Broadband Stimulous Information Meeting Notes
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Meeting Information
Date: June 30th, 2009 9:00 – 1:00am
Location: UWGB, Student Untion, 1965 Room
Invitations were sent to:
- Members of Partners in Education (21)
- Members of NEWERA (11)
- Mayor Jim Schmitt
- County Executive Tom Hintz
- Chamber of Commerce President Paul Jadin
- Oneida Nation
- Menomonee Nation
- Area Hospitals (4)
- Area Legislators (12)
- New North Director, Jerry Murphy
Attendence: 24 attendees representing 14 institutions
- Bellin College of Nursing – Colin Pomeroy
- Brown County Library – Mary Ryan
- CESA 7 – Jeff Dickert
- City of Green Bay – Scott Matejov, Andre Jacque
- Denmark Schools – Superintendent Tony Klaubauf
- Moraine Technical Park – John Schappe, Tony Runge
- Multimedia Communications Engineering – Dan Becker (County/City/MSD fiber project)
- Nicolet Technical College – Ron Skallerud, Roger Davis, Jim Kuderski
- Northeast WI Technical College – Dave Hjalmquist, John Siemering, Louise Damiano
- St. Vincent’s & St. Mary’s Hospitals – Greg Wierzbach
- UW-Green Bay - Kathy Pletcher, Dave Kieper, Paula Ganyard, Bill Hubbard
- UW-Oskhosh – Ken Splittgerber
- Wisconsin Legislature – Senator Dave Hansen
- WiscNet – Dave Lois, Maddy Covelli
Welcome by the UW-Green Bay Provost
Provost William Laatsch thanked those in attendance for taking time from their busy schedule to attend this important meeting. He noted that expanding broadband throughout the region will be critical to economic, educational and community development.
Go GIG Presentation by Dave Lois and Maddy Covelli
The University of Wisconsin—in concert with WiscNet and the BadgerNet Converged Network (BCN) community—proposes an approach to collaboration that will best serve the State of Wisconsin in both the short term and long term. The federal broadband stimulus money should be focused on building the information super highways that will connect our Wisconsin communities together and position them for the digital future. Partners in the grant include: UW, WiscNet, County Extension, and ECB. The question on the table is: will Northeast Wisconsin participate in the grant proposal?
The Go GIG vision is for advanced broadband connectivity is to get fiber optic cabling to all homes, schools, higher education, healthcare facilities, libraries, and businesses throughout Wisconsin. Like most states, we need more infrastructure to make that happen. The cost to accomplish this is estimated at about $2 billion. While our goal is big—it is important for ensuring Wisconsin’s economy flourishes as we evolve from traditional manufacturing to technology dependent businesses (including manufacturing and farming) and a high‐tech workforce. The broadband stimulus funding allocated to the NTIA and RUS will be critical to providing the initial momentum to get Wisconsin moving in the right direction.
We have identified criteria (see below) that we believe will accomplish the goals set forth by President Obama and will support Wisconsin’s Go‐GIG Broadband strategy. Federal funding will allow Wisconsin to move forward with Go‐GIG.
- All money should be spent on fiber optic cable, fiber cable installation, support equipment, and ITFS‐Frequency leveraging wireless components. This is the base technology that we will use now and build upon going forward. This infrastructure should be available for both the private and public sector use, whenever feasible, with identified allocations for both sectors.
- Construction projects that use the new infrastructure should be used to interconnect the Community Anchor Institutions as defined in the ARRA bill. Community Anchor Institutions should be defined very broadly and include universities, technical colleges, schools, libraries, museums, health care facilities, etc. Important criteria such as the ability of these institutions to aggregate regional entities, be geographically dispersed throughout the state, and have some ability to be accessed by the public community in general should be required.
- A crucial piece of the stimulus funding is to get broadband technologies out within the community, so clearly a local connectivity methodology needs to be part of the criteria. We advocate that local infrastructure fan‐out from the Community Anchor Institution via Community Areas Networks (CANs). CANs are local and regional networks that surround the Community Anchor Institutions. CANs consist of local entities such as schools, libraries, local governments, health care facilities, museums, etc. Due to the limited funding, we would suggest the ARRA funding allow for coordination and support efforts to start the CAN building process.
