Institutional Network (I-Net) Proposal Thoughts (from Paul Parker)

["Paul A. Reilly" <paul@giotto.info-ren.org>]

  I'm forwarding this message without its long header - most people on the
list will have seen it already, but I think it belongs in the archive.
Note that it's from Paul Parker <parker@saturnsystems.com>, not from me.

  - Paul Reilly

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Members of the ad-hoc I-Net (Institutional Network) committee have
been meeting to discuss the formulation of a proposal to the City of
Pittsburgh (specifically to Councilman Cohen's office) that would be
presented in some form to TCI/AT&T for consideration during ongoing
cable-franchise contract negotiations.

The gist of this proposal is a request that bandwidth (in some form)
be made available to City community groups, the School District,
libraries, museums, and other public-service, non-profit organizations
and that provisions for this be incorporated into the contract
eventually entered into by TCI and the City.

Thus far, the flavor of the discussion at I-Net meetings has been
slanted toward the technical side and, in particular (paraphrasing
here), "that additional fiber be installed by TCI that is dedicated to
the City and to an institutional network."

In our view, the current I-Net proposal tends to dictate the design of
the network to TCI, with its specific requests for additional fiber
capacity.  However, the reality is that I-Net organizations will
require money for the technical resources and equipment that would
permit the additional dedicated fiber to be used by their members, and
the public.  Small community organizations may not have such money
available.

We propose a somewhat softer approach, one that can be summarized in the
following two key points:

  - First, argue that I-Net activities will complement TCI's
    commercial offerings while demonstrating the company's commitment
    to community involvement and service.  The use of I-Net, and the
    services to be offered and supported by its members, will not
    compete directly with commercial cable- and data-network
    offerings.

  - Second, *do not* dictate to TCI the manner in which bandwidth will
    be made available to the I-Net.  Yes, there should be contractual
    commitments made (and now is the time to negotiate these).
    However, such commitments are better expressed in terms of the
    "connections, service, and bandwidth" requirements of Pittsburgh's
    public-service and community organizations rather than "number of
    additional dedicated fiber runs" and "termination points".

The points above are only meant to outline our thoughts on the I-Net
process to date.  Obviously, "details" remain to be worked out.

However, if a high-level decision is made to request "service" rather
than "fiber" for the I-Net community from TCI, we have a framework
under which to begin the real work -- sorting out the true network-
access needs of Pittsburgh's service community so that these can be
presented to TCI.

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