This is a partial reconstruction of the Lafayette Pro Fiber blog that John St. Julien ran for many years, chronicling the grassroots fight for and establishment of LUS Fiber in Louisiana. Many of the links have gone bad and images are missing, but most of the ideas are here and we believe well worth preserving. Site archived by the Community Broadband Networks program of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.
Some of the articles that have disappeared are still available via the WayBack Machine.
What’s Being Said Dept.
Broadband Reports has consistently provided the nation with coverage of the fiber fight in Lafayette since the battle first was joined. And it’s always interesting to see what the commenters have to say.
They’ve got a story up on the new pricing. Take a look.
Its-a-Thought: “your choice packages,” not “bundles.”
It was probably inevitable in our commercial culture that the news about product, pricing, and availability would be almost the sole focus of reporting and comment about yesterday’s fiber announcement. At one level that really isn’t the most important point: ownership of our own resources and the bare fact that the system is real will have much greater impact down the road than today’s list of commercial details.
But even on the level of commerce…you know, “bundles” in the usual commercial sense are not really the best focus of conversation. That’s because LUS is not offering bundles, not in the usual commercial sense.
Bundles in the usual sense are special “deals” for a range of services put together by the operator that includes a long-term contract and lower prices for an introductory period. The idea is common across business sectors but has become an article of faith in the telecommunications industry with triple-play and even quad-play industry focal points.
In the world of telecommunications retailing bundles do two things, one good and the second bad: 1) they provide a convenient one-stop alternative for consumers weary of tracking 3 or 4 different communications bills, and 2) they serve to lock-in consumers into one provider by making the best prices only available if you take multiple services from that provider. Lock-in works in pretty directly: You can be locked into a contract—like the one-year deals Cox is pushing right now—with a penalty for leaving early to go to a more attractive competitor—like LUS. Lock-in contracts also usually include a promise of a cost increase during or at the end of the contract period. Much of the good deal is a temporary come-on designed to entice you to buy beyond your comfort zone and become dependent upon the service by the time the real price reappears. That’s all standard economics. (And one reason why thoughtful people still call economics “the dismal science.”) More subtly: the near-monopoly that some users find themselves facing can result in lock-in as well; if a bundle is the best way to eke out a decent price and, for instance, only one company offer decent internet or cell service in your neighborhood you can feel forced to buy their bundle–for the price–even though you’d be better served by choosing a phone from AT&T, cable from Cox, and cell service from Verizon….
Bundles are all about reducing customer freedom in exchange for a (usually temporary) price break.
But that’s not the way LUS’ bundles work — and why bundles are a misleading way to think about the LUS Fiber offerings. The focus should really be on how much it costs to put together a package that serves you best.
What’s missing from LUS’ systems is lock-in. 1) There is NO contract involved. The deal you get on day one is the only deal. Leave the moment you want with NO penality. NO programmed-in cost jump because there is no contract to hide one in. 2) There is NO linkage involved. Buy one service. Buy two. Buy three. Buy all the extras, Buy none. NONE of that has any effect on your base price for another service. One price, all the time. The price for 250 cable channels or 50 megs of symmetrical service remains the same. No linkage also means NO penalty for using one service from LUS and one from Cox or AT&T.
That’s NOT a bundle in the usual commercial sense. Which is why “bundles” is not the best way to think about the question of getting the best deal on your telecomm services. First ask which services from which providers are best for you? Make up your own “freedom package” —”your choice package.” Then add up the real costs for that “package.” My guess is that mostly that will be three services from LUS. But you can mix LUS tiers freely and tack on services from a competitor without penalty…or at least no penalty from LUS. Do the math. The real math not the fake “bundle math” the incumbents will try to stick you with.
I can pretty easily imagine customers who will decide to pony up for 50 megs of symmetrical internet, drop all phone and cable services and limp by with cell service and downloadable video. I think that’d be rare. But the point is: LUS won’t punish you by jacking up the price on your internet if you drop their phone line. Try dropping Cox’s cable and keeping the phone service. Don’t think you’ll keep the same price on phone…
The reason for the difference, and it can’t be stressed too much or too often, is that LUS’ consumer is also LUS’ owner. LUS is treating you, the customer, with some fundamental respect because, in the end, it is motivated to do best by you, the owner. The privately owned competitors have the same motivation—to do the best by its owners. But, for the private sector, acting in the best interests of its owners is NOT the same as acting in the best interests of its customers. With LUS it is. And, in the end, it is just that simple. We made the right decision on that July 16th, 2005.
So comparing Cox’s or AT&T’s offerings to LUS’ offerings is a little hard. But it’s not really apples and oranges. Maybe more like comparing oranges and grapefruit. You’ll get your vitamin C from either. But you’ll probably find one version goes down a lot more easily.
