Exploring the impact of broadband and technology on our lives, our businesses, and our communities.
The Wired Road opens for business
Andrew Cohill, President of Design Nine, announced today that The Wired Road has begun full operations. An official ribbon-cutting takes place in Galax on April 20th, 2009 at 11 AM. The regional network is the largest integrated fiber and wireless open access, open services municipal network in the United States, and the high performance network will eventually provide services across more than 1,000 square miles of mountainous terrain in southwest Virginia. The project is a collaboration among three local governments, including Grayson and Carroll counties and the City of Galax. Crossroads Institute and Carroll County Public Schools are also partners in the effort. Design Nine provided the early planning, developed the financial and business models for the project, designed the network architecture, and provided comprehensive project management services to get the network built.
Planning for the project began in early 2007, and construction started later in the fall of that year. The first customers began using the system in mid-2008, and wireless residential and businesses customers can now request service connections. As an open access network, the project is unique among municipal broadband projects because all services are provided by private sector companies--the local governments are not selling any services to businesses and residents.
Cohill noted several other significant accomplishments, which include installing fiber in downtown Galax and deploying high performance wireless broadband to residents and businesses in portions of Carroll and Grayson counties that were completely unserved by broadband. Cohill said, “Residents that have been on dial up have been stopping work crews and asking when they can get wireless and fiber services. Everyone is anxious to get connected.” The fiber in Galax will provide connectivity not only to businesses but to organizations like the City government and the Chestnut Creek School of the Arts. The Twin County Regional Hospital has been using Wired Road fiber since January. The hospital’s switch to The Wired Road fiber got the institution a big increase in bandwidth with a sharp reduction in cost, and a local service provider was able to get the hospital’s Internet business for the first time.
Design Nine managed the entire network build out, which included vendor evaluation and selection, supervision of all the construction work, testing of the network, and installation of network management and monitoring software. Design Nine also developed a complete set of business, financial, and operations policies and procedures for the regional authority that was created to run the network.
Design Nine’s high performance design provides 100 megabit fiber connections and and multi-megabit wireless speeds. The project recently received additional funding that will expand wireless access in rural areas and will get fiber into every business park in the region.
About Design Nine – Design Nine provides visionary broadband network design and engineering services to clients, communities, and regions throughout the U.S. The firm has active projects in eight states, with several fiber to the home (FTTH) projects in build out or operations, including the first municipal open network in the U.S. Design Nine manages broadband fiber and wireless projects from beginning to end, including the initial assessment, design, construction, and operations phases. The company is one of the most experienced open access broadband network design firms in the United States, and offers a full range of assessment, planning, financial analysis, business design, and project management for public and private networks.
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The Library of the Future
Libraries have a bright future, particularly in small and medium–sized communities. As the Knowledge Economy continues to change the way business is conducted, both locally and globally, libraries can play an essential economic development role as well as enhance community and civic life. Indeed, by changing and adapting their role and mission slightly, libraries could enter a “Golden Age,” where the venerable institution plays a more central role in the community, with a commensurate increase in funding.
The attached handout describes how libraries can play a central role in the economic renewal of communities--including entrepreneurial development, small business growth, job training, and the arts.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
 BFA_Libraries_v1.pdf | 1.65 MB |
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Virginia puts Standards of Learning materials on iTunes U
The Commonwealth of Virginia has announced a new educational program that puts learning materials designed to support the state's Standards of Learning tests on iTunes U. The focus of the program is on the development and distribution of applications for the iPod Touch and the iPhone that can be used by children to help them improve math, social studies, and reading skills.
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Facebook lowers college grades
A new study by Ohio State suggests a link between Facebook use and lower grades in college. The study found a link between the amount of time spent of Facebook, with a correlation between amount of time spent and lower scores (more time, lower grades). The study also found that students who did not use Facebook at all tended to spend more time studying and had higher GPAs.
