband service for under 50 EUR per month. New Yorkers can?t even get that. So how are Americans in rural areas ever going to enjoy high-speed broadband at reasonable prices? -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Fri Dec 5 13:21:47 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2008 13:21:47 -0800 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Copper Thefts Threaten US Critical Infrastructure Message-ID: <20081205132147.4iggskw2s4c0o8oc@www2.dcn.org> Another reason for fiber; from the FBI. rl ------ Copper Thefts Threaten US Critical Infrastructure www.fbi.gov/hq/majorthefts/coppertheft_120308b.htm * Copper thieves are threatening US critical infrastructure by targeting electrical sub-stations, cellular towers, telephone land lines, railroads, water wells, construction sites, and vacant homes for lucrative profits. The theft of copper from these targets disrupts the flow of electricity, telecommunications, transportation, water supply, heating, and security and emergency services and presents a risk to both public safety and national security. * Copper thieves are typically individuals or organized groups who operate independently or in loose association with each other and commit thefts in conjunction with fencing activities and the sale of contraband. Organized groups of drug addicts, gang members, and metal thieves are conducting large scale thefts from electric utilities, warehouses, foreclosed or vacant properties, and oil well sites for tens of thousands of dollars in illicit proceeds per month. * The demand for copper from developing nations such as China and India is creating a robust international copper trade. Copper thieves are exploiting this demand and the resulting price surge by stealing and selling the metal for high profits to recyclers across the United States. As the global supply of copper continues to tighten, the market for illicit copper will likely increase. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Mon Dec 8 06:13:55 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Mon, 08 Dec 2008 06:13:55 -0800 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Santa Fe City Wireless Message-ID: <20081208061355.znq7vfhdgkwowco0@www2.dcn.org> >From this morning?s Santa Fe New Mexican. www.santafenewmexican.com/Local%20News/-Free-wireless--just-got-cheaper 'Free wireless' just got cheaper City launches Internet service; no coffee purchase necessary Julie Ann Grimm | The New Mexican 12/7/2008 - 12/8/08 >From where she sat in a corner of Santa Fe's Southside Branch Library, Carol Johnstone was virtually undisturbed. She traced one finger across the track pad of her laptop computer for a few seconds, then fired off an e-mail with quiet stokes on the keyboard. Across the room, her friend and housemate Charles Summerfield checked out a community college Web site. Until a few months ago, Johnstone and Summerfield were among the throngs of computer users who sought out coffee shops and other businesses with wireless Internet service. Now the couple makes the short trip to the library and settles in for some time online. And because it's a free city service, they don't have to buy a thing. "Before, I just did without," said Johnstone, "At least now I am able to keep in touch with friends and with business. ... I have a better handle on that. I think the library having wireless Internet is a good thing." The City Council this summer authorized installation of wireless Internet service at its three libraries, the convention center, airport and two recreation centers. It's already on at the Southside and La Farge branch libraries and at the new Santa Fe Community Convention Center, said Thomas Williams, director of the city's Information Technology Division. Service at the Main Library downtown should be working within two weeks, he said. "We are waiting on a vendor to get the cabling work done (at the Main Library,)" he said. "We were expecting it before Thanksgiving, but they weren't able to do it." Early on, the city ran into other snags with Comcast, which resulted in interruptions to service at the Southside Branch Library. Williams said that happened because of billing problems, and the situation has been rectified. The service costs the city about $100 per month per facility following the initial capital cost of about $152,000 for the hardware installation, said Williams. Workers are scheduled to move to the airport when work at the library is complete. However, Williams said, recent cost-cutting measures might mean a slowdown on the installation that has not happened yet at the Genoveva Chavez Community Center and Fort Mary Complex. -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Tue Dec 9 14:36:54 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Tue, 09 Dec 2008 14:36:54 -0800 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Fwd: Committee Releases Staff Report on Findings of FCC Investigation Message-ID: <20081209143654.b4srzakyog4woso0@www2.dcn.org> Forwarded from a subscriber's list. For immediate release: Tuesday, December 9, 2008 Contact: Jodi Seth/Dingell, 202-225-5735 // Nick Choate/Stupak, 202-225-4735 Committee Releases Staff Report on Findings of FCC Investigation Washington, DC ? Reps. John D. Dingell (D-MI), Chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and Bart Stupak (D-MI), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, today released a Committee on Energy and Commerce Majority Staff report detailing the findings of the Committee?s bipartisan investigation relating to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). ?Our investigation confirmed a number of troubling allegations raised by individuals in and outside the FCC,? Stupak said. ?The Committee staff report details some of the most egregious abuses of power, suppression of information and manipulation of data under Chairman Martin?s leadership. It is my hope that this report will serve as a roadmap for a fair, open and efficient FCC under new leadership in the next administration.? ?Any of these findings, individually, are cause for concern,? said Dingell. ?Together, the findings suggest that, in recent years, the FCC has operated in a dysfunctional manner and Commission business has suffered as a result. It is my hope that the new FCC Chairman will find this report instructive and that it will prove useful in helping the Commission avoid making the same mistakes.? The report, titled ?Deception and Distrust: The Federal Communications Commission Under Chairman Kevin J. Martin,? is the culmination of a bipartisan investigation into the FCC?s regulatory processes and management practices that was formally launched on January 8, 2008. Read the Report (pdf): Report: Press Release: Listen to Dec. 9th Media Conference Call with Chairman Stupak regarding the report and the investigation: A Stimulating Discussion DECEMBER 03, 2008 www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=168794&site=cdn So far, the U.S. government has committed nearly $1.4 trillion to bail out the U.S. financial system. That?s more than the New Deal, Marshall Plan, Louisiana Purchase, and Iraq war combined. The incoming Obama administration is signaling that it plans a massive complementary stimulus package to kick-start the economy ? at least another $500 billion by some estimates. This total of planned federal outlays, roughly $2 trillion, equals about $18,000 per U.S. home passed. That?s a jaw-dropping number for anyone who follows cable and telecom capital spending. The Obamans say their goal through the stimulus is to keep Americans working by accelerating spending on infrastructure items like roads, bridges, and schools. Also on the agenda is to turbo-charge the growth of "green" technologies, creating jobs, taking market leadership, and helping to turn the tide on climate change. If one is hatching plans for strategic infrastructure investment, economic growth, and job creation while reducing greenhouse gas emissions, then spending to dramatically boost broadband access capacity should also be high on the agenda. Upgrading cable or telco infrastructure to enable symmetric 100 Mbit/s IP access for 100 million U.S. homes at an average cost of $500 per home passed would acount for less than 3 percent of the $18,000 per home now on the table for bailout and stimulus spending. This is an agenda item that has been pushed by Silicon Valley advocacy group TechNet for years, but to little avail. Now is the time to seriously consider it. This modest 3 percent proportional investment could deliver massive returns. The deployment of basic broadband access (5 Mbit/s or less) has fueled the growth of the Internet economy over the past decade. Because the utility, efficiency, and value of Internet-based communication and commerce is dependent on always-on broadband access, ?broadband 1.0? has effectively been the catalyst for the creation of entire industries. The deployment of broadband 2.0 -- with ubiquitous access at up to 100 Mbit/s -- could create a second cycle of innovation and economic growth that would replicate the gains of the past decade. Importantly, if treading this path, the feds should pick bandwidth and deployment coverage targets, rather than the technologies to meet them. Fiber-to-the-home (FTTH), hybrid fiber/coax (HFC), long-term evolution (LTE), WiMax? Who cares? Let the market decide the winner. As an eco-bonus, 100 Mbit/s broadband could prove to be a key ingredient in the battle against climate change. Human-caused carbon dioxide emissions are considered the key driver of global warming. The U.S. produces about 25 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels. Of this total, transportation accounts for about a third of U.S. emissions. Naturally, environmentalists focus on automotive fuel efficiency as a key remedy, viewing hybrid combustion engines and fuel cells as eco-saviors. While logical, this approach offers no remedy for today's gas-guzzling trucks and automobiles, short of replacing them. An immediate solution, one that addresses existing, inefficient vehicles, is simply to drastically reduce driving. And where do Americans drive most? Commuting and shopping top the list. Ubiquitous, high-bandwidth connections would enable feature-rich multimedia telecommuting capabilities that could empower almost any worker not directly involved in manufacturing, construction, agriculture, or human services to be able to work at least part-time from home, or at micro-branch offices closer to home. With only 3 percent of U.S. workers currently telecommuting, according to Omnistats, there is great upside to quickly reduce consumer automotive mileage. Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO - message board) is demonstrating the potential for travel substitution via video-enabled communication in the enterprise market through the deployment of its TelePresence platform. Using the system itself, Cisco says its employees have avoided travel to more than 16,000 meetings, saving the company more than $150 million, and preventing the production of 47,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions. Procter & Gamble, a Cisco customer, is eyeing similar results. P&G has installed 40 TelePresence systems globally and estimates the infrastructure will eliminate some 1,000 business trips per month. Of course, Cisco?s TelePresence solution is an elite corporate offering, with units priced up to $300,000. However, the company says a SoHo version is in the works, with availability planned in about a year. A long list of competitors is attacking the category as well. (See Tata Touts Telepresence, BT Touts TelePresence, AT&T Preps Telepresence Service, and Nortel, Tandberg Team on Telepresence.) Accelerated broadband investment is not a foreign concept to team Obama. Indeed, the need to ?deploy next-generation broadband? was No. 2 on the President-elect?s campaign list for technology priorities. In political hyperbole, the campaign said: ?Barack Obama believes that America should lead the world in broadband penetration and Internet access. As a country, we have ensured that every American has access to telephone service and electricity, regardless of economic status, and Obama will do likewise for broadband Internet access." ? Michael Harris, Chief Analyst, Cable Digital News -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rl at 1st-mile.com Wed Dec 10 15:29:05 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2008 15:29:05 -0800 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] NM Lt. Gov's Transition Team Announcement Message-ID: <20081210152905.qbrouzors48okw4s@www2.dcn.org> State of New Mexico Office of the Lieutenant Governor For Immediate Release Contact: Danielle Montoya Wednesday, December 10, 2008 (Santa Fe) 505-795-3892 Lt. Governor Diane Denish Announces Her Transition Team Santa Fe - Lt. Governor Diane D. Denish today announced her Transition Advisory Leadership team. Her prepared remarks follow. New Mexico is strong. We have a diverse economy, a stronger education system, and continue to put policy and programs in place to protect and support New Mexico families. Today we?re here to talk about the unprecedented transition of leadership. I?m proud to be a part of history and I look forward to continuing our progress. With this transition comes opportunity ? the opportunity to reach out to some of our state's brightest and most effective leaders to assess New Mexico's strengths and to generate new and innovative ideas. In an effort to meet the challenges that lie ahead I am establishing a Transition Advisory Team to develop recommendations and priorities in areas that are vital to moving the state forward. The community, business, and education leaders with me today will direct teams of citizens who will identify areas where we can achieve greater efficiency in state government, identify ways in which agencies can better integrate, rank priority issues, recommend what can be accomplished in the next two years, and in the next five years. The transition advisory team leaders represent diversity in the public and private sectors, rural and urban areas, and the cultural strength that makes New Mexico unique. They are volunteering their time to public service and to New Mexico. The advisory leadership team will be co-chaired by Dr. Dan Lopez and Ms. Brenda Brooks. Dr. Dan Lopez, president of New Mexico Tech, brings extensive knowledge of state government and finance issues. Dr. Lopez's experience in administration, planning, finance and budgeting will be important to guiding work of this advisory team. As former Secretary of the Department of Finance he understands state operations and budget. A native of Hobbs, Brenda Brooks brings this advisory team knowledge of communities and their needs. Her experience identifying efficiencies within the private sector is an important aspect of the work ahead. Brenda has a long history of developing partnerships between private industry and government ? finding a way to better serve the public through combining the strengths of each. She also brings expertise on successful ruralMain Street programs. Dan and Brenda will guide the work of teams focusing on specific areas including: Government Efficiency and Finance Economic Stability Transportation and Infrastructure Education and Workforce Healthy Families and Communities Energy and Environment Safety and Security Government Efficiency and Finance Trevor Loy will lead the Government Efficiency and Finance Advisory Team to bring private sector finance expertise. Trevor is the founder of Flywheel Ventures, a New Mexico-based venture capital company bringing over $60 million in investments to New Mexico-based companies. He has over 15 years of experience investing, building and operating early stage technology companies. Trevor?s experience in private sector finance will bring insight into government finance operations. Economic Stability Alex Romero will lead the Economic Stability Team. Alex brings a lifetime of service to New Mexico and thirty-years in the financial industry in Albuquerque. He has expertise in economic development and marketing that will serve this committee well. Education and Workforce Dr. Margie Huerta will lead the Education and Workforce Advisory Team. Margie is the President of Dona Ana Community College, acommunity college of NMSU. During her tenure at Dona Ana Community College she has introduced new programs to meet the growing demands of business and industry in the Dona Ana area. She has also worked to build relationships between the K-12, higher education, and business communities. Healthy Families and Communities Matt Martinez will lead the Healthy Families and Communities Advisory Team. Matt is the Vice president of National Hispanic Cultural Centerboard and former Mayor of Las Vegas and he knows New Mexico families and communities. Matt worked closely with the late Alice King on various efforts and he will strive to continue her vision and work on behalf of New Mexico's families. Safety and Security Maria Griego-Raby, owner of Contract Associates and former UNM regent, will lead the Safety and Security Team. Maria currently serves on the State Board of Finance collaborating with communities to keep families safe and secure, is familiar with statewide safety issues and has specific experience assessing resources in small and rural areas. Having contracted with the national laboratories, she has expertise in developing safety and security plans. She also owned a business in Juarez Mexico and understands border safety and security issues related to economic and workforce development. Energy and Environment Joe Garcia, Chairman of the All Indian Pueblo Council and President of the National Congress of American Indians (who could not join us today), will lead the Energy and Environment Advisory Team. Joe brings technical expertise to this Advisory Team as an electrical engineer at Los Alamos National Laboratory for twenty-five years. In addition, Joe has served the state for many years and was recognized when he received the New Mexico Distinguished Public Service Award. Transportation and Infrastructure Joe Maestas, mayor of Espanola, (who also could not join us today) will lead the Transportation and Infrastructure Advisory Team. Joe brings extensive expertise to this team with more than 20 years as an engineer, planner, and program manager for the federal government. In addition, Joe served as President of the New Mexico Municipal League Board of Directors. The Municipal League is a nonprofit, nonpartisan association of New Mexico's 103 incorporated municipalities. He currently serves on the New Mexico Economic Partnership's Board of Directors. I recognize and value the youth perspective in the state and will be naming a Youth Voices, Youth Vision advisory team. Finally, I will take recommendations from a Centennial Anniversary team that will focus specifically on New Mexico history, culture, education, and improving graduation rates. Every New Mexican can feel invested and represented in the transition. Citizens from around the state will be called on to serve with these leaders on committees. They will represent every county in the state to ensure that every area statewide has representation in recommendations and ideas that come forward to strengthen New Mexico. We will announce those individuals tomorrow. I would like to thank the hundreds if New Mexicans that have offered their skills, talents, and support to make this a smooth transition. Thank you. Danielle Montoya Communications Director Office of the Lt. Governor Phone: (505) 476-2230 Cell: (505) 795-3892 Fax: (505) 476-2257 danielle.montoya at state.nm.us -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From pete at ideapete.com Thu Dec 11 16:01:28 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2008 17:01:28 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Get rid of TMI - Information Clarity - Tufte seminar coming Message-ID: <4941A9D8.5040404@ideapete.com> We are all in the business of data and information clarity and if you have never been to a Tufte seminar you should Today we are all feeling the effects of To Much Information, most of it useless It will revolutionize how you and your organization look at and transmit any form of information Those of you who know me know I don't recommend these things lightly but this one is a must do. Albuquerque Jan 30th 2009 http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/courses ( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ 3210 La Paz Lane Santa Fe, NM 87507 /Albuquerque// Office: 505-890-9649/ /Santa Fe// Office: 505-629-4227/ /Cell: 505-690-3627/ /Fax: 866-642-8918/ /_Mailto:pete at ideapete.com _/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From granoff at zianet.com Fri Dec 12 08:23:11 2008 From: granoff at zianet.com (Marianne Granoff) Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2008 09:23:11 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Skywi sues Qwest for anti-competitive behavior Message-ID: <20081212162313.438E02BBC@velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us> >FYI. >Skywi sues Qwest for anti-competitive behavior > >http://albuquerque.bizjournals.com/albuquerque/stories/2008/12/15/story2.html?surround=etf&b=1229317200^1746785 From rl at 1st-mile.com Mon Dec 15 10:17:25 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2008 10:17:25 -0800 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Google Policy Blog: response to WSJ article errors. Message-ID: <20081215101725.do17uktdc0ooks04@www2.dcn.org> Net neutrality and the benefits of caching http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/ Monday, December 15, 2008 at 12:14 AM Posted by Richard Whitt, Washington Telecom and Media