Exploring the impact of broadband and technology on our lives, our businesses, and our communities.
Sun rents out supercomputer
Back on October 31, 2003, I wrote about supercomputers as the economic development infrastructure. I suggested that regions that wanted to have a real marketing edge invest in a modest supercomputer cluster and rent it out to businesses that wanted occasional access to such equipment but could not justify the cost of owning it.
Today, Sun Computers had a full page ad in the Wall Street Journal advertising their supercomputer cluster for hire, at a rate of $1/hour/CPU. That's a good bit higher than what some universities like Virginia Tech are charging for business access to their supercomputer facilities, but it shows that there is a market out there.
How about your region? Are you still building steel-sided shell buildings that are sitting empty, or are you ready to enter the Knowledge Economy with some investments that businesses really want?
Technology News:
Indiana turning its back on communities
Add Indiana to a growing list of states that have legislatures turning their backs on communities. Legislations is being considered there that would prohibit communities from providing telecom services.
Even though I think that communities ought to stay out of the service business and limit their investments to telecom infrastructure, I think that decision ought to be left to the community, and not be pre-empted by the state legislature.
This is a serious issue that is being co-opted by the incumbents, who are lobbying legislators vigorously. It's not that the legislators are necessarily bad people, it's just that they are only getting one side of the story, and are being unduly influenced.
The answer is education. Local communities and regions need to spend more time with their legislators explaining the issues, and in particular, explaining that there is more than one way for communities to invest. Taking the infrastructure only route is pro-competition, not anti-competition. Unfortunately, few lawmakers understand that. Only by preparing talking points and having local leaders take them out to lunch, or meeting them in their offices at the state capitol, is that situation likely to change.
Technology News:
Community news and projects:
Just one phone company in the U.S.?
If your heartburn is not acting up now, it probably will be after you read this analysis by Om Malik. Malik, like me, see the phone companies as running scared, and part of the emerging phone landscape will be the re-monopolization of the existing "old" telephone network.
SBC, one of the Baby Bells, is reportedly trying to buy AT&T. Verizon may get into the game to keep SBC from becoming a competitor. If SBC succeeds, thinks Malik, Verizon is likely to try to buy MCI. And part of Sprint could end up in Qwest's hands.
Twenty some years after the 1984 breakup of the phone company into AT&T and seven regionals, we could back down to two giants withering on the vine before we know it.
All the more reason to get busy and build some community infrastructure not under the control of the incumbent phone company.
Technology News:
The killer app
Cnet has a story about how businesses are grabbing onto Skype, the free telephone service that works over the Internet.
We're just at the beginning of the biggest change in telecommunications since voice telephone service became available 100 years ago.
One of the ways Skype is being used is by business travelers. Roaming charges, lack of cell coverage, and different standards for phones often makes it difficult to call back to the main office easily or without great expense.
If the home office staff and the business traveler have Skype accounts, all the busines traveler has to do is find a broadband connection (sometimes easier now than cellphone coverage) and make a call. Anywhere in the world.
The telephone companies are terrified of this. They don't really want broadband to get out to their customer base too quickly, because it will just accelerate the loss of their analog voice service cash cow.
What's next? In the next year or two, expect an incumbent telephone or cable provider to block certain kinds of services from traveling over their network. That's right, they can block Skype, Vonage, or any other kind of voice call if they think it is competing with their own services.
Just one more reason for community ownership of part of the network.
Technology News:
Firefox browser is fast and easy to use
A Business Week story highlights the growing popularity of the Firefox browser. Business Week says the browser is easy to install and easy to use. Among Firefox's most popular features is tabbed browsing. If you have not used a tabbed browser, you are really missing out. Instead of having multiple browser windows open, you have a single browser window with a row of tabs along the top. Each tab represents an open Web page. It's one of those things you never knew you wanted, but once you get it, you don't how you lived without it.
You can download the Firefox browser for free.
Technology News:
Open access fiber project signs up everybody in town
Take rate is an industry term for the number of customers that agree to buy a service. Take rates are notoriously hard to predict, and historically, take rates for services like telephone and cable service have been very low (e.g. 10%, 15%), meaning it takes years to get most households connected to a new service.
The town of Nuenen, Holland recently installed a blown fiber to the home, open access network, and had a remarkable 96% take rate. This means that essentially, every household that is likely to be a customer became one as soon as the service became available.
This is the global competition.
