FiberFete 2010 on Vimeo

The Fiber Fete videos are up on Vimeo…production took a while but they are up now, look great and are certainly worth visiting—or revisiting. Thanks go out to Eric Credeur who did the work of editing.

If you didn’t get the chance to go to the conference, now’s your chance. And even if you did now you can revisit the presentations and think through what was said. That’s what I plan to do…The quality of the presentations was really impressive. As I review I’ll post any notes worth sharing.

WBS: “Fabulous Lafayette”

Francois Benoit, who works out of France and runs the blog Fibervolution blog, has posted a review of Fiber Fete—and Lafayette. Benoit was caught in the initial ash cloud shut-down of European airspace and missed the first half of the event. But he has caught the gist of the story told by that event. Perhaps because of that he’s created a very careful overview of the conference.

Some tidbits from the post:

Lafayette has understood and internalised the fact that they will only reap the benefits from the infrastructure they are building if they make it happen. Field of Dreams is just a movie…

More widely, ubiquitous very high speed connectivity is a game changer for business and society. David Weinberger did a very good speech exploring the implications of ubiquitous fiber on economy and society. The hurdles are not in deploying the infrastructure, they are in changing the ecosystem that currently relies on sub-par connectivity for its interactions…

All in all, this was a great event. It was also unique in that a lot of room was left for discussions, both one on one and collectively….I’m looking forward to Fiberfete 2011. Hopefully by then Lafayette will have some early examples of “cool and wonderful things to do with fiber”, other cities will have learned that Google didn’t pick them and look at Lafayette on what to do…

I found Benoit’s own talk—on the lessons to be learned from the success of Apple’s app store—very intriguing.

There’s lots to look forward to.

(What’s Being Said Dept.)

Portland’s Gigabit Beer Coming to Lafayette…

From the Mayor’s staff blog in Portland Oregon:

Saturday, Mayor Sam Adams, Hopworks Brew Master Christian Ettinger, city staff and local Google fiber initiative supporters were present to send the gift of five kegs of special organic Portland Gigabit IPA to Parish President Joey Durel of Lafayette, Louisiana — the first American city to establish a fiber-to-home infrastructure. Layfayette has proven how useful and efficient the ultra fast network technology can be and Portland is working toward doing the same.

The Gigabit send-off ceremony at PDX was a thank you to Lafayette for leading the way in fiber development and will be enjoyed during their Fiber Fete, an international summit of fiber-to-home, ‘celebrating our future connections,’ Tuesday through Thursday, April 20 – 22.

Now what can you say to that? Besides “Thank You.”

Scuttlebutt has it that Mary Beth Henry, of Portland and NATOA, will be the bearer of the good tidings. Looking forward to it! All five kegs…

“FiberFete Celebrates City’s Fight To Build Its Own Information-Age Utility”

WBS dept.

Broadband Breakfast has a short story up lauding today’s launch of Fiber Fête.

Lafayette gets good press:

The city floated $110 million in municipal bonds in 2005, fought telecommunications companies that cried foul over the move, and proceeded to build the network in addition to a sophisticated 3D imaging center used by Hollywood movie companies to render their animated films into 3D images.

“We had a unique opportunity because we have our own utility company that already had a fiber optic loop that was already in the wholesale end of this business,” says Durel. “This project was about doing something great and raising the bar.”

There are interesting blips about the purpose of the event:

“What Lafayette can show to the world is how to create a network that’s just about state of the art, and that the whole community supports,” explains David Isenberg, FiberFête’s co-organizer along with journalist Geoff Daily. Isenberg is a long-time advocate of such community-driven telecommunications networks. “Lafayette’s leadership also realizes that they need help, that you can’t just hang the fiber on the poles and miracles will happen – they know there’s a lot of expertise out there, and they’re hoping to bring people with a clue into town.”

….The conference is a timely one since the Obama Administration has just released its National Broadband Plan, a national blueprint for how America can stay competitive in the global race to get connected to anyone else in the world through high-speed internet networks. Durel hopes that the city can serve as a model for other cities around the nation.

There’s a lot to learn. It’s an interesting world….

Fiber Fête Press Release

Fiber Fete issued a press release this morning and posted it to their website…exciting stuff!

