Thoughts about US

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Greetings to all seminar participants; posters and readers alike.

Since this is my first post, I want to thank Bob Carlitz the folks at
Information Renaissance for providing this opportunity.

The quantity of reading material required for intelligent posting is
staggering, especially for participants with limited experience in
telecommunications. As a member of that group, I am learning a lot and am
impressed by the thoughts of those with experience in the field.

I am a site principal (http://www.vcnet.com/doscaminos), involved with, but
not directly responsible for, the expansion of telecommunications in our
district. We have wonderful cooperation from our local ISP and we have a
good working relationship with our local telco. We have established a
district WAN and are in the process of developing LANS at the site level. 

>From this perspective, I see the need to define Uniiversal Service as issues
of Connectivity and Support as we begin to use the resource.

Yesterday I thought we needed wires (ISDN, T1) at the level necessary to
carry out efficient communication. Today, after reading the posts by Dave
Hughes and Jim Callahan and reading the cover story in the current issue of
Byte (http://www.byte.com) that describes the potential of cable TV to
provide internet access, I am not quite as sure. In the short run, the local
telco can at least bring access to the sites and provide consultation on the
development of in-house networking for those institutions ready to expand.

Since we have yet to begin high-volume usage, I have no idea what the cost
of the additional service will be. It needs to be minimal in order for
schools to direct our scant resources toward additional technology and
networking at the sites.

As I understand the current concept of the Universal Service Fund, telcos
contribute from rates charged to one set of subscribers and  then are
credited for the cost of providing service to another set. If schools and
libraries succeed in developing a very broad definition of universal
service, basic rates will probably increase and the "discount" provided via
the universal service concept could be negligible. Granted, we would get
some additional service up front, but I share concerns expressed for the
folks on whom the burden will fall. As I write this, I have no idea what the
REAL COST of x students accessing the internet on a daily basis is to the
telcos. Can any participants answer this question?

I consider training to be very important, but IMHO, beyond the scope of
manditory universal service. Our local telco, under no mandate that I'm
aware of,  provides periodic offerings from "GTE University" which are
extremely helpful. We, as educators and librarians, need to learn to use the
internet and to pass that knowledge to our students and patrons.

    

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