Counsel One of the first posts I wrote for this blog last summer tried to define what we at Google mean when we talk about the concept of net neutrality. Broadband providers -- the on-ramps to the Internet -- should not be allowed to prioritize traffic based on the source, ownership or destination of the content. As I noted in that post, broadband providers should have the flexibility to employ network upgrades, such as edge caching. However, they shouldn't be able to leverage their unilateral control over consumers' broadband connections to hamper user choice, competition, and innovation. Our commitment to that principle of net neutrality remains as strong as ever. Some critics have questioned whether improving Web performance through edge caching -- temporary storage of frequently accessed data on servers that are located close to end users -- violates the concept of network neutrality. As I said last summer, this myth -- which unfortunately underlies a confused story in Monday's Wall Street Journal -- is based on a misunderstanding of the way in which the open Internet works. Edge caching is a common practice used by ISPs and application and content providers in order to improve the end user experience. Companies like Akamai, Limelight, and Amazon's Cloudfront provide local caching services, and broadband providers typically utilize caching as part of what are known as content distribution networks (CDNs). Google and many other Internet companies also deploy servers of their own around the world. By bringing YouTube videos and other content physically closer to end users, site operators can improve page load times for videos and Web pages. In addition, these solutions help broadband providers by minimizing the need to send traffic outside of their networks and reducing congestion on the Internet's backbones. In fact, caching represents one type of innovative network practice encouraged by the open Internet. Google has offered to "colocate" caching servers within broadband providers' own facilities; this reduces the provider's bandwidth costs since the same video wouldn't have to be transmitted multiple times. We've always said that broadband providers can engage in activities like colocation and caching, so long as they do so on a non-discriminatory basis. All of Google's colocation agreements with ISPs -- which we've done through projects called OpenEdge and Google Global Cache -- are non-exclusive, meaning any other entity could employ similar arrangements. Also, none of them require (or encourage) that Google traffic be treated with higher priority than other traffic. In contrast, if broadband providers were to leverage their unilateral control over consumers' connections and offer colocation or caching services in an anti-competitive fashion, that would threaten the open Internet and the innovation it enables. Despite the hyperbolic tone and confused claims in Monday's Journal story, I want to be perfectly clear about one thing: Google remains strongly committed to the principle of net neutrality, and we will continue to work with policymakers in the years ahead to keep the Internet free and open. P.S.: The Journal story also quoted me as characterizing President-elect Obama's net neutrality policies as "much less specific than they were before." For what it's worth, I don't recall making such a comment, and it seems especially odd given that President-elect Obama's supportive stance on network neutrality hasn't changed at all. ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From josmon at rigozsaurus.com Mon Dec 15 10:30:52 2008 From: josmon at rigozsaurus.com (John Osmon) Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2008 11:30:52 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Google Policy Blog: response to WSJ article errors. In-Reply-To: <20081215101725.do17uktdc0ooks04@www2.dcn.org> References: <20081215101725.do17uktdc0ooks04@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: <20081215183052.GI22501@rigozsaurus.com> We need to make sure people aren't fighting the wrong battle. As long as people fight for/against net neutrality, it distracts from the real issue. We need neutral first/last mile networks. They should be layer-2 only, and consumers should be able to choose which ISP that layer-2 connections hits. Qwest's original DSL model works this way, and it was a boon to ISPs and consumers. Once we have a plethora of ISPs to choose from, we can let each ISP do whatever prioritization/caching they want. Since we're free to switch between them, we can find one that matches our preferences. *IF* you assume that the last mile connection also defines your choice in ISP, *THEN* network neutrality is an important argument. Turn the argument around. Fight for a framework where network neutrality isn't a requirement. On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 10:17:25AM -0800, Richard Lowenberg wrote: > Net neutrality and the benefits of caching > > http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/ > > Monday, December 15, 2008 at 12:14 AM > Posted by Richard Whitt, Washington Telecom and Media Counsel > > One of the first posts I wrote for this blog last summer tried to define what we > at Google mean when we talk about the concept of net neutrality. > > Broadband providers -- the on-ramps to the Internet -- should not be allowed to > prioritize traffic based on the source, ownership or destination of the > content. As I noted in that post, broadband providers should have the > flexibility to employ network upgrades, such as edge caching. However, they > shouldn't be able to leverage their unilateral control over consumers' > broadband connections to hamper user choice, competition, and innovation. Our > commitment to that principle of net neutrality remains as strong as ever. > > Some critics have questioned whether improving Web performance through edge > caching -- temporary storage of frequently accessed data on servers that are > located close to end users -- violates the concept of network neutrality. As I > said last summer, this myth -- which unfortunately underlies a confused story > in Monday's Wall Street Journal -- is based on a misunderstanding of the way in > which the open Internet works. > > Edge caching is a common practice used by ISPs and application and content > providers in order to improve the end user experience. Companies like Akamai, > Limelight, and Amazon's Cloudfront provide local caching services, and > broadband providers typically utilize caching as part of what are known as > content distribution networks (CDNs). Google and many other Internet companies > also deploy servers of their own around the world. > > By bringing YouTube videos and other content physically closer to end users, > site operators can improve page load times for videos and Web pages. In > addition, these solutions help broadband providers by minimizing the need to > send traffic outside of their networks and reducing congestion on the > Internet's backbones. In fact, caching represents one type of innovative > network practice encouraged by the open Internet. > > Google has offered to "colocate" caching servers within broadband providers' own > facilities; this reduces the provider's bandwidth costs since the same video > wouldn't have to be transmitted multiple times. We've always said that > broadband providers can engage in activities like colocation and caching, so > long as they do so on a non-discriminatory basis. > > All of Google's colocation agreements with ISPs -- which we've done through > projects called OpenEdge and Google Global Cache -- are non-exclusive, meaning > any other entity could employ similar arrangements. Also, none of them require > (or encourage) that Google traffic be treated with higher priority than other > traffic. In contrast, if broadband providers were to leverage their unilateral > control over consumers' connections and offer colocation or caching services in > an anti-competitive fashion, that would threaten the open Internet and the > innovation it enables. > > Despite the hyperbolic tone and confused claims in Monday's Journal story, I > want to be perfectly clear about one thing: Google remains strongly committed > to the principle of net neutrality, and we will continue to work with > policymakers in the years ahead to keep the Internet free and open. > > P.S.: The Journal story also quoted me as characterizing President-elect Obama's > net neutrality policies as "much less specific than they were before." For what > it's worth, I don't recall making such a comment, and it seems especially odd > given that President-elect Obama's supportive stance on network neutrality > hasn't changed at all. > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------- > This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm From ggomes at soundviewnet.com Mon Dec 15 15:49:24 2008 From: ggomes at soundviewnet.com (Gary Gomes) Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2008 16:49:24 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Google Policy Blog: response to WSJ articleerrors. In-Reply-To: <20081215183052.GI22501@rigozsaurus.com> References: <20081215101725.do17uktdc0ooks04@www2.dcn.org> <20081215183052.GI22501@rigozsaurus.com> Message-ID: You raise an interesting issue - is Layer 2 or Layer 3 the right end-user interface? If the Layer 3 1st/last mile network is truly open, there is the prospect of a wide range of innovative services (telemedicine, security, etc.)of which the customer is free to select any that they choose. If it is layer 2, there may be a selection of ISPs, but the customer must select one or the other. This is very roughly analogous to the Cable "Package" versus "Ala Carte" debate. I would like to more thoroughly understand the issues and ramifications, but right now I believe I favor a publically owned open Layer 3 network. Gary -----Original Message----- From: 1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org [mailto:1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org] On Behalf Of John Osmon Sent: Monday, December 15, 2008 11:31 AM To: 1st-mile-nm at crank.dcn.davis.ca.us Subject: Re: [1st-mile-nm] Google Policy Blog: response to WSJ articleerrors. We need to make sure people aren't fighting the wrong battle. As long as people fight for/against net neutrality, it distracts from the real issue. We need neutral first/last mile networks. They should be layer-2 only, and consumers should be able to choose which ISP that layer-2 connections hits. Qwest's original DSL model works this way, and it was a boon to ISPs and consumers. Once we have a plethora of ISPs to choose from, we can let each ISP do whatever prioritization/caching they want. Since we're free to switch between them, we can find one that matches our preferences. *IF* you assume that the last mile connection also defines your choice in ISP, *THEN* network