New Draft of I-Net proposal for the Pittsburgh I-Net WG
- Date: Fri, 16 Apr 1999 15:50:06 -0400
- From: Gene Hastings <hastings@info-ren.org>
- Subject: New Draft of I-Net proposal for the Pittsburgh I-Net WG
[This draft is based upon the discussions of the Working Group who
last met Wednesday, April 14th.]
2
D R A F T
4/16/99
Pittsburgh I-Net Working Group Proposal
prepared by Information Renaissance
Summary:
The proposal involves two major elements:
1. Free cable modems and related services (including
Internet access) for 100 community groups.
2. An Extendable Institutional Network (I-Net) to 140 City,
School District, library and museum buildings, with the
capability to extend to nearby community sites.
Background on the Working Group
Over the past few months, a group of local community
leaders, including representatives of community groups, the
School District, the City, the library system and health care
providers, has been discussing the communications needs of the
public, in anticipation of the upcoming franchise renewal
negotiations with TCI and AT&T.
In the course of those meetings, it has become clear that
these groups have immediate needs for affordable, high bandwidth
services and that the needs are not being met by current service
providers. It is also clear that, with the growth of the
Internet, the needs will expand rapidly over the longer-term.
Action is required to ensure that community's short- and
long-term needs are satisfied. The group has discussed the
opportunities presented by cable modems and an institutional
network (I-Net) to address these needs.
On April 8, 1999, the Group met with the technical
consultant hired by the City to assist in the negotiations with
TCI and with members of the City's negotiating committee. The
Group described its needs and a conceptual plan. The negotiating
committee asked the Group to develop a more specific proposal.
That proposal follows below.
Community uses beyond those of traditional I-Nets
An I-Net is a telecommunications network, provided in
conjunction with a cable company's cable television network, that
can serve government buildings, schools, libraries and community
groups -- both for their internal communications needs and for
access to the Internet. I-Nets have traditionally been built to
serve large institutions wanting to link geographically dispersed
facilities. Traditional I-Net participants have included city
and county governments, school districts and libraries.
Community groups have usually not been included.
Institutions use I-Nets to share video programming (live and
taped) for training, education and meetings, for their own data
communications needs (for records transmissions, etc.) and for
phone calls.
I-Nets replace lines that institutions lease from phone
companies at higher prices. I-Nets are relatively inexpensive
due to economies of scale. Cable companies install the I-Net
cable as they install cable for their commercial systems --
saving on construction costs. Also, institutional users share
the same cable infrastructure -- economizing on the amount of
cable required and on operating and maintenance costs.
In the current franchise negotiations, the City and the
School District have been promoting the concept of an I-Net to
serve their own facilities. This proposal seeks to add the
library system and museums to the I-Net and to provide access by
community groups to this public network.
Why do Community Groups need access to high bandwidth services?
(1) The vital roles of community groups
Pittsburgh prides itself on the cultural strength and
diversity of its 88 neighborhoods. This strength and diversity
is reflected in and nurtured by an even larger number of
community groups.
Community groups serve important functions. They identify
community needs and goals, and they organize people and seek the
financial and other resources to achieve those goals. They often
represent the key point of interaction between residents and all
others affecting the community -- city government, school
districts, local businesses and outside developers. They perform
functions that individuals cannot perform and that government
should not do or does not do well.
Community groups make sure that their communities thrive --
that local businesses grow, that struggling businesses survive,
and that new businesses come into their neighborhoods. They make
sure that their residents have jobs, that streets and parks are
maintained, and that police and fire protection, garbage pick-ups
and other city services are provided promptly and efficiently.
They make sure their schools provide the best education and that
health care providers and social service agencies address
community needs.
Community groups also supplement programs of government
agencies and schools, where community needs outpace the agencies'
resources. These include recreation programs for youth and
senior citizens, after-school education and arts programs, child
care services, block watches and community newsletters.
(2) Community communications, the Internet and the I-Net
Much of the work of community groups boils down to
communications. Community groups currently rely on face-to-face
meetings, phone calls, faxes, mail, VCRs and televisions. They
are relatively new to computers, email, the Internet and data
networks, and they make less than effective use of what they
have.
Face-to-face personal communications will always be
invaluable and necessary. However, these new communications
technologies can make community groups more efficient and
effective.
o Community groups can use email and websites to provide
timely information to government officials and to
residents.
o Community groups can make computers and Internet access
available to residents looking for information about
jobs, government services, education and health care
services.
o Meetings with government officials can still be face-to-
face, but residents who are unable to make the trip
downtown can watch, ask questions and make comments over
the Internet.
o After-school arts and education can make use of the multi-
media applications of computers and the Internet. Adults
can also continue to learn.
o Community groups can make health services more accessible
by partnering with health care providers to establish
local clinics that use remote medical monitoring and
imaging.
o Community groups can become more efficient, often
substituting email and Internet communications for more
time-consuming and expensive photo-copying, postage,
overnight services, long-distance phone charges.