- It’s valuable that any funded projects continue to stimulate the economy after the initial funding is invested. Therefore, we advocate that successfully funded projects be able to prove their ability to sustain the network and components once the project is complete.
In conclusion, we can start Going‐GIG with a combination of:
- Shared public/private fiber and high performance wireless infrastructure connecting Community Anchor Institutions statewide;
- Fanning the high performance services out from those institutions to a wider population via Community Area Networks; and
- Having a solid and sustainable business model to continue to grow upon the ARRA investments.
This will give Wisconsin a great start to achieving the broad goals of economic stimulus and start positioning Wisconsin for the future.
During the month of June WiscNet visited the following cities across the State to determine the level of interest in the Go GIG grant proposal: Eau Claire, Green Bay, Janesville, Kenosha, Madison, Milwaukee, La Crosse, Oshkosh, Platteville, River Falls, Stevens Point, Superior, Wausaw, and Whitewater. In July WiscNet will return to find out if institutions/organizations in northeast Wisconsin want to be written into the grant.
A good way to move forward with the grant proposal is to consider forming a community area network (CAN.) There are several examples of community area networks in Wisconsin, including: Chippewa Valley Internetworking Consortium (CINC), the Fox network in Oshkosh and the Madison fiber network (MUFN.) There are several steps needed to be successful in starting a community area network (CAN.)
- Determine who are the anchor institutions – find as many as you can, put them in a phased approach.
- Determine which anchor institutions will create economic stimulous for the community.
- Determine what physical obstacles exist – or other problems that are barriers.
- Walk the path to the anchor institutions. What is on the path? What new players might be approached? (eg. fire station, public safety)
- Name the CAN. This will help brand the project and create identity for the community.
- Create an Email distribution list of players for timely communication.
- Bring people together to establish vision, service area and business model for sustainability.
Q & A and Discussion
Q. What is dark fiber?
A. Dark fiber is fiber optic cable that does not have services running on it. Think of it as a road with no cars.
Q. What would be the cost to the communities?
A. The grant will cover implementation but not ongoing costs. There is a 20% match for the grant but we do not know what the mix of cash and in-kind will be. We will know more after the rules are published. Equipment that is already in place, people’s time, etc. could count as part of the 20% match. The CAN would have to develop a business plan for how to pay for deploying services and the ongoing cost to operate the network. It is important not to “strand” the fiber resource in the ground.
Q. Is this only for public entities?
A. The Go GIG grant partners are public entities but partnerships with the private sector at the CAN level is very powerful.
Q. How does the money get distributed?
A. The grant will specify UW Extension as the receiving entity and funds will be distributed out to CANs and other projects.
Q. How many anchors do we need?
A. There is no set number of anchors. The more the better.
Q. What if it is just the hospitals and UWGB that want to do this?
A. That is fine. We can have a phased approach with early adopters going first.
Q. How much money will this area get?
A. That is hard to say at this point since it will depend on the project we develop and how much money is in the total grant. We may apply for $100 million and get only half, or less.
Comment by Ken Splitgerber, UW-Oshkosh: Winnebago County and City of Oshkosh collaborated to build a network and have added public safety and school districts in Outagamie County. There is an interest to connect the Fox net to Brown County.
Comment by Dan Becker from Multimedia Communications Engineering: MCE is working on a joint fiber project for Brown County, City of Green Bay and the Metropolitan Sewage District and part of the design is to have extra strands that could be made available to other entities. The network is in construction and should be completed in the next few months. The partners are working on their M.O.U. agreements to share the network. The purpose of the project is to build capacity to share massive amounts of data among the partners.
Outcomes
Participants at the meeting expressed interest in the Go GIG project and want to continue the conversation.
UWGB volunteered to take a leadership role by:
- hosting a listserve and a web site to share information
- sending out additional information
- scheduling follow up meetings
Those in attendance agreed with this approach and agreed to attend a follow-up meeting in July.
8 Responses to “Broadband Stimulous Information Meeting Notes”
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