neutrality is an important argument. Turn the argument around. Fight for a framework where network neutrality isn't a requirement. On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 10:17:25AM -0800, Richard Lowenberg wrote: > Net neutrality and the benefits of caching > > http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/ > > Monday, December 15, 2008 at 12:14 AM > Posted by Richard Whitt, Washington Telecom and Media Counsel > > One of the first posts I wrote for this blog last summer tried to define what we > at Google mean when we talk about the concept of net neutrality. > > Broadband providers -- the on-ramps to the Internet -- should not be allowed to > prioritize traffic based on the source, ownership or destination of the > content. As I noted in that post, broadband providers should have the > flexibility to employ network upgrades, such as edge caching. However, they > shouldn't be able to leverage their unilateral control over consumers' > broadband connections to hamper user choice, competition, and innovation. Our > commitment to that principle of net neutrality remains as strong as ever. > > Some critics have questioned whether improving Web performance through edge > caching -- temporary storage of frequently accessed data on servers that are > located close to end users -- violates the concept of network neutrality. As I > said last summer, this myth -- which unfortunately underlies a confused story > in Monday's Wall Street Journal -- is based on a misunderstanding of the way in > which the open Internet works. > > Edge caching is a common practice used by ISPs and application and content > providers in order to improve the end user experience. Companies like Akamai, > Limelight, and Amazon's Cloudfront provide local caching services, and > broadband providers typically utilize caching as part of what are known as > content distribution networks (CDNs). Google and many other Internet companies > also deploy servers of their own around the world. > > By bringing YouTube videos and other content physically closer to end users, > site operators can improve page load times for videos and Web pages. In > addition, these solutions help broadband providers by minimizing the need to > send traffic outside of their networks and reducing congestion on the > Internet's backbones. In fact, caching represents one type of innovative > network practice encouraged by the open Internet. > > Google has offered to "colocate" caching servers within broadband providers' own > facilities; this reduces the provider's bandwidth costs since the same video > wouldn't have to be transmitted multiple times. We've always said that > broadband providers can engage in activities like colocation and caching, so > long as they do so on a non-discriminatory basis. > > All of Google's colocation agreements with ISPs -- which we've done through > projects called OpenEdge and Google Global Cache -- are non-exclusive, meaning > any other entity could employ similar arrangements. Also, none of them require > (or encourage) that Google traffic be treated with higher priority than other > traffic. In contrast, if broadband providers were to leverage their unilateral > control over consumers' connections and offer colocation or caching services in > an anti-competitive fashion, that would threaten the open Internet and the > innovation it enables. > > Despite the hyperbolic tone and confused claims in Monday's Journal story, I > want to be perfectly clear about one thing: Google remains strongly committed > to the principle of net neutrality, and we will continue to work with > policymakers in the years ahead to keep the Internet free and open. > > P.S.: The Journal story also quoted me as characterizing President-elect Obama's > net neutrality policies as "much less specific than they were before." For what > it's worth, I don't recall making such a comment, and it seems especially odd > given that President-elect Obama's supportive stance on network neutrality > hasn't changed at all. > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------- > This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm _______________________________________________ 1st-mile-nm mailing list 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm From jmbrown at citylinkfiber.com Mon Dec 15 15:59:30 2008 From: jmbrown at citylinkfiber.com (John Brown) Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2008 16:59:30 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Google Policy Blog: response to WSJ articleerrors. Message-ID: <45E6CE14DCD69E4490CF3ACDA767AED142DD@deathstar.citylinkfiber.intra> If the cust has l2 choice then they can get to both L2 and public / open L3 services If the cust only has L3 then they are locked to the networks available via that L3 provider I'd extend the model and say that L1 and L2 should be open. -------------------------- Sent using BlackBerry ----- Original Message ----- From: 1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org <1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org> To: 'John Osmon' ; 1st-mile-nm at crank.dcn.davis.ca.us <1st-mile-nm at crank.dcn.davis.ca.us> Sent: Mon Dec 15 16:49:24 2008 Subject: Re: [1st-mile-nm] Google Policy Blog: response to WSJ articleerrors. You raise an interesting issue - is Layer 2 or Layer 3 the right end-user interface? If the Layer 3 1st/last mile network is truly open, there is the prospect of a wide range of innovative services (telemedicine, security, etc.)of which the customer is free to select any that they choose. If it is layer 2, there may be a selection of ISPs, but the customer must select one or the other. This is very roughly analogous to the Cable "Package" versus "Ala Carte" debate. I would like to more thoroughly understand the issues and ramifications, but right now I believe I favor a publically owned open Layer 3 network. Gary -----Original Message----- From: 1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org [mailto:1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org] On Behalf Of John Osmon Sent: Monday, December 15, 2008 11:31 AM To: 1st-mile-nm at crank.dcn.davis.ca.us Subject: Re: [1st-mile-nm] Google Policy Blog: response to WSJ articleerrors. We need to make sure people aren't fighting the wrong battle. As long as people fight for/against net neutrality, it distracts from the real issue. We need neutral first/last mile networks. They should be layer-2 only, and consumers should be able to choose which ISP that layer-2 connections hits. Qwest's original DSL model works this way, and it was a boon to ISPs and consumers. Once we have a plethora of ISPs to choose from, we can let each ISP do whatever prioritization/caching they want. Since we're free to switch between them, we can find one that matches our preferences. *IF* you assume that the last mile connection also defines your choice in ISP, *THEN* network neutrality is an important argument. Turn the argument around. Fight for a framework where network neutrality isn't a requirement. On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 10:17:25AM -0800, Richard Lowenberg wrote: > Net neutrality and the benefits of caching > > http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/ > > Monday, December 15, 2008 at 12:14 AM > Posted by Richard Whitt, Washington Telecom and Media Counsel > > One of the first posts I wrote for this blog last summer tried to define what we > at Google mean when we talk about the concept of net neutrality. > > Broadband providers -- the on-ramps to the Internet -- should not be allowed to > prioritize traffic based on the source, ownership or destination of the > content. As I noted in that post, broadband providers should have the > flexibility to employ network upgrades, such as edge caching. However, they > shouldn't be able to leverage their unilateral control over consumers' > broadband connections to hamper user choice, competition, and innovation. Our > commitment to that principle of net neutrality remains as strong as ever. > > Some critics have questioned whether improving Web performance through edge > caching -- temporary storage of frequently accessed data on servers that are > located close to end users -- violates the concept of network neutrality. As I > said last summer, this myth -- which unfortunately underlies a confused story > in Monday's Wall Street Journal -- is based on a misunderstanding of the way in > which the open Internet works. > > Edge caching is a common practice used by ISPs and application and content > providers in order to improve the end user experience. Companies like Akamai, > Limelight, and Amazon's Cloudfront provide local caching services, and > broadband providers typically utilize caching as part of what are known as > content distribution networks (CDNs). Google and many other Internet companies > also deploy servers of their own around the world. > > By bringing YouTube videos and other content physically closer to end users, > site operators can improve page load times for videos and Web pages. In > addition, these solutions help broadband providers by minimizing the need to > send traffic outside of their networks and reducing congestion on the > Internet's backbones. In fact, caching represents one type of innovative > network practice encouraged by the open Internet. > > Google has offered to "colocate" caching servers within broadband providers' own > facilities; this reduces the provider's bandwidth costs since the same video > wouldn't have to be transmitted multiple times. We've always said that > broadband providers can engage in activities like colocation and caching, so > long as they do so on a non-discriminatory basis. > > All of Google's colocation agreements with ISPs -- which we've done through > projects called OpenEdge and Google Global Cache -- are non-exclusive, meaning > any other entity could employ similar arrangements. Also, none of them require > (or encourage) that Google traffic be treated with higher priority than other > traffic. In contrast, if broadband providers were to leverage their unilateral > control over consumers' connections and offer colocation or caching services in > an anti-competitive fashion, that would threaten the open Internet and the > innovation it enables. > > Despite the hyperbolic tone and confused claims in Monday's Journal story, I > want to be perfectly clear about one thing: Google remains strongly committed > to the principle of net neutrality, and we will continue to work with > policymakers in the years ahead to keep the Internet free and open. > > P.S.: The Journal story also quoted me as characterizing President-elect Obama's > net neutrality policies as "much less specific than they were before." For what > it's worth, I don't recall making such a comment, and it seems especially odd > given that President-elect Obama's supportive