Reporting from the Intelligent Community Forum in NYC…

According to the Intelligent Community Forum, an intelligent community invests in broadband, knowledge workers, innovation, digital inclusion and marketing. Seven communities from around the world will be honored for their efforts and success.

I attended a pre-conference session yesterday. One of the highlights was learning about the regional initiative in NE Ohio. This is a 21 county effort on economic development, education and health care. Some 1500 organizations are connected via fiber. Schools have 2 Gb connections. Over 20 hospitals are working together and sharing costs on an electronic medical record.

It is a competitive world….how are doing in this race in Minnesota?

Broadband 2.0 Manifesto

Thanks to Jim Baller (in his email newsletter) for pointing out the Broadband 2.0 Manifesto. In it from Heavy Reading, a research institute, outlines their manifesto for the next generation of broadband:

1. Abundant bandwidth (100 Mbit/s early on 1 Gbit/s later)
2. A two-way highway
3. Always available (aka always on)
4. Wireless and wireline
5. Open access
6. The channel for video
7. A new communications medium (greater convergence in service)
8. Safe and secure
9. Plug and play
10. Policy-enabled

I wanted to do a quick comparison to this list and the Blandin Foundation principles outlined in the Live at the Speed of Light reports published last year.

1. Ubiquity
2. Symmetry
3. Affordable
4. Competition
5. World Class
6. Collaboration
7. Neutrality
8. Interoperability

It’s not necessarily an apples to apples list. I think World Class could mean Abundant Bandwidth. Open Access could translate into competition. I like Heavy Reading’s addition of Safe and Secure. I like that Blandin has included is affordability.

Service that isn’t affordable really isn’t accessible. Heavy Reading is having a couple of conferences on the Future of the Internet – one was held in NY this week but I don’t see any mention of cost on the agenda.

Broadband on the Aran Islands

While you all were working yesterday, I was on a boat to Inishmor the largest of the Aran Islands. It is off the west coast of Ireland. The population is 760 people (300 homes). The island is 9 miles by 2 miles and home to the largest Celtic fort built on a cliff. It’s an hour boat ride from Doolin on the mainland (maybe 30 minutes from Galway). Tourism has to be the largest industry – although AT&T used to have a factory there for developing wires or something like it. The sweaters are also famous.

It’s a very rural area – roosters on the front stoop, loads of cattle, and the tour guide showed us the donkey that was born last week kind of rural.

Inishmor got electricity in 1975. They generated their own electricity until 2000 (or 2003, I wasn’t taking great notes). Now they have an underwater connection to the mainland. They have broadband – well I saw at least one sign for Internet access and at least one hotel that offered free WiFi. (I didn’t actually bring my laptop – but I kept my eyes open.)

I just thought that was so telling – that a land that was so remote that they waited until 1975 to get electricity hopped on the broadband bandwagon relatively quickly.

In fairness the connection installed for electricity in 2000 made it easier to get broadband out there – but still kind of worth noting, I thought.

Third Annual Minnebar

Thanks to Becky LaPlant for the heads up on the MinnPost’s article from Graeme Thickens on Minnebar. Minnesbar is an annual “unconference” for the info tech crowd. It was held at Coffman Union at the University of Minnesota. And it sounds like it was great. (I strongly recommend Thickens’ article.)

I will relay two of his points here: networking is important and we ought to take more risks. Techies ought to take more risks to create solutions; entrepreneurs ought to take more risks supporting ideas/solutions.

Wired in the West (of Ireland)

Most of the time, I have access to broadband; so most of the time, my interest is more academic than practical. This week my parents are visiting Ireland and we are in Lehinch, a golfing/surfing town on West Coast of Clare, near the Cliffs of Moher.

We are renting a house with WiFi – but I didn’t get the network key for the first 24 hours. I got dizzy and kind of shaky – but I survived. I did contact the keep of the net key twice and visited the library in that first day.

At the library I learned that public access to broadband is tough to come by here. There was no WiFi access in the library but I could use their computers to check email. (No help when/if I needed to update a web site.) The librarian thought that there might be a coffee shop in Lisdoonvarna with WiFi. That’s about 30 minutes away.

I was kind of surprised. There are plenty of signs for residential broadband here –so it is available, but not for visitors. I don’t know the numbers but I have to think that tourism is a huge chunk of the economy here – and I have to think that both golfers and surfers are a pretty wired group.

If I knew that Lisdoonvarna was the “most wired city” in the area – I would have focused my attention on accommodations there. It got me thinking of the Get Broadband communities back home and the number of resorts I work with in the area and how much broadband is a selling point for a visitor like me. And I like to think I’m a desirable visitor. My kids are too young to be too much trouble; I have too many kids for me to be too much trouble; and cost isn’t my first question – access to broadband is.