I am jazzed about this event. If you go browse through the agenda you’ll see some of the of the most exciting names in their fields nationally and internationally. To name off a few: Jim Baller (US), Benoit Felten (France), Joaquin Alvarado (US), Herman Wagter (Netherlands), Minnie Ingersoll (US), Bas Boorsma (Netherlands), Lev Gonick (US), Dirk van der Woude (Netherlands), David Weinberger (US). Googling any of these names will impress you….I am extremely eager to hear, for instance, what Weinberger has to say about the effects of ubiquitously available fiber. Minnie Ingersoll is a Product Manager for the Google Gigabit Project.

How much the ash cloud hanging over Europe will effect some people’s ability to attend remains an open question, as is the possibility of bringing them in via streaming video. But in any event the quality of the national and international speaker list is truly amazing. And it is doubly exciting that they are convening in Lafayette.

The release:

FiberFête Conference Launches Tuesday
Technology and Community Leaders to Dream up Possibilities for Our Most Wired Cities

LAFAYETTE, La. (Apr. 19) – FiberFête, a conference featuring Internet innovators from around the world, will be held April 20-22 at Louisiana Immersive Technologies Enterprise (LITE) in Lafayette. FiberFête celebrates Lafayette’s deployment of a community-owned fiber network and explores the potential of fiber-powered communities.

FiberFête brings global technology entrepreneurs and activists together with local community leaders to explore how fiber networks can help other cities like Lafayette enhance economic development, community participation and quality of life.

“The people of Lafayette have led the country in equipping their community with fiber,” says FiberFête co-producer Geoff Daily. “Now they’re committed to driving the conversation around what innovative things fiber can enable them to do.”

Welcoming FiberFête guests Tuesday will be Louisiana Economic Development Secretary Stephen Moret and Lafayette City-Parish President Joey Durel. “We have a story to tell, to share with America and the world,” says Durel. “The future of fiber optic networking isn’t a dream. For us, it’s a reality, it’s here, it’s working, and it’s an example of what is not only possible, but of what will be the future in America.”

FiberFête speakers include representatives from Google, Cisco, Harvard University and Case Western Reserve University, as well as municipal officials from Seattle and San Francisco. A full agenda is available online at www.FiberFete.com.

While an invitation-only event, FiberFête is also open to the world live via the Internet. Viewers may access the webcast online at www.LiveStream.com/FiberFete. Coverage will run from 4 p.m. until 6 p.m. CST Tuesday, April 20 and from 8:30 a.m. until 6 p.m. Wednesday, April 21.

FiberFête is distinct from other international broadband conferences in that it is sponsored by the community in support of its own network infrastructure. FiberFête is funded wholly by a diverse coalition of local public and private partners.

Fiber Fête – live streaming video!

Fiber Fête is going to be streamed live. So if you can’t attend in person hie yourself to the nearest computer screen in your favorite screening venue. If you’ve got a special interest on the agenda it’d be worthwhile to pull together some of your friends with a similar fixation and view it together. Happily, you can even set up a late-night viewing. By the miracle of time-shifting Livestream allows you to catch up by visiting the site at a later date and viewing the events at your leisure.

Fiber Fête, bandwidth touted

Fiber network looks to bolster local economy” appears on the front page of this morning’s Advertiser and focuses on the value of big bandwidth and Lafayette’s upcoming fiber fête conference. Tom Cox and Golfballs.com are featured as a business which is already using LUS fiber to real advantage and that plans to use the speed even more in the future. Cox, not surprisingly, will be on Thursday morning’s panel “Driving Lafayette’s Digital Economy.”

Lafayette, Google and 1 Gig Fiber

LPF noted LUS’ application to the “Google Fiber for Communities” project several weeks ago as a bit of lagniappe to an article about the city’s tech efforts more generally. Both the Independent and the Advocate caught the story late this week, in advance of Fiber Fête. Google’s Minnie Ingersoll, a product manager for alternative access and one of the people shepherding the project will be a speaker at Fiber Fête on Tuesday of next week and that connection is noted by the Independent.

[For those of you who were on a different planet for the last two months—or just from a place which already has its fiber—and missed the fevered internet excitement, here’s the short version: Immediately prior to the unveiling of a National Broadband Plan that pushed an anemic goal of 100 megs in 10 years Google announced that it would fund a testbed project that would offer communities a gig FTTH network. Conditions to apply were minimal: not more than 500,000 people, and a demonstrated eagerness to “accept” a 1 Gig, open network. More than 600 communities officially applied and another 190,000 individuals applied on behalf of their communities.]