stance on network neutrality > hasn't changed at all. > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------- > This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm _______________________________________________ 1st-mile-nm mailing list 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm _______________________________________________ 1st-mile-nm mailing list 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Mon Dec 15 17:17:10 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2008 17:17:10 -0800 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] 1st-Mile Messages Message-ID: <20081215171710.4xy2bw94goo4ok0o@www2.dcn.org> Here are three messages sent this afternoon, that may not have gotten posted. rl ----------- Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2008 16:59:30 -0700 Subject: Re: [1st-mile-nm] Google Policy Blog: response to WSJ articleerrors. From: "John Brown" To: , , <1st-mile-nm at crank.dcn.davis.ca.us> If the cust has l2 choice then they can get to both L2 and public / open L3 services If the cust only has L3 then they are locked to the networks available via that L3 provider I'd extend the model and say that L1 and L2 should be open. -------------------------- Sent using BlackBerry ----- Original Message ----- From: 1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org <1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org> To: 'John Osmon' ; 1st-mile-nm at crank.dcn.davis.ca.us <1st-mile-nm at crank.dcn.davis.ca.us> Sent: Mon Dec 15 16:49:24 2008 Subject: Re: [1st-mile-nm] Google Policy Blog: response to WSJ articleerrors. You raise an interesting issue - is Layer 2 or Layer 3 the right end-user interface? If the Layer 3 1st/last mile network is truly open, there is the prospect of a wide range of innovative services (telemedicine, security, etc.)of which the customer is free to select any that they choose. If it is layer 2, there may be a selection of ISPs, but the customer must select one or the other. This is very roughly analogous to the Cable "Package" versus "Ala Carte" debate. I would like to more thoroughly understand the issues and ramifications, but right now I believe I favor a publically owned open Layer 3 network. Gary -----Original Message----- From: 1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org [mailto:1st-mile-nm-bounces at mailman.dcn.org] On Behalf Of John Osmon Sent: Monday, December 15, 2008 11:31 AM To: 1st-mile-nm at crank.dcn.davis.ca.us Subject: Re: [1st-mile-nm] Google Policy Blog: response to WSJ articleerrors. We need to make sure people aren't fighting the wrong battle. As long as people fight for/against net neutrality, it distracts from the real issue. We need neutral first/last mile networks. They should be layer-2 only, and consumers should be able to choose which ISP that layer-2 connections hits. Qwest's original DSL model works this way, and it was a boon to ISPs and consumers. Once we have a plethora of ISPs to choose from, we can let each ISP do whatever prioritization/caching they want. Since we're free to switch between them, we can find one that matches our preferences. *IF* you assume that the last mile connection also defines your choice in ISP, *THEN* network neutrality is an important argument. Turn the argument around. Fight for a framework where network neutrality isn't a requirement. On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 10:17:25AM -0800, Richard Lowenberg wrote: > Net neutrality and the benefits of caching > > http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/ -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From pete at ideapete.com Mon Dec 15 18:08:16 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2008 19:08:16 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Survey: Many would take Internet over sex - CNN.com Message-ID: <49470D90.6010100@ideapete.com> http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/12/15/internet.sex.survey/index.html ( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Thu Dec 18 11:36:09 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2008 12:36:09 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] PointNiner: Raw Video Of Aborted Takeoff In Angola Message-ID: <494AA629.8060100@ideapete.com> http://www.pointniner.com/2008/10/raw-video-of-aborted-takeoff-in-angola.html Communicating news in a novel way LOOK how many cell phones popped out ( Africa even ) and this was posted to a news site withing 15 mins from primitive Angola ( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rl at 1st-mile.com Thu Dec 18 13:51:45 2008 From: rl at 1st-mile.com (Richard Lowenberg) Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2008 13:51:45 -0800 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Qwest slashes "Connect Quantum" Internet price Message-ID: <20081218135145.5yrnkq8e800w8s8s@www2.dcn.org> Tuesday, December 16, 2008 | Modified: Thursday, December 18, 2008 Qwest slashes Internet price Denver Business Journal Qwest Communications Inc. has slashed the monthly price of its highest-speed Internet service for new and existing customers. The Denver-based telecom (NYSE: Q) dropped the price of its residential, 20-megabits-per-second broadband service to $59.99 monthly. The service, called Qwest Connect Quantum, had cost $99.99 a month. The small business broadband service with the same speed is dropping from $140 per month to $100.40. New customers will be able to order the fastest Internet speed at the reduced rates. The bills of customers who already get Qwest?s 20 mbps service will drop 40 percent, the company said. The 20-mbps speed isn?t available in all areas where Qwest offers broadband service. ------ (Where is this available in NM? Albuquerque, Rio Rancho, Santa Fe, Las Cruces ?) -- Richard Lowenberg 1st-Mile Institute P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From tom at jtjohnson.com Fri Dec 19 16:22:43 2008 From: tom at jtjohnson.com (Tom Johnson) Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2008 17:22:43 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Qwest slashes "Connect Quantum" Internet price In-Reply-To: <20081218135145.5yrnkq8e800w8s8s@www2.dcn.org> References: <20081218135145.5yrnkq8e800w8s8s@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: Has anyone tested this speed up and down and on various days and times? -tom On Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 2:51 PM, Richard Lowenberg wrote: > Tuesday, December 16, 2008 | Modified: Thursday, December 18, 2008 > Qwest slashes Internet price > Denver Business Journal > > Qwest Communications Inc. has slashed the monthly price of its > highest-speed > Internet service for new and existing customers. > > The Denver-based telecom (NYSE: Q) dropped the price of its residential, > 20-megabits-per-second broadband service to $59.99 monthly. The service, > called > Qwest Connect Quantum, had cost $99.99 a month. > > The small business broadband service with the same speed is dropping from > $140 > per month to $100.40. > > New customers will be able to order the fastest Internet speed at the > reduced > rates. The bills of customers who already get Qwest?s 20 mbps service will > drop 40 percent, the company said. > > The 20-mbps speed isn?t available in all areas where Qwest offers broadband > service. > > ------ > > (Where is this available in NM? Albuquerque, Rio Rancho, Santa Fe, Las > Cruces > ?) > > -- > Richard Lowenberg > 1st-Mile Institute > P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 > 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell > rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com > > ---------------------------------------------------------------- > This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > -- ========================================== J. T. Johnson Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA www.analyticjournalism.com 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) http://www.jtjohnson.com tom at jtjohnson.com "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." -- Buckminster Fuller ========================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Fri Dec 19 16:58:45 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2008 17:58:45 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Qwest slashes "Connect Quantum" Internet price In-Reply-To: References: <20081218135145.5yrnkq8e800w8s8s@www2.dcn.org> Message-ID: <494C4345.2060207@ideapete.com> First 20 mps is really 2.5 megabyte and typically upstream is about 10 - 15% of the downstream speed From my sources in Denver the service is a joke and rarely gets the 10mps or 1.25 megabyte range and service swings are huge ( they are using Bandwidth monitor pro ) As Qwest no longer will agree to SLA agreement or data on its broadband connection service the difference in business and residential rates is criminal I also believe that the PRC many times has asked Qwest for traffic service patterns to back up their claims and has been told this type of information is proprietary, go figure The true rate for this type of service should be a $ buck a Meg and thats for bytes the rest is hype ( : ( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ Tom Johnson wrote: > Has anyone tested this speed up and down and on various days and times? > > -tom > > On Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 2:51 PM, Richard Lowenberg > wrote: > > Tuesday, December 16, 2008 | Modified: Thursday, December 18, 2008 > Qwest slashes Internet price > Denver Business Journal > > Qwest Communications Inc. has slashed the monthly price of its > highest-speed > Internet service for new and existing customers. > > The Denver-based telecom (NYSE: Q) dropped the price of its > residential, > 20-megabits-per-second broadband service to $59.99 monthly. The > service, called > Qwest Connect Quantum, had cost $99.99 a month. > > The small business broadband service with the same speed is > dropping from $140 > per month to $100.40. > > New customers will be able to order the fastest Internet speed at > the reduced > rates. The bills of customers who already get Qwest?s 20 mbps > service will > drop 40 percent, the company said. > > The 20-mbps speed isn?t available in all areas where Qwest offers > broadband > service. > > ------ > > (Where is this available in NM? Albuquerque, Rio Rancho, Santa > Fe, Las Cruces > ?) > > -- > Richard Lowenberg > 1st-Mile Institute > P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 > 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell > rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------- > This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > > > > > -- > ========================================== > J. T. Johnson > Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA > www.analyticjournalism.com > 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) > http://www.jtjohnson.com