Lac qui Parle County Talks Broadband

Over 30 community leaders from economic development, local government, education, business and health care met yesterday in Dawson, MN to begin a discussion on broadband deployment and use. Lac qui Parle County is in western Minnesota on the South Dakota border. The county’s communities range in size from just under 2,000 people down to towns with fewer than 100 residents. In the countryside, the farms can be large and the residents widely scattered. I was pleased to see several county commissioners and elected officials at the meeting. The group really understood the need to work on this topic at the county and regional level, rather than focus at the city level.

Existing Internet providers were well represented, including Farmers Mutual Telephone Cooperative, Frontier Communications, Farmers Cooperative Association and MVTV. Representing Blandin Foundation through Community Broadband Resources, I provided some background information on broadband technologies and the issues that rural communities are facing.

We talked extensively about the mix of existing service providers within the county and learned about some planned improvements. For example, Farmers Mutual Telephone Cooperative will have FTTP to every subscriber in its service area by the end of 2009. Frontier Communications is upgrading their backbone pipe into the region which will enable more capacity to the end-customers. They are also beginning to extend DSL services into the more rural parts of their exchange. The wireless providers talked about their ability to reach into the countryside.

People understood that this will require an incremental approach. Two first step needs emerged from the discussion – better understanding of what is available where and the need to education consumers, especially businesses, about the power of broadband and broadband applications. I look forward to meeting again with this motivated community.

Placebloggers conference June 3-4 in Minneapolis

I’m so very sad that I won’t be home for this upcoming conference. But I wanted to make sure that word spread so I’m sharing the whole press release.

Meeting to Explore Journalism, Democracy, Place and Blogs

MINNEAPOLIS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Entrepreneurs, editors and operators of local online news and community websites — placebloggers — will gather June 4-5 in one of the first convenings of its kind, to share the trials and tribulations of a news source growing without paper or printing press.

“New Pamphleteers/New Reporters: Convening Entrepreneurs Who Combine Journalism, Democracy, Place and Blogs,” will take place at the McNamara Alumni Center at the University of Minnesota, immediately before the fourth National Conference on Media Reform, also in Minneapolis on June 6-8.

Drawing a map for broadband

Our fun news of the day is Blandin Foundation President, Jim Hoolihan’s Op-Ed piece in the Pioneer Press.

Jim praises the leadership in the state for their recent decision to create a Broadband Task Force. He offers some advice for the yet-to-be-name task force members:

We commend these principles as a starting point for the state’s broadband task force:

Affordability: Find innovative ways to make broadband affordable in order for all to experience Internet advantages;

Collaboration: Establish public-private collaborations;

Competitiveness: Increased customer choice and innovation are positive outcomes; encourage competition among service providers;

Interoperability: Regardless of the technology used for ultra-high-speed delivery, all systems must seamlessly interoperate with all other technologies;

Neutrality: Ultra-high-speed broadband policy should be promoted regardless of the technology platform that delivers it;

Research: Reward ongoing broadband innovation and continued research;

Symmetry: Provide symmetric speeds (same speeds upstream and downstream) to improve people’s ability to share information;

Ubiquity: Support the concept that eventually ultra-high-speed broadband should be available to every person, business and institution in our state

World class: Settle for nothing less than a world-class ultra-high-speed broadband system.

Net Neutrality Update in US House

Earlier this week a US House subcommittee met to talk further on Net Neutrality. I have to admit, I just couldn’t watch the whole thing this time around but secondary research tells me that it’s pretty much the same as previous meetings. I did listen to the introductory remarks - which we interesting in that they specifically addressed the bill. Well, it specifically poked holes in or uplifted the bill. But the content was similar to previous meetings.

The ISPs don’t want regulation. They feel regulation will squelch the entrepreneurial spirit that has allowed the Internet to take off as it has. The content providers want regulation or they feel that the ISPs will become the information gatekeepers.

Support for the bill runs down party lines. The 2006 version of the bill was not passed due to Republican Majority. But the landscape has changed in two years and this bill is softened from the original. So, it seems more likely to pass this time.

The big issue is the P2P activity online – but no one really knows how big that activity is or how much of that activity is legal. My guess is that no matter how big it is today, it’s going to be bigger in the future. It just seems that anything that helps consumers become producers is a winner.

Minnesota Broadband Task Force: Looking for a Few Good People

I also mentioned this in the eNews edition yesterday – but it seemed important enough to mention here too…

About two weeks ago, the Broadband Study Bill was signed, calling for the creation of a Broadband Task Force. So I am very heartened to see how quickly the Broadband Task Force is getting off the ground.

The Secretary of State’s office just posted a notice of vacancies on their web site. The application deadline is Tuesday, May 27, and the Governor may appoint the members of the Task Force as early as June 6. Not too shabby.

I would encourage folks on the frontline - especially in rural areas to apply for the post. Having real voices from practitioners on the board will greatly increase the value of the final report.

Towards that end, I know that the Blandin Foundation will be working with our Strategy Broad members to help them apply.