[1st-mile-nm] Mea Culpa and Comment

[Arthur Maccabe]

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