These activities all use telecommunications lines. These
lines link groups to residents, to other institutions and to the
Internet. The I-Net provides these lines inexpensively and with
high bandwidth.
(3) How much "bandwidth" do community groups need?
With the growth of the Information Age, successful cities -
and neighborhoods -- will increasingly be determined by their
access to "bandwidth." "Bandwidth" is the amount of information a
telecommunications wire can carry over a period of time - like
the size of a water pipe and the amount of water it can carry.
The Internet and the rapidly expanding uses that it makes
possible require a telecommunications infrastructure with
increasingly large amounts of bandwidth and greater reliability.
The I-Net represents the opportunity to gain this higher
bandwidth at relatively less cost.
Without sufficient bandwidth, neighborhoods will lag. With
high bandwidth in some areas and insufficient bandwidth in other
areas, the high bandwidth areas will benefit and the others will
lag. This underlies what is becoming known as the Digital
Divide.
Community groups currently need less bandwidth than the
traditional I-Net participants. The typical community group may
use email and browse the Internet for information. Those that
provide public access to the groups' computers have greater
needs, which increasingly involve audio and video and which
consume far more bandwidth. For perspective, this is the point
the large institutions were at only three to five years ago.
As the Internet grows further, however, and as bandwidth-
intensive applications become more widely available, community
groups will use the new applications and the groups' needs for
bandwidth will grow. Data and services will increasingly be
offered in multi-media and interactive formats. Information will
be provided with audio and video, in addition to the text and
graphics we're used to seeing. Two-way communications will also
be possible.
The specific uses that will be made of such a system cannot
be fully enumerated now. The Internet is new and its ability to
quickly and inexpensively transmit information to large groups of
people is also new. New applications (or uses) include a broad
range of activities that can be developed with desktop video
conferencing capabilities. Additional uses are being developed
rapidly, and their future growth is open to the imagination.
Call-in phone lines for medical information, for example,
may be replaced with interactive video where patients can be
examined and monitored from remote clinics and multiple patients
can gain access to health-care presentations of health service
agencies. Citizens get access to government records and services.
Residents of school age and older can gain access to educational
material and job information. Community groups can provide
access for these purposes beyond the hours, the capacity and
geographic proximity of libraries.
Community groups can also become content providers.
Community development groups can host and distribute information
about development opportunities in their neighborhoods. The
groups can provide information (electronic newsletters) about
community issues and can organize residents -- for recreational
and social events and on issues to be advocated before government
agencies. They can collect and publish neighborhood histories.
They can publish the work of students in their arts and education
programs.
It is very clear that future community uses of
telecommunications will involve greater amounts of data and
greater use of audio and video - which will require greater
amounts of bandwidth. Many community groups will have a set of
computers used by the staff and an additional set available to
the public to access the Internet in connection with the programs
discussed above. The computers will be connected in a Local Area
Network (LAN), which will be connected to the Internet with a
single high-bandwidth telecommunications connection.
With the advent of these bandwidth-intensive uses, cable
modems will not provide sufficient bandwidth for many community
groups. Also important, cable modem users share the commercial
fiber system with each other and with cable customers. As more
subscribers use cable modems, they will compete with each other
for bandwidth. Already, cable modem customers in some parts of
the country are complaining that promised bandwidth is not always
available.
To avoid a shortfall of bandwidth and the lagging of
Pittsburgh's neighborhoods, the City has to plan for the future
bandwidth needs of our communities.
The Community Proposal:
This proposal seeks to take advantage of the opportunity
afforded by the upgrade of TCI's system to provide additional
bandwidth throughout the City's neighborhoods at affordable
prices. The vitality of neighborhoods and equitable access to
high bandwidth facilities are the guiding principles.
From discussions with the City's technical consultant and
from our own research, it appears that cable companies renewing
franchise agreements typically contribute more to public purposes
than the five percent franchise fee. This is usually justified
under the franchising authority's power to ensure that the cable
system satisfies the community's communications needs. Cable
companies make these additional contributions in the forms of
additional facilities and/or cash grants. From these
discussions, it also appears that the magnitude of the following
proposal falls within reasonable limits.
The proposal includes free cable modems to address community
groups' short-term needs and the groups' inclusion in the I-Net
to address their long-term needs.
(1) Free cable modems and services for immediate needs
Cable modems provide an immediate and relatively low-cost
way to gain access to substantial bandwidth. Cable modems are
useful for the limited uses that the groups currently make of the
Internet. Accordingly, we propose that the City seek a
commitment that TCI provide free cable modems and service to 100
community groups for the life of the franchise agreement.
Community groups typically use regular phone lines and one
or more dial-up Internet access accounts for their bandwidth
needs. Cable modems transmit information over the same coaxial
and fiber lines that the cable company uses for its commercial
programming services. The cable operator includes Internet
access accounts in the price of the service.
The bandwidth improves sharply from the 56 kilobits per
second (kbps) available over a regular phone line. TCI currently
advertises that its @Home cable modem service can provide speeds
up to 2.8 megabits per second (Mbps). Web pages will load faster,
and people will be able to receive and send limited audio and
video. Sites will also be able to support multiple computers.
The costs to TCI are relatively modest, and the potential
marketing gains are large.
The initial capital costs include the costs of the cable
modems, which currently cost approximately $300.00. With volume
discounts, TCI's costs would be less. TCI would also fund the
installation costs, for which TCI charges approximately $100 to
$175 per site.
Recurring costs would be substantially less. The company
would incur incremental recurring costs only for customer
questions. Operating and maintenance activities would not be
directly affected, and the groups' Internet activity would likely
represent only a small portion of the company's costs for
Internet access. The company will forego the monthly revenues of
$40.00 per month. Based on TCI's pricing, the revenue for 100
cable modems translates into $4,000.00 per month and $48,000.00
per year.
On the other hand, providing free access to cable modems at
community sites represents an important marketing opportunity for
TCI. The cable modems will market TCI's @Home Internet access
service to a broad range of potential subscribers. For many
people, access to the Internet is new. For many more people,
access to the Internet through cable modems is also new. Adults
using the modems will be encouraged to buy the service for use in
their homes. Children using the modems will encourage their
parents to buy the service. TCI will easily recoup the costs of
the free modems with increased revenues from new residential
subscribers.
Sites receiving cable modems would be determined through a
competitive process administered by a panel of community
representatives. The criteria should consider (1) the proposed
community use; (2) the reach of the proposed programs; and (3)
the sustainability of the program. This community panel can also
evolve into a management group for the community network
described below.
(2) Extendable I-Net for longer-term needs
The longer-term answer for community groups is to gain
access to the dedicated bandwidth of the I-Nets that are built
under the new franchise agreement. To accomplish this, we
propose an Extendable I-Net that consists of the following:
o An I-Net or series of I-Nets that extend fiber to the 20
buildings proposed by the City, to the 95 buildings proposed by
the School District and to the 25 libraries and museums of the
Carnegie system inside the City. TCI would install fiber
dedicated to the use of these institutions and terminate the
fiber at the institutions' facilities. TCI would also provide
collocation space and access at its four hubs.
o Community groups would have the right to a network
connection where the fiber terminates in the I-Net participants'
buildings.
o Community groups would provide their own connections to the
junction points.
o TCI would agree that the I-Net facilities can be used both
by the I-Net participants and by connecting community groups.
The dispersion of these 140 sites throughout the City's
neighborhoods would provide a broad distribution of access points
for the community.
This program leverages the resources committed to the I-Net
participants. It is consistent with the requirement in the school
district's technology plan that school facilities be available
for reasonable community use. It requires from TCI only the
further commitment that the school district I-Net also be
permitted for the use of community groups.
The ongoing use of the I-Nets would be managed by the I-Net
participants or a separate organization. Management would entail
responsibility for maintenance and repair, network management,
and potentially user support. The City, the school district, and
the libraries would likely manage their own systems, and they
could also agree to provide these services for the benefit of the
community groups. Alternatively, the groups could establish or
contract with a separate organization for these purposes.
The establishment of a separate organization could help the
schools and libraries to continue to take advantage of discounts
available under the federal E-rate program for schools and
libraries. The E-rate program, established under the
Telecommunications Act of 1996, uses fees assessed on long
distance phone revenues to give discounts to schools and
libraries to enable them to connect to the Internet. Under
current E-rate rules, schools and libraries are eligible for
discounts on the costs of leased lines, internal wiring and
actual services. They might not qualify for discounts on the
full range of costs related to the I-Net, if they operate and
maintain the network. A separate organization could help these
organizations remain eligible for the discounts.
The community connections would also have to be sustainable.
This means that reasonable charges would be assessed to community
groups to cover the ongoing costs of the connections. This
function would also be handled by the managing organization.
On a parallel track, funds will be required to design and
install the community group connections -- to develop cost-
effective wireline and wireless means to connect the groups to
the terminating points of the fiber -- and to buy the electronics
to operate the network. Funds for these purposes will be raised
from foundations, from federal grant programs and from hospitals,
universities and others seeking to provide community services
over the I-Net. The City could also seek an additional capital
contribution from TCI and AT&T for these purposes.
[inetprop.rtf]