tom at jtjohnson.com > > > "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. > To change something, build a new model that makes the > existing model obsolete." > -- Buckminster Fuller > ========================================== > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tom at jtjohnson.com Fri Dec 19 17:02:27 2008 From: tom at jtjohnson.com (Tom Johnson) Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2008 18:02:27 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Qwest slashes "Connect Quantum" Internet price In-Reply-To: <494C4345.2060207@ideapete.com> References: <20081218135145.5yrnkq8e800w8s8s@www2.dcn.org> <494C4345.2060207@ideapete.com> Message-ID: Thanks. I guess I'll save my money and just plod along with Comcast. -tj On Fri, Dec 19, 2008 at 5:58 PM, peter wrote: > First 20 mps is really 2.5 megabyte and typically upstream is about 10 - > 15% of the downstream speed > > From my sources in Denver the service is a joke and rarely gets the 10mps > or 1.25 megabyte range and service swings are huge ( they are using > Bandwidth monitor pro ) > > As Qwest no longer will agree to SLA agreement or data on its broadband > connection service the difference in business and residential rates is > criminal > > I also believe that the PRC many times has asked Qwest for traffic service > patterns to back up their claims and has been told this type of information > is proprietary, go figure > > The true rate for this type of service should be a $ buck a Meg and thats > for bytes the rest is hype > > ( : ( : pete > > Peter Baston > > *IDEAS* > > *www.ideapete.com* > > > > > > > Tom Johnson wrote: > > Has anyone tested this speed up and down and on various days and times? > -tom > > On Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 2:51 PM, Richard Lowenberg wrote: > >> Tuesday, December 16, 2008 | Modified: Thursday, December 18, 2008 >> Qwest slashes Internet price >> Denver Business Journal >> >> Qwest Communications Inc. has slashed the monthly price of its >> highest-speed >> Internet service for new and existing customers. >> >> The Denver-based telecom (NYSE: Q) dropped the price of its residential, >> 20-megabits-per-second broadband service to $59.99 monthly. The service, >> called >> Qwest Connect Quantum, had cost $99.99 a month. >> >> The small business broadband service with the same speed is dropping from >> $140 >> per month to $100.40. >> >> New customers will be able to order the fastest Internet speed at the >> reduced >> rates. The bills of customers who already get Qwest?s 20 mbps service will >> drop 40 percent, the company said. >> >> The 20-mbps speed isn?t available in all areas where Qwest offers >> broadband >> service. >> >> ------ >> >> (Where is this available in NM? Albuquerque, Rio Rancho, Santa Fe, Las >> Cruces >> ?) >> >> -- >> Richard Lowenberg >> 1st-Mile Institute >> P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504 >> 505-989-9110; 505-603-5200 cell >> rl at 1st-mile.com www.1st-mile.com >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------- >> This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. >> _______________________________________________ >> 1st-mile-nm mailing list >> 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm >> > > > > -- > ========================================== > J. T. Johnson > Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA > www.analyticjournalism.com > 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) > http://www.jtjohnson.com tom at jtjohnson.com > > "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. > To change something, build a new model that makes the > existing model obsolete." > -- Buckminster Fuller > ========================================== > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.orghttp://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > > -- ========================================== J. T. Johnson Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA www.analyticjournalism.com 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) http://www.jtjohnson.com tom at jtjohnson.com "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." -- Buckminster Fuller ========================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Fri Dec 19 17:23:57 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2008 18:23:57 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Information request on wireless reliability and frequency conflicts Message-ID: <494C492D.4030601@ideapete.com> We are involved in several projects investigating wireless conflict signals within corporations and hospitals and are finding some strange results which could impact Wi-Fi and Wi - Max usage and indeed the whole paradigm first mile wireless use. Basically this is what we are seeing Open wireless frequencies that have been typical used are 900 - 2.6 and now 5.8ghtz. 802.11 of various types operates in both the 2.6 and 5.8 sectors ( 5.8 is 802.11n and 802.16 wi max ) the 900 htz range is packed and so is the 2.8 ghtz Inside of a hospital for instance multiple monitoring equipment types and portable phone systems operate on the same frequencies and so does a huge amount of SCADA operations. Although channel switching is supposed to prevent signal conflict wi-fi signal boosters and all wimax whether static or mobile is continually channel hunting and knocking everything else of of the channel making many types of systems non usable It would seem that a major problem is manufacturers testing their equipment in a silo arena and this would also be relevant to the white space transmission requests before the FCC at present This looks like a huge problem and if anyone is experiencing the same issues please contact us Apparently Motorola with their Canopy system and Intel ( wi-fi and max ) did a large amount of research but when the conflict issues arose chose to ignore the results or assumed that channel frequency switch would fix the problem but its not ( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ 3210 La Paz Lane Santa Fe, NM 87507 /Albuquerque// Office: 505-890-9649/ /Santa Fe// Office: 505-629-4227/ /Cell: 505-690-3627/ /Fax: 866-642-8918/ /_Mailto:pete at ideapete.com _/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bob at bobknight.net Fri Dec 19 17:35:09 2008 From: bob at bobknight.net (Bob Knight) Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2008 18:35:09 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Information request on wireless reliability and frequency conflicts In-Reply-To: <494C492D.4030601@ideapete.com> References: <494C492D.4030601@ideapete.com> Message-ID: <494C4BCD.1050500@bobknight.net> You need to look at the WISPA archives relative to Motorola Canopy. While it is the largest deployed base in that community, it also is considered to be the largest problem interference-wise, at least in the 2.4 (not 2.6) Ghz band. In our area, though, they're using 900 Mhz. In 2.4, there are 11 channels (in the US, at least). Ideally (and nowadays, this is far from ideal given the spectrum pollution), one wants things 5 channels apart, especially when hidden node problems are anticipated. The problem is that hidden node is going to be a problem pretty much no matter what measures you take. WiMax can be used in various bands from 2-66 Ghz. 2.5 and 3.5 are licensed spectrum and it can be used in 5.8. It seems to be suited to 700 Mhz as well. Our experience on 5.8 is very positive. We use it for our backhauls. One nice thing about this spectrum allocation is that the channels are non-overlapping. Our backhaul sink for the DS-3 has 5 different links coming in with no interference. Admittedly, we are rural. But I guarantee that if the Santa Fe spectrum in 5.8 (or Eldo for that matter) were crowded, we'd see it. And we don't. So where are you seeing problems? Bob peter wrote: > We are involved in several projects investigating wireless conflict > signals within corporations and hospitals and are finding some strange > results which could impact Wi-Fi and Wi - Max usage and indeed the > whole paradigm first mile wireless use. > > Basically this is what we are seeing > > Open wireless frequencies that have been typical used are 900 - 2.6 > and now 5.8ghtz. > > 802.11 of various types operates in both the 2.6 and 5.8 sectors ( 5.8 > is 802.11n and 802.16 wi max ) the 900 htz range is packed and so is > the 2.8 ghtz > > Inside of a hospital for instance multiple monitoring equipment types > and portable phone systems operate on the same frequencies and so does > a huge amount of SCADA operations. > > Although channel switching is supposed to prevent signal conflict > wi-fi signal boosters and all wimax whether static or mobile is > continually channel hunting and knocking everything else of of the > channel making many types of systems non usable > > It would seem that a major problem is manufacturers testing their > equipment in a silo arena and this would also be relevant to the white > space transmission requests before the FCC at present > > This looks like a huge problem and if anyone is experiencing the same > issues please contact us > > Apparently Motorola with their Canopy system and Intel ( wi-fi and max > ) did a large amount of research but when the conflict issues arose > chose to ignore the results or assumed that channel frequency switch > would fix the problem but its not > > ( : ( : pete > -- > > Peter Baston > > *IDEAS* > > /www.ideapete.com/ > > 3210 La Paz Lane > > Santa Fe, NM 87507 > > /Albuquerque// Office: 505-890-9649/ > > /Santa Fe// Office: 505-629-4227/ > > /Cell: 505-690-3627/ > > /Fax: 866-642-8918/ > > /_Mailto:pete at ideapete.com _/ > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > From bob at bobknight.net Fri Dec 19 17:36:44 2008 From: bob at bobknight.net (Bob Knight) Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2008 18:36:44 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Information request on wireless reliability and frequency conflicts In-Reply-To: <494C4BCD.1050500@bobknight.net> References: <494C492D.4030601@ideapete.com> <494C4BCD.1050500@bobknight.net> Message-ID: <494C4C2C.9060903@bobknight.net> Another note - polarization may be your friend in crowded spectrum. Bob Bob Knight wrote: > You need to look at the WISPA archives relative to Motorola Canopy. > While it is the largest deployed base in that community, it also is > considered to be the largest problem interference-wise, at least in the > 2.4 (not 2.6) Ghz band. In our area, though, they're using 900 Mhz. > > In 2.4, there are 11 channels (in the US, at least). Ideally (and > nowadays, this is far from ideal given the spectrum pollution), one > wants things 5 channels apart, especially when hidden node problems are > anticipated. The problem is that hidden node is going to be a problem > pretty much no matter what measures you take. > > WiMax can be used in