Both stories reported that LUS based their appeal on Lafayette’s vision, willingness to battle to build its own network, and on how cheap it would be to up grade LUS current system to the 1 gig standard. As the Independent wrote:

“We already have a system in place and that’s what we were trying to sell to them,” Huval says. He notes that LUS’ fiber network, which reaches internal speeds up to 100 megabits per second, could be upgraded to 1 Gig per second speed relatively easily. “We looked at what kind of things do we bring to the table that might be unique,” Huval adds, “and yet still substantive enough to attract Google’s attention and we felt that the fact that we already have a fiber to the home infrastructure almost completely in place that we have clear unambiguous community support because we had a vote of the people [on fiber] with strong support. We also talked about the strength of the utility system and we talked about our visions for the future, that we didn’t build this system only to have competitively priced cable TV, telephone and Internet, we were looking at building an infrastructure for the future.”

The Advocate’s coverage made it plain that LUS was intent on moving to a 1 gig to the home network even without Google’s help, even but that it would take till the next scheduled round of network upgrades to get there:

The city’s LUS Fiber system already offers top-tier Internet speeds and has the capacity to eventually offer 1 Gbps service, but Huval said Google’s project could speed the pace of development.

He said the advantage that Lafayette offers for Google is that the 1 Gbps speed would be easier to achieve here because the city has already installed fiber lines in most areas.

LUS application chose to present what some might say were Lafayette’s weaknesses in such a competition into strengths—to turn the fact that we already have fiber and some of the fastest, cheapest speeds in the nation into a testament to the community’s dedication to the vision of a faster, cheaper, community-controlled network.

But another part of the difficulty in applying for Google’s support is that the LUS network is not an open network in the sense that Google set down as a condition for gaining its support. Google’s version of network openness is that of “open access” which means that any service provider could provide services in competition with LUS. LUS almost certainly can’t afford to travel that path. It can’t afford to take the risk that the much maligned (un)Fair Competition Act would be used to force it into a premature forced sale if it ran for even a short time a loss—particularly as the law’s chief consumer effect is to put a limit on how low the local utility can drop prices in response to price competition. (The enormity of that unfairness is whole ‘nother post. Or two.) The most immediately obvious problem is that opening the network to Cox invites the cable operator execute a double edged strategy that would use Lafayette’s superior network to undercut LUS’ network offerings on, say the high end, where its own network is bandwidth-constrained, while lowering its price for its low-end offerings to levels LUS would not be able or even allowed to follow. Cox would not, of course, be under any obligation to offer its low-end network to LUS at prices that would allow it to compete fairly over the cheaper, slower network. The slightest misstep in such an open access scenario would put our community’s hard-fought and very expensive network on the block for fire-sale prices. As much as it pains me to say it, unless circumstances change it simply would be irresponsible to open Lafayette’s network.

Of course, circumstances can change. LUS could conceivably reach a tête-à-tête with Google by promising to open their network to any provider that does not own a competing network in Lafayette….there might be something to talk about. Or Google could simply agree to shoulder Lafayette’s risk. It’d still be a cheaper way to build a network as all Google would have to do is promise to get the city out of any hole the new policies put it in. I doubt that LUS suggested any such thing (but would be pleased to stand corrected). Much more likely is that they put their best foot forward where they had a good argument and intended to deal with the hard parts when, and if, Google decided on further talks.

There is, however, another way to try and dodge the bullet of Google’s desire to experiment with an open network; one that I suggested. Eventually I went ahead and made citizens application on behalf of Lafayette that tried to make lemonade not only out of the lemon of already having a network (using the same approach as LUS) but also leaned on the fact that Google went to great lengths to insist that their experiment, well, was an experiment. As far as I can tell most analysts cynically assumed that all that “science” talk was feel-good misdirection meant to underline the fact that Google wasn’t trying to establish a toehold in the business of building a national network. It’s more likely that Google is being perfectly honest. Anyone who has thought much about the roots of their search engine and then watched them build services like Google Apps has to believe that experimentation is is the company’s genes. Google looks like a company that actually took the “knowledge-based” economy seriously. The bit about being the most profitable business in the world is a by-product of successfully making that commitment; not the goal.

What Lafayette could do is offer to make Google’s experiment a LOT better. To improve their knowledge.