All the usual local media suspects weighed in with coverage of LUS’ Fiber announcements at last night’s city-parish council meeting. If you comb through the media landscape you’ll find bits from KLFY, KATC, The Advertiser and the Advocate.
If you’ve just got time for one: read the Advocate. It’s more comprehensive and is the only one to mention the announcements of features that will truly set Lafayette apart even in the rarefied ranks of fully-fibered cities. On the free internet-over-the-TV feature for digital subscribers:
LUS Director Terry Huval said the basic residential service will also allow customers without computers to have basic Internet browsing capability through the television.
“We think it may well be the first in the world,” Huval said of the television-based Web browsing capability. “It’s for the child at home trying to do a book report and cannot access the Internet today.”
On the 100 Mbps of intranet, customer to customer, connectivity:
All customers on the LUS fiber system will be able to exchange information with other fiber customers at 100 Mbps, Huval said.
The Baton Rouge Advocate also covers pricing, tiers, the launch date, and the likely first neighborhoods to get fiber.
The Lafayette Adverstiser, and local TV station KATC and KLFY restrict their coverage to pricing and rollout details, though KATC does mention the fact that LUS bragged on being the only “100 percent fiber optic network and the only customer-owned telecommunications network” in Lafayette. There’s also a bit of video at KATC.
In a story that headlines the front page the Advertiser fleshes out the details on the residential bundles; lays out the plan for business bundles, and makes clear the places where the first customers will be served.
They’re all worth a gander and report slightly different parts of last night’s ephocal announcement. Take a look.
It’s certainly a nice Christmas present for Lafayette.
UPDATE 3:35: Terry Huval, in the best tradition of local responsivness, went down to the Advertiser site and answered questions from all comers. (Starts here.) Great stuff! It takes several pages and a lot of ground is covered. This is one of the few times that reading the comments is worthwhile—and Terry does it using his real name, a rarity in the not-so-courageous atmosphere of the Advertiser site. It’s all pretty respectful, thankfully. I suspect that this is because the denizens there are stunned by dealing with someone who 1) puts their reputation on the line by using his real name, and 2) really knows what he’s talking about. That’s the natural basis for respect.
(Try getting a response, any response, from Randall Stephenson or Patrick Esser. They’re the heads of AT&T and Cox respectively. Never heard of ’em? And they’ve never heard of you or your neighborhood, nor have any idea that there is an Advertiser or an Advertiser forum. That’s my point. You’re better off with Terry. And he plays a mean fiddle, too.)
LUS Fiber is here. Welcome to your future. That was the message as LUS director Terry Huval stood before the City-Parish Council and laid out the near-term deployment plan and the basic products that will be offered by the new community-owned network. Joey Durel, in his introduction, took visible pride in the system, saying that they had under-promised and over-delivered—something which he’s a bit paradoxically claimed was his startegy from the start. If that was the plan; they’ve met their goal. The network’s first offering of services is more than I’d have said possible or likely when we were first thinking about it. —But not more than I and others fought for as ideas about the community’s network matured. (One of the huge advantages of owning your own network is that you can make suggestions, fight for them and sometimes help open the door to new directions. Local, public ownership, frankly, is an innovation as important as any technology to LUS’ success.) It’s a world-class network that we’re building. We’ve every reason to be proud.
I’m goining to hit the highlights here but if you want to see the goods for yourself visit the LCG Auditorium channel at ustream.tv and watch the archived video there.
As always, the LUS presentation was tightly and logically structured: Huval broke the power point into news about the rollout & construction, pricing, unique features, and customer service.
Rollout & Construction
First and foremost, the January date for lighting up the first customers is holding. Just who, when, and how many remains vague but the system will launch with paying customers next month.
Fiber will rollout first at the two ends of the “phase 1” area building out from fiber huts—”hubs”— located on the grounds of the power substations at each end of the build area. The first customers will apparently be signed up in the area around the Acadiana Mall at the southwest end of the build area and those in the Northeastern segment served by the “PEC” substation will also start seeing availability. (See my Google map, or LUS’s version to get an ideaof the geography involved.)
click in to examine your neighborhood or View Larger Map
When fiber becomes available on your street every address will get a nifty piece of mail announcing: “LUS Fiber is here. Welcome to your future” reversed out of a light blue background. Watch closely for that distinctive piece of mail. And then call.
Pricing & Tiers
The big announcement today was was the service plans and prices. The short story is that more-for-20%-less promise is being kept. And in some situations it MUCH more.
Here’s a list of the pricing bundles. In some ways it’s misleading to call it a bundle since bundle’s usually mean some complicated formula for discounting the price of the services if you buy an approved bundle. LUS’ packages won’t work like that. There will be no penalty for mixing and matching service levels like there are in the incumbent’s bundles. All the service are offered for a single straightforward discounted price. Clean and simple and easy to understand. And no attempts to entice you into spending more for service levels you don’t really want in order to get a price break for something you do want. (Why? Hint: you’re being treated with the respect accorded an owner.) So you could order the top tier internet and the cheapest Video and Phone, or NO video and phone, without penalty.