various bands from 2-66 Ghz. 2.5 and 3.5 are > licensed spectrum and it can be used in 5.8. It seems to be suited to > 700 Mhz as well. > > Our experience on 5.8 is very positive. We use it for our backhauls. One > nice thing about this spectrum allocation is that the channels are > non-overlapping. Our backhaul sink for the DS-3 has 5 different links > coming in with no interference. > > Admittedly, we are rural. But I guarantee that if the Santa Fe spectrum > in 5.8 (or Eldo for that matter) were crowded, we'd see it. And we don't. > > So where are you seeing problems? > > Bob > > peter wrote: > >> We are involved in several projects investigating wireless conflict >> signals within corporations and hospitals and are finding some strange >> results which could impact Wi-Fi and Wi - Max usage and indeed the >> whole paradigm first mile wireless use. >> >> Basically this is what we are seeing >> >> Open wireless frequencies that have been typical used are 900 - 2.6 >> and now 5.8ghtz. >> >> 802.11 of various types operates in both the 2.6 and 5.8 sectors ( 5.8 >> is 802.11n and 802.16 wi max ) the 900 htz range is packed and so is >> the 2.8 ghtz >> >> Inside of a hospital for instance multiple monitoring equipment types >> and portable phone systems operate on the same frequencies and so does >> a huge amount of SCADA operations. >> >> Although channel switching is supposed to prevent signal conflict >> wi-fi signal boosters and all wimax whether static or mobile is >> continually channel hunting and knocking everything else of of the >> channel making many types of systems non usable >> >> It would seem that a major problem is manufacturers testing their >> equipment in a silo arena and this would also be relevant to the white >> space transmission requests before the FCC at present >> >> This looks like a huge problem and if anyone is experiencing the same >> issues please contact us >> >> Apparently Motorola with their Canopy system and Intel ( wi-fi and max >> ) did a large amount of research but when the conflict issues arose >> chose to ignore the results or assumed that channel frequency switch >> would fix the problem but its not >> >> ( : ( : pete >> -- >> >> Peter Baston >> >> *IDEAS* >> >> /www.ideapete.com/ >> >> 3210 La Paz Lane >> >> Santa Fe, NM 87507 >> >> /Albuquerque// Office: 505-890-9649/ >> >> /Santa Fe// Office: 505-629-4227/ >> >> /Cell: 505-690-3627/ >> >> /Fax: 866-642-8918/ >> >> /_Mailto:pete at ideapete.com _/ >> >> >> >> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 1st-mile-nm mailing list >> 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm >> >> > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > From pete at ideapete.com Fri Dec 19 18:22:36 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2008 19:22:36 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Information request on wireless reliability and frequency conflicts In-Reply-To: <494C4C2C.9060903@bobknight.net> References: <494C492D.4030601@ideapete.com> <494C4BCD.1050500@bobknight.net> <494C4C2C.9060903@bobknight.net> Message-ID: <494C56EC.9030706@ideapete.com> Thanks Bob, much appreciatted This started on a project we where working on in Phoenix doing due diligence on a data management system with multiple wireless inputs. It was plagued with errors shut downs and faults and so I did a complete inventory of the buildings wireless systems and also did wireless frequency detection mapping on several layers to see what was what. Multiple signal detection at 802.11b ( yes its up to 2.4ghz - 2.6 was a typo ) and 900 htz was detected outside of the buildings frame but with potential interference to the remotes together with 5.8 . The second weekend we where there suddenly the system started functioning correctly and the cross signals disappeared and I went to the high rise next door and a financial company was in the process of shutting down there entire business and turning of all the MISIT networks which were using Canopy and extensive wi - fi with boosters all over the place . In the same clients building on one floor all of the 5.8ghz cordless phones kept dropping signals and malfunctioning and after the Canopy wi fi experience we went looking for a similar issue and found that the floor used 802.11n 5.8ghz airport extreme all over the place, turned of the airport bases and the phones work fine turn them on and the phone system cordless sucks. We also found that multiple systems are set up with little MISIT support and multiple medical systems are set up by the companies who supply the equipment and the SCADA in turn is set up by a maintenance contract team and they do not talk or coordinate with each other period. An error arises and fingers are pointed After this we contacted several other hospitals who are having similar problems and asked if anyone had done a signal conflict analysis and test and whether this was part of any systems integration due diligence and of course its not and they had not. We also then went to several other clients in the area and drew the same conclusions as they had been having loads of interference. This is especially pertinent on signal transmitters and boosters. It would seem like everything else that 900 was used until it got crowded then up we went to 2.4 now thats getting crowded we go to 5.8 Go ask if anyone has done real world testing and analysis with best practices and the answer seems to be no hence our question Needless to say this is scaring the crap outa the insurance carriers ( : ( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ Bob Knight wrote: > Another note - polarization may be your friend in crowded spectrum. > > Bob > > > Bob Knight wrote: >> You need to look at the WISPA archives relative to Motorola Canopy. >> While it is the largest deployed base in that community, it also is >> considered to be the largest problem interference-wise, at least in >> the 2.4 (not 2.6) Ghz band. In our area, though, they're using 900 Mhz. >> >> In 2.4, there are 11 channels (in the US, at least). Ideally (and >> nowadays, this is far from ideal given the spectrum pollution), one >> wants things 5 channels apart, especially when hidden node problems >> are anticipated. The problem is that hidden node is going to be a >> problem pretty much no matter what measures you take. >> >> WiMax can be used in various bands from 2-66 Ghz. 2.5 and 3.5 are >> licensed spectrum and it can be used in 5.8. It seems to be suited to >> 700 Mhz as well. >> >> Our experience on 5.8 is very positive. We use it for our backhauls. >> One nice thing about this spectrum allocation is that the channels >> are non-overlapping. Our backhaul sink for the DS-3 has 5 different >> links coming in with no interference. >> >> Admittedly, we are rural. But I guarantee that if the Santa Fe >> spectrum in 5.8 (or Eldo for that matter) were crowded, we'd see it. >> And we don't. >> >> So where are you seeing problems? >> >> Bob >> >> peter wrote: >> >>> We are involved in several projects investigating wireless conflict >>> signals within corporations and hospitals and are finding some >>> strange results which could impact Wi-Fi and Wi - Max usage and >>> indeed the whole paradigm first mile wireless use. >>> >>> Basically this is what we are seeing >>> >>> Open wireless frequencies that have been typical used are 900 - 2.6 >>> and now 5.8ghtz. >>> >>> 802.11 of various types operates in both the 2.6 and 5.8 sectors ( >>> 5.8 is 802.11n and 802.16 wi max ) the 900 htz range is packed and >>> so is the 2.8 ghtz >>> >>> Inside of a hospital for instance multiple monitoring equipment >>> types and portable phone systems operate on the same frequencies and >>> so does a huge amount of SCADA operations. >>> >>> Although channel switching is supposed to prevent signal conflict >>> wi-fi signal boosters and all wimax whether static or mobile is >>> continually channel hunting and knocking everything else of of the >>> channel making many types of systems non usable >>> >>> It would seem that a major problem is manufacturers testing their >>> equipment in a silo arena and this would also be relevant to the >>> white space transmission requests before the FCC at present >>> >>> This looks like a huge problem and if anyone is experiencing the >>> same issues please contact us >>> >>> Apparently Motorola with their Canopy system and Intel ( wi-fi and >>> max ) did a large amount of research but when the conflict issues >>> arose chose to ignore the results or assumed that channel frequency >>> switch would fix the problem but its not >>> >>> ( : ( : pete >>> -- >>> >>> Peter Baston >>> >>> *IDEAS* >>> >>> /www.ideapete.com/ >>> >>> 3210 La Paz Lane >>> >>> Santa Fe, NM 87507 >>> >>> /Albuquerque// Office: 505-890-9649/ >>> >>> /Santa Fe// Office: 505-629-4227/ >>> >>> /Cell: 505-690-3627/ >>> >>> /Fax: 866-642-8918/ >>> >>> /_Mailto:pete at ideapete.com _/ >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> 1st-mile-nm mailing list >>> 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >>> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> 1st-mile-nm mailing list >> 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org >> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From josmon at rigozsaurus.com Fri Dec 19 21:16:04 2008 From: josmon at rigozsaurus.com (John Osmon) Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2008 22:16:04 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Qwest slashes "Connect Quantum" Internet price In-Reply-To: <494C4345.2060207@ideapete.com> References: <20081218135145.5yrnkq8e800w8s8s@www2.dcn.org> <494C4345.2060207@ideapete.com> Message-ID: <20081220051604.GK22501@rigozsaurus.com> On Fri, Dec 19, 2008 at 05:58:45PM -0700, peter wrote: > First 20 mps is really 2.5 megabyte and typically upstream is about 10 - > 15% of the downstream speed Huh? It's ADSL2+. Upstream will be maxed out at 896kbps, and downstream will be of several speeds, up to 20 Mbps. > From my sources in Denver the service is a joke and rarely gets the > 10mps or 1.25 megabyte range and service swings are huge ( they are > using Bandwidth monitor pro ) I'm not seeing that with the folks in ABQ that have the service. They get advertised speeds to downtown -- the only drawback is the 20 - 30 ms of latency inherent in ADSL using DMT signaling. >From servers in downtown ABQ, I've seen folks streaming 3 or 4 simultaneous media streams, while using SSH and VOIP. Not too shabby. > As Qwest no longer will agree to SLA agreement or data on its broadband > connection service the difference in business and residential rates is > criminal I don't recall any SLAs on DSL at any time. It's always been a "best effort" type of system. (Like packet delivery on the Inernet. :-) The only drawback I see with the new Qwest offerings is that they are using this time to block out their ISP partners. You get to use Qwest as the ISP, or forego