Science wienies will tell you that a good experiment controls independent variables…and to make even a stab at that you have to have multiple conditions. Helping Lafayette reach a gig and installing the same experimental apps and resources it does in other “Google gig communities” would give the overall experiment a lot needed validity; it would let you, for instance, decide whether open networks OR local ownership or experimental apps were more important factors in rates adoption and levels of innovative use…or at least it would allow a researcher to think about it with at least some contrasting data. (To prove that Lafayette also cares about research itself I’d point you to the fact Lafayette did its own full-throated “pretest” evaluation of internet attitudes and usage—on its own dime. The DIY attitude extends beyond simply building our own network.)

Sooo…if you want a look at the ridiculously dense, full-throated, Lafayette fan-boi version of the idea that I submitted to Google you can have a gander for yourself: Google Lafayette, La Proposal

“Tech efforts getting noticed”

Sunday’s Advertiser carried a story that —as my father might have said—”Does Lafayette proud.” I recommend locals and fans give the full story a read. The article hangs its hook on Kit Becnel’s Academy of Information Technology (AOIT). A school within a school at Carencro High, AOIT prepares students for careers in the broad field of information technology and is affiliated with the national academy foundation. AOIT is a leader in the national academy and its leadership sits on several committees driving changes in the national program. The award cited in the story was actually given to Louisiana Public Broadcasting and showcases several of Lafayette’s tech jewels including LUS Fiber, LITE, AOC, and AOIT:

Louisiana Public Broadcasting partnered with Lafayette Utility System, Bay Area Video Coalition and Louisiana Immersive Technologies Enterprise (LITE) to enhance technology and instruction at Carencro High School. This project provided more bandwidth to the school, expanding instruction to include creation of 3-D models and training students for careers in technology.

But beyond AOIT’s award the article also delves into Durel, Huval, and Bertrand’s recent appearance at Google’s DC headquarters. Not surprisingly, since attendees at that conclave included the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Bay Area Video Coalition, and the CIO of San Francisco AOIT’s reputation was already well-known.

…many of those invited to the event at Google’s headquarters already knew about the academy and Becnel’s work.”The pioneering spirit exists in Lafayette with our LUS Fiber and the work and energy of people like Ms. Becnel,” Bertrand said at the meeting. “You’re going to hear her name again and you’re going to hear it a lot. The entire United States is envious of what we’ve done. It’s no small feat.”

Also in this mix is Acadiana Open Channel (AOC) who is providing support and training for AOIT. Part of the conversation

The invitation-only event in D.C. was a workshop on broadband and the public interest, and was co-presented by the Ford Foundation and the Paley Center for Media….”Their purpose was to talk about how digital public media networks should advance in broadband and enrich connected communities,” Huval said…

Lafayette officials discussed LUS Fiber, including how it is used in all Lafayette Parish public schools and is expected to be throughout the whole city by this summer. As the infrastructure portion of it nears completion, Huval said the focus will turn toward how fiber can be applied in both schools and the community.

That last (my emphasis) is what the community is waiting to hear. The benefits to education through the school system and to public media through AOC are simply the entering edge of the wedge.

The dreams continue to come…Huval, widely know for his prowess on the fiddle and his advocacy of Cajun culture, tossed out this one which will surely resonate with Lafayette’s Creole and Cajun communities:

“You could have the ability for a French immersion school to work on a project with students in Paris, France, and have this real-life collaboration,” Huval said. “The technology now allows you to have the exchange of ideas and understanding that you could only get in-person before. This is only the beginning. To have this little oasis of Lafayette, La. have the ability to do these kinds of things is really exciting for a lot of people.”

Perhaps unknown to Huval the futuristic dream of cross-cultural francophone educational collaboration is already being realized in a project organized by WSIL (World Studies Institute of Louisiana). The pilot project, underway currently, connects classrooms in New Brunswick, Louisiana, and Haiti. Students and their teacher collaborate through Lafayette Commons, a Lafayette nonprofit that supplies the educational edition of Google Apps and support to the project.

The benefit of a community-owned fiber-optic telecommunications system to Lafayette and communities like Lafayette lies less in the technology than in the fact of public ownership. Having built our own network we can now choose to do things to benefit the people and community institutions.

Building our network was the first step—and that is nearing completion. Taking the resource of our new network and firing up the process of doing something useful with it was the next step. That process has already begun.

(full disclosure: I sit on the board of AOC, the advisory board of AOIT, and help supply services via Lafayette Commons to WSIL’s project.)


Lagniappe: LUS and Lafayette have applied for the Google Gig FTTH project; apparently as a direct result of conversations held at the meeting in DC according to an exchange I had with Huval…more on that surprise when I get a little time.