While U.S. incumbents are gingerly sticking their toes in the waters of *real* high performance broadband by grandly promoting one or two trial projects, overseas, communities are just going ahead and doing what needs to be done. Nuenen's open access network means customers have a choice of providers for their services. Nuenen is proof that not only can it be done, but that there will be customers waiting when the duct goes by the house.
Emtelle, which provided the microduct for the project, has a short video and a four page description of the project. There is some sales stuff in both, but I believe microduct is an excellent approach to implementing community broadband networks.
Technology News:
Community news and projects:
Viruses attack our cars
If we did not have enough to worry about, we now have cars infected with computer viruses. Cnet has the story about a security firm that reports it has been asked to debug several Lexus cars that had apparently been infected via a Bluetooth phone, which transmitted the virus wirelessly to the car navigation system.
Maybe my next car should be a nice, vintage, '66 Mustang 2+2--good, reliable transportation, classic look, and no onboard electronics.
Technology News:
Southside Virginia builds high capacity regional network
Here is an excerpt from a brochure about a project in Southside Virginia, a rural area that has traditionally relied on tobacco as a primary engine of its economy. Furniture and textile manufacturing were also mainstays for jobs and development, but over the past twenty years, all three have declined sharply.
The low cost of living, combined with the proximity to Greensboro and the North Carolina Research Triangle, may make Southside one of the best places to work in America, once this infrastructure is in place.
Also included as a service will be MSAPs in some locations, which create very high performance community intranets that support next generation multimedia services. The MSAP concept was pioneered by me while I was Director of the Blacksburg Electronic Village. Blacksburg has had an MSAP in operation since 1999, and Danville, Virginia also has an MSAP.
Note the emphasis on leasing capacity to "all interested providers," which includes incumbents, who, if they are smart, will realize they can lower their costs by leasing instead of overbuilding.
The Mid-Atlantic Broadband Cooperative (MBC), a non-profit cooperative with funding from the Economic Development Authority (EDA) and the Virginia Tobacco Commission (VTC), has contracted to deploy an advanced open-access wholesale broadband network in Southside Virginia. The RBI is a 700-mile fiber-optic network with 48 strands of dedicated fiber backbone, Synchronous Optical Network (SONET) architecture, dual rings with 13 OC-192 backbone sites and 65 satellite locations providing low speed & high speed interconnect facilities (OC-3, OC-12, OC-48, STS, VT). In addition to the turn-key implementation of the RBI, MBC has invested in building a new state of the art Network Operations Control Center (NOCC) in South Boston, Virginia.
The RBI network will connect four cities, 20 counties and 56 industrial parks providing access to nearly 700,000 citizens and more than 19,000 businesses throughout Southside Virginia. The goal of this project is to promote economic development opportunities for the region, attracting technologybased business and industry. Network construction begins in January 2005 and will be turned-up in phases. MBC plans to have the entire network fully operational by December 2006. MBC will be selling/leasing fiber and services on a wholesale basis to all interested providers.
PRODUCT AND SERVICE OFFERINGS:
- Dark fiber
- Managed/funded network connections to the MBC backbone
- DS1, DS3, OC-x point to point circuits
- Managed Ethernet services
- Storage area networking extension
- Collocation services
- NOCC services
- Storage area for network data center backup at NOCC facility
Technology News:
Community news and projects:
Northern Illinois grabs hold of the future
Northern Illinois, which is surprisingly rural in nature despite being a relatively easy drive to Chicago, has grabbed hold of the future. Below is a press release announcing an ambitious regional project to get affordable, high capacity broadband throughout that area. In announcing the effort, an official connected with the effort said, "The communication infrastructure we're talking about will be as important as electricity, water."
Northern Illinois Technology Triangle Unlocks New Opportunities for Northern Illinois Communities
Rochelle Municipal Utilities announces plans for a multi-gigabit capacity fiber optic ring to serve local rural communities
Rochelle, IL - Today, Rochelle Mayor Chet Olson unveiled plans for a superior fiber-optic telecommunications network labeled the Northern Illinois Technology Triangle (NITT). The network will provide multi-gigabit capacity to the Northern Illinois region, connecting communities across Northern Illinois and opening new opportunities for growth in education, research and business.
The NITT is a joint venture between Rochelle Municipal Utilities (RMU) and the Illinois Municipal Broadband Communications Association (IMBCA). It will provide a looped broadband fiber network in a triangle along I-88 from Rock Falls to Naperville, with a section north to St. Charles, and from St. Charles along I-90 to Rockford, and then along I-39 from Rockford to Rochelle. The physical infrastructure will be implemented in three parts. IMBCA has already leased existing fiber along I-88 from Naperville west to Rock Falls and is now negotiating leases for existing fiber on I-90. Rochelle Municipal Utilities plans on installing the remaining leg of the triangle, from Rochelle to Rockford, where no fiber exits. The NITT is the first municipal utility fiber optic network consortium in Illinois.
Chet Olson, Rochelle's Mayor, said, "We're pleased to play a part in bringing about the Northern Illinois Technology Triangle. NITT is the beginning of a new era, not only for Rochelle, but for all communities in this region that choose to access this network. For my community, it means an opportunity to expand our economic base from manufacturing and rail service to technology services and support." The network ring is based upon fiber optic cable and will offer 33 (or more) wavelengths, each with the capacity to carry data at a rate up to 40 Gigabits per second. With just one Gigabit connection, a family can download their favorite DVD movie in less than one (1) minute, something which would normally take 13 days to download using a telephone dial-up connection.
The network is also designed to provide reliability, which is necessary for businesses transporting critical data and for national and state Homeland Security communications. Its high-speed ring technology provides protection against equipment failures and fiber cuts by providing an alternate path for automatic re-route.
Planning for the network began in the mid-1990s when the City of Rochelle and several other northern Illinois communities formed the IMBCA to share broadband service information and resources. It was during these meetings that members realized the urgency and need for a high-speed, large capacity network that will allow sharing of municipal resources, enhance economic opportunities, increase educational and research collaboration, provide security services and, more generally, create opportunities within the rural areas of the region.
According to RMU's Engineer, Bob Rogde, Rochelle contracted Black & Veatch, a leading global engineering, consulting and construction company specializing in infrastructure development, to develop a strategic regional action plan specifically the I-39 connection that closes the loop.
"In addition to closing the loop, we are also committed to constructing a "World Class Technology Center "that will be located in a business park," said the Mayor. The Center will pave the way for a raft of possibilities not only for the City of Rochelle, but also for the surrounding communities. The Center will maintain a constant flow of information and services and will be a vital support system for the long-term health and efficiency of new start-up businesses and businesses looking to relocate or expand existing operations. The hub will provide direct access to the Internet and World Wide Web and serve as a disaster recovery center for the entire area. It will also serve as the anchor business for the private development of a proposed business park.
"The state of Illinois' future requires progressive bold initiatives to advance our communities. This project demonstrates that boldness," says Mayor Olson. "It also demonstrates the value of working together for the benefit of an entire region." IMBCA members and the City of Rochelle foresee the NITT generating huge economic benefits for the northern Illinois economy, but also believe that its greatest value may be serving as a model of how regional high speed fiber optic networks can be created and the power it has to sustain and transform rural areas.
One of the most disturbing trends of the 20th century was the concentration of population in metropolitan areas and the corresponding de-population of rural areas. Supporters believe the NITT has the power to reverse that trend. RMU, established in 1877, is an enterprise of the City of Rochelle. The utility provides electricity, water, water reclamation and advanced communications services to the City of Rochelle, Illinois. RMU currently has about 22 miles of fiber in service providing fiber optic broadband services to 37 businesses. An additional 111 customers receive broadband service on a wireless system that provides service in Rochelle as well as the surrounding area including Oregon, Lindenwood, Creston and Hillcrest.
IMBCA is a non-for-profit association with a focus on providing education, skill sharing, and resource support to Illinois municipalities interested in broadband services. Its members include the cities of Rochelle, Batavia, Geneseo, Geneva, Naperville, Peru, Princeton, Rock Falls, Rockford, St. Charles, and Kane County and Northern Illinois University.
Technology News:
Community news and projects:
"Virtual" sales a big business
In my talks to community leaders, I talk about the ability to sell goods and services that are, literally, weightless, via the Internet. I get a lot of blank stares, as some folks still have trouble understanding the revolution in business.
The latest news comes from Apple, which reports it sells more than one million songs PER DAY from its online music store, or nearly half a billion songs per year.
Remember that in the distant past, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, music was pretty heavy. It came in the form of 12" LP records, then tape cassettes, and then CDs. The very same product that used to weigh nearly a pound, in the form of those old records, is now delivered to us as a stream of electrons, radio waves, and/or photons. Same music--better, actually, since the digital recordings don't wear out or suffer tape breakages.
It's a new world, and in every state and in many communities, some businesspeople and entrepreneurs have already made the switch. But what about the rest of your businesses? How are your economic development programs preparing them to boost their business by going online?
Technology News:
Pages