the faster speeds. See my previous posts for my thoughts on having your layer 3 provider locked in because of your layer 1/2 choice. (Hint - I think it sucks...) From pete at ideapete.com Fri Dec 19 22:29:31 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2008 23:29:31 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Qwest slashes "Connect Quantum" Internet price In-Reply-To: <20081220051604.GK22501@rigozsaurus.com> References: <20081218135145.5yrnkq8e800w8s8s@www2.dcn.org> <494C4345.2060207@ideapete.com> <20081220051604.GK22501@rigozsaurus.com> Message-ID: <494C90CB.1090007@ideapete.com> Then again Qwest seems quite capable of screwing this up anyway http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Qwest-Denies-Using-FTTN-Glitch-To-Kill-CLECs-99752 Note how they are using this to cut out the independent ISPs as per Johns statement, yes it sucks, but whats new about that with Qwest Thanks John ADSL2 upstream is 112 Kbytes WOW What other industry in the world would get away with charging full price for there BEST ( Ho Ho ) effort and doubling the cost to another group of customers for partial service Then again if you want to trust all your money and information to an adsl router and you remember that crap that went on with Alcatel and Cisco several years back watch this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKv7YfB9Hvs ( : ( : pete Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ John Osmon wrote: > On Fri, Dec 19, 2008 at 05:58:45PM -0700, peter wrote: > >> First 20 mps is really 2.5 megabyte and typically upstream is about 10 - >> 15% of the downstream speed >> > > Huh? It's ADSL2+. Upstream will be maxed out at 896kbps, and > downstream will be of several speeds, up to 20 Mbps. > > >> From my sources in Denver the service is a joke and rarely gets the >> 10mps or 1.25 megabyte range and service swings are huge ( they are >> using Bandwidth monitor pro ) >> > > I'm not seeing that with the folks in ABQ that have the service. They > get advertised speeds to downtown -- the only drawback is the 20 - 30 ms > of latency inherent in ADSL using DMT signaling. > > >From servers in downtown ABQ, I've seen folks streaming 3 or 4 > simultaneous media streams, while using SSH and VOIP. Not too shabby. > > > >> As Qwest no longer will agree to SLA agreement or data on its broadband >> connection service the difference in business and residential rates is >> criminal >> > > I don't recall any SLAs on DSL at any time. It's always been a "best > effort" type of system. (Like packet delivery on the Inernet. :-) > > The only drawback I see with the new Qwest offerings is that they > are using this time to block out their ISP partners. You get to > use Qwest as the ISP, or forego the faster speeds. > > See my previous posts for my thoughts on having your layer 3 provider > locked in because of your layer 1/2 choice. (Hint - I think it > sucks...) > _______________________________________________ > 1st-mile-nm mailing list > 1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org > http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/1st-mile-nm > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pete at ideapete.com Mon Dec 29 16:04:28 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2008 17:04:28 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA) / WiMAX News Message-ID: <4959658C.2030603@ideapete.com> http://www.bwianews.com/ -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From carroll at cagleandassociates.com Tue Dec 30 07:32:35 2008 From: carroll at cagleandassociates.com (Carroll Cagle) Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2008 08:32:35 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Guess who's trying to shape broadband "stimulus" outcome? Message-ID: <96C883A230804082BE70FF8A1BB19391@yourfsyly0jtwn> One disquieting thing about the report below is what is NOT referenced ? which is ?open? (shared, muti-provider) fiber-to-the-premise networks (either public or public-private partnerships). This model is logical and proven ? elsewhere in the world, esp. Europe, but not in the United States. It would be a shame for the nation to fail to move toward new structural arrangements such as open networks at this rare, opportune, moment. It is unfortunate, although not surprising, that ?the usual suspects? ? those who have the budgets for swarms of lobbyists -- are busily crafting their limited notion of what constitutes a solution, and selling it to those who are not aware of viable options. Carroll Cagle Internet Providers Move to Shape Broadband Push Wall Street Journal December 30, 2008 By AMOL SHARMA President-elect Barack Obama's call to improve the nation's broadband infrastructure has cable and phone company lobbyists maneuvering to get a leg up. Lawmakers in Congress want a plan that will create jobs over the next two to three years while also tackling the longer-term goal of improving the availability and quality of high-speed Web access in the U.S. The U.S. has slipped to 15th from fourth place since 2001 in broadband penetration, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Advocates say broadband deployment is critical to the competitiveness of the U.S. economy. Among the issues are what speed Congress should define as broadband and whether government money should be funneled only to areas that have no broadband access, or if it should also subsidize upgrades to existing networks. Policies under serious consideration are corporate tax credits to build new wireless or landline infrastructure, government-backed broadband "bonds" and grants to companies or local governments, legislative aides and lobbyists close to the process say. There also is strong agreement that low-income consumers need to be encouraged to sign up for broadband -- for example, through vouchers to purchase computers or discounts on monthly service. Senate Finance Committee and Commerce Committee members are drawing up a few options, as are House members such as California Rep. Anna Eshoo and Massachusetts Rep. Ed Markey, chairman of the telecommunications subcommittee. The Obama transition team's point person has been former Federal Communications Commission chief of staff Blair Levin. "There aren't any quarrels about the need for more broadband," says Ms. Eshoo, who outlined a series of broadband stimulus options in a memo to the House leadership in October. "It's a matter of how we're going to do it and the actual language." The Obama transition team declined to comment. Large cable operators are seeking to increase the FCC's definition of broadband download speed to about five megabits per second, about 6? times as fast as the current definition, according to people familiar with the situation. Internet-service providers building out "unserved" regions, where service of that speed isn't available, would be given the full benefit of tax incentives or grants. The big cable providers also want to target "underserved" areas, where there is only one broadband provider or the service isn't widely available. In those markets, companies would get incentives to build out next-generation services. The download speed that would qualify as next-generation would likely be in the range of 40 to 50 megabits per second, people involved in the discussions say. The cable plan would disadvantage phone companies, especially smaller ones whose digital-subscriber-line services are slower than cable modems. The Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance, which represents midsize phone companies, is pushing for a slower broadband standard, in the range of 1.5 to three megabits per second. Curt Stamp, the group's president, says the federal largesse should be used to subsidize carrier investments in rural areas rather than to finance upgrades to their existing networks. Wireless services will likely be able to qualify as broadband at a slower download speed than landline services. But if the mark is set above two megabits per second it could be a boost for Clearwire Corp., a start-up operator that is rolling out a WiMax network capable of download speeds of two to four megabits per second. Other carriers weren't planning major wireless upgrades until at least 2010. Equipment makers such as Cisco Systems Inc. and Motorola Inc. stand to benefit if carriers undertake massive upgrades. Carl Russo, CEO of Calix , which supplies equipment to phone and cable providers, says Congress should define broadband as 10 megabits per second so the networks it builds now will be able to support bandwidth-hogging applications of the future, such as high-definition video. "Remember, you only get to do this once, so you want to build the widest highway possible," Mr. Russo says. The Telecommunications Industry Association, which represents equipment makers, is pushing for a $25 billion grant program for Internet service providers. Under another proposal that is being discussed, grants could go to state and municipal authorities, which would build high-speed networks and then open them up to competing service providers. That would likely meet with considerable resistance from large carriers like Verizon Communications Inc., which have challenged attempts by local governments to build and operate their own wireless or high-speed fiber networks. Steve Davis, senior vice president of policy for Qwest Communications International Inc., says the big phone company wouldn't object to public broadband projects in areas that currently have no high-speed Internet service, provided private operators have a right of first refusal in building the networks. "The first place the government should look is to the industry," Mr. Davis says. Meanwhile, outside groups are offering various proposals to Congress. Consumer advocacy group Free Press released a 31-page broadband-stimulus proposal that calls for a $44 billion investment in Internet services over three years, much of which would be funneled through the FCC's existing Universal Service Fund, which subsidizes telephone services in rural areas and for low-income people. Public-interest groups are clamoring for conditions to be imposed on carriers that receive tax credits, such as pledges not to degrade any Internet traffic, a principle referred to as "net neutrality." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.gif Type: image/gif Size: 862 bytes Desc: not available URL: From pete at ideapete.com Tue Dec 30 09:56:18 2008 From: pete at ideapete.com (peter) Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2008 10:56:18 -0700 Subject: [1st-mile-nm] FOXNews.com - Text Rip-Off? Pricey Messages 'Cost Virtually Nothing' to Carriers - Science News | Science & Technology | Technology News Message-ID: <495A60C2.8080001@ideapete.com> http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,473924,00.html Why are we not suprised -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: