US/ND-5: Welcome to Week Five of the US/ND On-line Seminar

Welcome to Week Five of the US/ND On-line Seminar

Bob Carlitz (bob@info-ren.pitt.edu)
Sun, 22 Sep 1996 23:34:59 -0400 (EDT) 

This week will be the last week of the Universal Service/Network
Democracy On-line Seminar.  I want to thank everyone who has
been participating in the seminar.  If you haven't had the time
to post messages in previous weeks of the seminar, please try 
and do so this week.  It would be nice to finish with a flurry
of activity.

I have tried to make this week's topic something that everyone
can relate to.  The immediate issue is how to integrate new
Universal Service subsidies with existing programs and how
to coordinate the implementation of Universal Service with
other proceedings before the FCC.  To make this topic more
relevant to the majority of seminar participants, I'm also
asking you to identify successful projects with which you have
been involved and to indicate how these projects might be
affected by the Telecommunications Act.

In private correspondence with a large number of seminar participants we 
have begun to get some idea of the enormous store of networking 
experience held by this group.  We estimate the the seminar participants 
have something on the order of 2000 person-years of experience with 
network implementations in local schools and libraries.  This probably 
exceeds the sum total of school and library networking experience
by all of the hundreds of companies who have submitted comments to the 
FCC on the subject of Universal Service.

I'm hoping that in this week's contributions we can get some idea of the 
breadth of this experience and learn what role the Telecommunications Act 
can play in helping the innovative work of many seminar participants to 
flourish in the future.  Here are a few specific questions to consider:

	* What successful telecommunications projects have you been involved
   with? 

	* Did these projects depend upon any special telecommunications
   rates? If so, give a brief description of these rates and indicate whether
   you think these rates might be jeopardized by new Universal Service
   subsidies. (This could happen if, for example, state PUCs were to decree
   that new subsidies supersede old rate structures.)

	* Do your projects depend upon any particular tricks of the trade?
   If so, describe these imaginative applications of telecommunications
   technology, and indicate whether these applications might not be possible
   in the environment of new Universal Service subsidies. 

	* What are specific areas in which ongoing projects might benefit 
   from new Universal Service subsidies? 

	* Are there projects currently in the planning stages whose
   viability will depend upon the structure of new Universal Service
   subsidies? If so, indicate how the subsidies should be structured to
   assure the success of these new projects. 

You can find more information on this week's activities in the seminar at
	http://www.info-ren.org/projects/universal-service/this-week.html
There is a detailed summary of last week's discussion and of the survey on 
the allocation of Universal Service subsidies.  There is also a 
discussion of future Universal Service/Network Democracy on-line 
seminars, which might deal with the recommendations of the Federal/State 
Joint Board, review of the success of the Telecommunications Act in 
meeting its legislative objections and the course of proceedings which 
parallel the present discussion of Universal Service and which impact 
upon Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act, which deals with advanced 
services for schools and libraries.

Please speak out in the upcoming week.  Your experience is a valuable 
asset to the FCC and the Joint Board. Please share it with them and make 
sure that the implementation of the Universal Service provisions for 
schools and libraries will enable projects like yours to continue in your 
city and be replicated in other cities and towns across the country.

Bob Carlitz
Moderator