Exploring the impact of broadband and technology on our lives, our businesses, and our communities.
The changing shape of the news
Andrew Sullivan, in Time magazine, illustrates perfectly the changing landscape of writing, journalism, and more generally, the power of the Web that we now all have in our hands. Here is the most instructive quote from the article.
"Ten years ago I edited a money-losing magazine, The New Republic, which had 100,000 subscribers. Two weeks ago on my four-year-old blog, AndrewSullivan.com, I had 100,000 readers in one day alone. After four years of blogging, I haven't lost a cent and have eked out a small salary. And I don't even have an editor! Technology did this. And it's a big deal most people have yet to understand."
Not all of us are going to be bloggers. The really successful ones have a passion for something and are also great writers. But we are all users of content, and these new information channels, applied on a community level, will get good and useful information to us about our communities quickly and easily.
We also need to make sure that our children continue to learn the difference between truth and falsehoods, the difference between sarcasm and thoughtful commentary, and the difference between typing and writing (hat tip to Truman Capote). These are exciting times, and we still have much to do, but the technology, used appropriately, can make our communities truly great places.
Technology News:
Philly plans world's largest mesh WiFi network
Back in the early winter of this year, I wrote about the potential of a new generation of WiFi mesh network software and hardware to make it much easier to design and provision community wireless networks.
Philadelphia, which has been in the news recently for their announcement that they were looking at WiFi, has now released more details about their plans, which will include using mesh WiFi equipment to create a wireless blanket over most of the city (135 square miles). Only between 8 and 16 antennas will be needed per square mile.
Mesh networks are less expensive and are designed to be easy to deploy. Mesh networks also are fault tolerant. In a properly designed mesh, you can lost some antennas and equipment and most users will still be able to stay connected to the network.
Technology News:
Community news and projects:
Record companies making a fortune
According to this article in the UK Independent, the record companies are making a killing from online music sales. The paper says that of the average ninety-nine cent cost of a downloaded song, the record companies are taking sixty-two cents, or apparently almost double what they made on a CD. Not only that, their distribution costs have fallen to virtually zero.
Meanwhile, the same record companies have been prosecuting grandmothers and 14 year olds, claiming online music was killing the business.
The online stores are making a paltry four cents, which will cause most of them to go out of business, says the paper. And the artists? Well, apparently the artists, who actually create the product, aren't making a penny more. That's why many artists, like this one, don't even bother to sigh with a record company. They cut their own CDs, make a lot of live appearances, and sell their CDs online and at their concerts. It's a living, apparently. Jah Works has been around since at least '96.
For music lovers, as more bands forgo the record scene, it's likely more music with more variety will be available over the long term.
Technology News:
800 communities are building their own networks
According to an article in USA Today, more than 800 communities in the United States are building their own networks. There is some fascinating stuff in this article, which highlights a high speed fiber network and MSAP (Multimedia Services Access Point) in Danville, Virginia.
A high speed fiber network and MSAP for the Danville area was first proposed by me in a 1999 document study I did for Virginia's Center for Innovative Technologies, which was encouraging Danville to "think big" as they designed and built a business incubator.
Here are some of the other highlights from the USA Today article.
"We used to have to beg businesses to locate here. Now our phones are ringing off the hook," Hamlin (Mayor of Danville) says, beaming.
"This was never a case of 'Build it and they will come,' " says Hamlin, the Danville mayor. "This was a case of, 'If you don't build it, you know they won't come.' "
...nDanville paves the way for a raft of possibilities: advanced college placement courses, home-based instruction, teacher-parent meetings via the Internet and videoconferencing galore.
"If you want to recruit high-tech, you have to be high-tech," says Locker, adding: "Nobody moves to Danville without first looking at the schools."
In the Knowledge Economy, as they have found out in Danville, it's more than just infrastructure that makes a difference. Good schools, quality of life, and support for entrepreneurs all contribute to success in economic development.
Technology News:
Is your community open for business?
I visit a lot of rural communities. Most of them are trying to chart a path for themselves in the Knowledge Economy. But there is still a lot of stovepipe thinking going on. Economic developers are rarely talking to town planners. Town planners are rarely talking to business people. Hardly anyone is talking to work at home businesspeople.
No one cares about broadband. Let me repeat that. Businesspeople that are engaged in the new economy don't care about broadband. What they care about is being able to meet their customers needs and expectations. Broadband is needed to do that, but broadband is not really an issue for them--what they are able to do with it is an issue.
What I'm trying to say is that broadband is simply one part of a bigger picture for communities, and the bigger picture, for the entrepreneurial, microenterprise businessperson (remember that small businesses are creating 75% of new jobs), is that they need a bunch of amenities and services in a community to be able to meet their customer needs and expectations. It's never just one thing (like broadband).
What are some of those things? Here's my list:
- Affordable,world class business office space -- Some of you are already thinking, "We've got our incubator." I am thinking about incubators, but too many that I visit are heavy on the industrial look and feel, and short on the kinds of finishing details that are not always expensive but that project, "We're doing business here." Many communities, instead of putting slab-steel siding buildings far out of town in a former industrial park, would be much better off rehabbing empty buildings on Main Street, like they did in Norton, Virginia, where they rehabbed a 1920s era hotel, got tax credits to do so, won awards for excellence, and are filling the space faster than they can finish the next floor.
- Once you get some businesses downtown, you need a great coffee shop, like the one in Franklin, Pennsylvania started by someone who just moved back to their hometown after ten years in California. Coffee shops with great coffee, an upscale ambiance, and a private meeting room are a key requirement of work at home businesspeople, who need a place to meet clients, have a light lunch, or just "get out of the office" to do some work.
- You need a clean, well-lit place to get a quick, hot breakfast. Businesspeople travel, and not everyone wants to eat donuts and biscuits at the free breakfast buffet at the motel by the interstate. And a lot of business gets done at breakfast, and the buffet room in the motel is not conducive to that.
- Business lunches and dinners are also important. Clients do come to the community to visit work at home businesspeople, and that means the community needs an upscale restaurant for more formal business lunches and dinners. Just one good restaurant in a community makes all the difference to businesspeople.
- Business visitors to a community want more news that one can get out of the local paper. The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and at least one "big city" paper should be available in easy to find locations, like the coffee shop or the breakfast eatery.
- Copying and printing services are the lifeblood of "just in time" Knowledge Economy businesses. The value of being able to walk into a Kinko's and get things printed right from a CD or a laptop is invaluable. Does your community have a local copying/printing store that offers these services and is easy to find?
- Public WiFi access is critical. Visiting businesspeople want to be able to check their email, catch up on news from the Web, and take care of business via the Internet. Can a visitor easily find a hotspot in your community? Is there a place to sit down and work?
- A good place to stay is also important. A B&B is fine if the town is too small to support a hotel, but the B&B owners need to know about the needs of businesspeople. Rooms should have a phone (for privacy and dial out Internet access), and a desk is essential--too many B&B rooms have no place to sit and work.
- A great community Web site portal with up to date local news and information (e.g. where to eat, where to find a hotspot, where to find copy services, where to buy a newspaper) is a vital economic development marketing tool. It telegraphs to businesspeople that the community is progressive and understands the Knowledge Economy.
- Finally, affordable broadband, as always, is critical.
Today, hundreds of entrepreneurs and small businesspeople are thinking of moving back to a smaller community with good quality of life. How many things on this list does your community have? Have you re-oriented your economic development strategies to ensure your community has the kinds of amenities that businesspeople want and expect?
Technology News:
I found your life...
In the "old days," (I find myself saying that a lot recently, and I'm usually talking about six or seven years ago), if you lost a roll of film, it might, at best, have 36 pictures on it, and no one would bother to spend the money to have them developed.
Losing your "roll of film" these days means misplacing a memory card the size of a postage stamp, with quite possibly hundreds of pictures on it. There is at least one person who has done this, and is now the subject of an entirely fictional online life, called I Found Some of Your Life.