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Renting supercomputers to increase economic development
As far back as 2004 I wrote about the potential to use supercomputers as an economic development tool. A few universities in the U.S. have made supercomputer time available as a fee, and New Mexico is probably farthest along, with an ambitious and visionary statewide project to make supercomputing capacity available throughout the state. Meanwhile, a firm in India is commercializing supercomputer access. As regional and municipal broadband projects like nDanville, The Wired Road, and the Eastern Shore of Virginia Broadband project bring high performance fiber to most businesses, it becomes relatively straightforward to put a supercomputer on the network and offer it as a service for hire by the hour or by the job. A region with a fiber network and supercomputer services would have a substantial economic development advantage.
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Report says more competition needed for wireline phone service
This report from TURN (The Utility Reform Network) has some excellent information about competition (and the lack of it) in wireline telephone markets, based on a study done in California. It is a lengthy report, but the Executive Summary does a good job of summarizing the findings. They key result was that there is still too little competition for phone service, and that for a variety of reasons, many households can't just drop wireline phone service and use cellphones--meaning that cellphone service is not an adequate market counterbalance to monopoly telephone service.
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Will electric scooters change the way we drive?
Two different approaches to electric vehicle design hint at the changes we are going to see in the coming years as the price of fossil fuel heads up again. Segway has designed a more practical version of its two wheel all electric vehicle; the Puma lets you sit down instead of standing up, and has a cover that will provide at least minimal wind, sun, and rain protection. I never could understand how anyone wearing business clothes could be expected to commute to work using a Segway--you'd look pretty rumpled after spending fifteen or twenty minutes in a 20 mph wind.
Piaggio has designed a hybrid gas-electric scooter with a unique two front wheel design that makes it much easier to control and drive than a traditional two wheel scooter.
Both vehicles could be used for short commutes and short trips around town, like running out in the evening for bread and milk. Neither will replace automobiles, but the small size and low prices (compared to full size automobiles) suggests we'll see a lot of these being used as a second or third vehicle. And that means we need to pay attention to the electric grid, because all these electric vehicles have to be charged up. The big opportunity is to merge next generation Smart Grid designs with robust fiber broadband networks. Communities that start early down this path (like Danville, Virgina) will have a big leg up from an economic development perspective.
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Good-bye to the video store
I finally signed up for Netflix, largely because the local Blockbuster has fewer and fewer movies these days. And I'm not the only one that has noticed that the video store chain seems ill. Despite the fact that Blockbuster claims it does not have late fees, the company continues to annoy customers by simply billing your credit card for the full retail value of a late movie. A recent $90 credit card charge for a stack of movies that I did not get back to the store on time was the last straw. Once you return the movies, they credit the charge back, after deducting a "handling fee." So technically, Blockbuster does not have "late" fees, but they have fees aplenty anyway.
Everyone I talk to seems quite content to watch much if not most of their in-home entertainment (TV shoes and movies) via the Internet, rather than via cable or satellite. The other phenomenon I notice is that even as there is a continued trend toward buying big, flat panel HD TVs, more and more people are reporting that they are watching "TV" on their laptop, mainly because it's so darned easy. Nearly all of the interesting TV is available via the Internet, any time you want to watch, so why even bother with the old-fashioned TV thingy in the basement?
The telephone and cable companies have a bright future only if they realize they can't be both monopoly content providers AND monopoly transport providers. There are simply too many new content and service offerings out there, and no one company can provide the quality and breadth businesses and residents are going to demand in the next several years. Only open access, open service networks like The Wired Road will be able to meet the community and economic development needs of regions. And open access can be done easily by the existing incumbent telephone and cable companies, and they would make more money than they are now. But they are resistant to change--which begs the question: Will they change before they go broke? And if your local cable company goes broke, what is your community's Plan B for offering telecom services?
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Digital City Expo goes online
In a break with the past, Benjamin Media's Digital City Expo is going online. The entire two day conference will be conducted via the Web, using webinars, chat, and live two way audio to put speakers and the audience in direct contact. It is a bold and interesting experiment, and potentially will give a much broader audience access to the conference and the information provided by presenters. Digital City Expo is the only broadband conference that focuses exclusively on community and municipal broadband, and with many new projects coming online, this year should bring a lot of good information to the conference Design Nine is a sponsor, and we will have a session on the economic development benefits of looking at broadband and energy as a way of attracting and retaining businesses.
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