The writing is pretty good, actually. And the fact that something like this is even possible demonstrates how much the world really has changed. Anyone can be a writer and publisher--anyone. Like the bloggers that broke the story on the CBS memos, it's a dramatic redistribution of power away from the "old" media conglomerates and toward a much more equitable and egalitarian model. Of course, it's also now easier to publish complete falsehoods, but as CBS found out, to its chagrin, if the falsehood is important in some way, someone, somewhere, will let the world know.
Technology News:
Wired says Idaho is hot
A few years back, Idaho set its eyes firmly on the future, and the effort is beginning to have a major impact in the rural state. Idaho is not only not on the way to anywhere, it does not come to mind quickly as a hotbed of technology companies and entrepreneurs.
But it is. Wired's story is worth a read to see what can happen when a region sets a vision for the future and sticks to it long enough to see results. Idaho did not go after the quick fix. The state took its time, invested patiently, and kept it's eye on the ball.
Technology News:
Towns unite for broadband
Three communities around the country (Palo Alto, CA; Lafayette, LA; and the TriCities area of Illinois) have formed a "Sisters in Arms" network. Each community is interested in getting affordable, widely available broadband to their citizens and businesses, and the loosely formed coalition is trading information on the process, how to move forward, and how to deal with pushback from the incumbents.
There are two national organizations that I recommend to any community or region interested in this area: The Association For Community Networks (AFCN) and the Rural Telecommunications Congress (RTC). Both nonprofits have a sharp focus on getting better services to communities, and the members have a wealth of experience that they willingly share with other members.
Technology News:
Broadband saves $6000/month
MuniWireless has a story about Scottsburg, Kentucky and the importance of broadband to the future of the community.
Scottsburg is a rural community of 6000 north of Louisville. The problem they were facing there is common to rural communities: a T1 line in metro Louisville cost $300/month, and in rural Scottsburg it was $1300/month--that's the difference between a thriving business sector and and an economic disaster.
A modest investment in wireless allows Scottsburg residents and businesses to get broadband for $35/month, and a full T1 (via wireless) costs only $200/month--cheaper than Louisville.
The school system estimates that it saves $6000/month in telecom costs (that's taxpayer dollars!), and several businesses have been able to stay open, including the local Chrysler dealership, where 60 mechanics who use laptops to repair cars were told by Chrysler to get better broadband or close down.
When the local garage needs broadband to stay open, the whole "value of broadband" issue is closed to debate. If your community still has elected officials and economic developers who are not taking this seriously, show them this article. Ask them if saving $6000/month in taxpayer funds is important, and if not, ask them to please explain why.
Broadband saves jobs and money. It's just that simple.
Technology News:
FCC says broadband use is up
There is a good news/bad news quality to a set of FCC press releases that went out late last week. The good news is that broadband availability in the U.S. is up significantly. The FCC says the number of broadband lines has tripled from 2001 to 2003. Cable modems have about 75% of the marketplace, with DSL far behind with 15%. All other technologies (e.g. fiber, wireless, satellite) composed 10% of the marketplace.
Some of the bad news is that the FCC defines broadband as anything faster than 200 kilobits, a remarkably low bar compared to the rest of the world, which is typically measuring broadband in megabits. The FCC keeps the bar that low so that they can claim we all have lots of broadband.
More bad news is also masked...the FCC says only about 7% of U.S. zip codes have no high speed access. What they don't say is where those zip codes are, but it's a safe bet they represent a lot of rural households. Another telling statistic is that zip codes with four or more providers is up to 46%. Again, that does not represent rural areas.
To be fair, FCC chairman Michael Powell stated in a separate press release that "200 Kbs or even a 1 megabit connection is wholly inadequate for the demands of a growing number of consumers." Powell goes on to say that "information at the speed of light" (i.e. fiber connectivity) is what we really need. He mentions the goal of "universal and affordable access to all by the year 2007," but the Federal government does not really have a plan to get there, except to wait for the private sector to take care of it.
The numbers, to those that aren't out in rural communities (huge areas of the country, actually) look very good. But the reality is that communities that want univeral and affordable broadband will have to make some investments to get it. It's at least as important as roads, water and sewer, and communities routinely spend lots of money on those things.
Technology News:
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