VIP (Video, Internet, & Phone, get it?)
Video: expanded basic: more than 80 channels $39.95
Internet: 10 Mbps Up and down. $28. 95
Phone with services: 15.95
VIP Silver
Video: over 250 channels incld High Def $63.31
Internet: 30 Mbps Up and down. $44. 95
Phone with a long list of services & 5 cents a minute long distance: 28.95
VIP Gold
Video: over 250 channels incld High Def plus Premium Movie suits $98.09
Internet: 50 Mbps Up and down. $57.95 (wow)
Phone with a long list of services & unlimited long distance: 43.95
More for less. —Now some will try to point to the cheapo bundles that Cox is already offering (and for whose existence you can thank the threat of competition) but those aren’t “real” prices, lock you into a set of services for a year or more that you might not want, isn’t customizeable, and is a LOT less product. How much for an internet tier to compare with LUS’ 30 or 50 meg tiers? There really is no similar product from Cox or AT&T. For value the LUS prices can’t be beat considering the number of channels or speed of the offering. But there is no truly cheap, low end offering. Cox offers a 768 kbps thing they call “high speed internet” for goodness sakes. That’s cheaper than LUS’ 13 times faster 10 meg low tier…but not, I think, much of a value. Of course, LUS really low price for internet is access free…and probably works at at least 768 Kbps—see below.
Unique Features: Digital Divide & 100 Mbps Intranet
These are the bragging points—and pretty impressive they are too…taken together I think they are truly unique to Lafayette.
LUS’ response to the Digital Divide question is to enable the internet capacities of their digital set top box. Using a limited browser a user will be able to read email and do basic web surfing on their TV. And Lafayette is going to do it For Free. There is not surer way to get folks online than to package it into their cable service. Once the rollout is complete Lafayette will inevitably become the most connected city in the nation. Technically, at least. Now helping folks use that capacity fruitfully is a whole ‘nother matter. And properly something the community shold pitch into to do. (Any takers?)
The 100 Mbps intranet has been discussed on these pages for a long time. Suffice it to say that any regular customer will have access to blinding 100 meg speed over the internal community intranet. Want to download the 6 hours of one of those interminable contensious council meeting? In HD? No problem. It will come down in a flash. Video telephony. Shuttling those huge files will become trivially easy—if only inside our net. That will encourage businesses and tech-oriented citizens to locate inside the city…which might do more to encorage “smart growth” than any suggestion I have heard to date.
Customer Service
There’ll be two customer service centers down the road. The customer service people—both in the buildings and on the streets—will be your neighbors.
And….
Finally, I’d have to say that LUS didn’t talk about one of the greatest features of our network: the money you spend on LUS, the money that gets you more for less, will stay here in Lafayette and won’t be shipped off to some high rise in San Antonio or Atlanta.
Frankly, it’s all we asked for initally and more…it’s fiber to the home with its near-infinite expandability. It’s cheap. It will be offered to every last person and business in the area. We will own it and can do with it what we like — and both the 100 mbps intranet and the digital divide initiative are the products of local folks pushing for them and evidence that community ownership can make a huge difference right off the bat. Sure there’s more that I can hope for and fight for now. But on this day to have all the hopes that we held back in 04 realized is enough…It’s amazing. A dream realized.
Terry Huval will make a presentation at tonight’s city-parish council meeting. According to a council member the LUS director will lay out more details about the soon-to-be-launched system. The address will occur during the “President’s Address” segment of the agenda at the beginning of the meeting. This low-key, unannounced address will be the most comprehensive and authoritive description of the network’s products in Video, Voice, & Internet. I expect a status report on the state of the channel lineup, the extent of Video on Demand serivces, service tiers, pricing on tiers, the probability of caller ID and emergency data shown on-screen, Internet speed tiers, digital divide plans….and more.
The council is, in effect, the “board of directors” for LUS and it is appropriate enough for them to hear the proposed details first. The nice thing is that we, the public “stockholders,” get to listen in.
At 5:30…
To Attend In Person:
@ 705 W. University Avenue, Ted A. Ardoin City-Parish Council Auditorium (City Hall)
To Attend via Cable TV:
@ AOC Channel 16
Asychronously rebroadcast:
Wednesday at 5:30 p.m.
Saturday at 1:00 p.m.To Attend via the Internet:
@ http://www.ustream.tv/channel/lcg-council-auditorium
And Asynchronously, anytime
@ http://www.ustream.tv/channel/lcg-council-auditorium
The Advertiser runs up the second local story anticipating the LUS Fiber launch this morning. Like the Independent story it unfortunately leads with what isn’t known. What’s far more interesting is what is… Still, it’s hard to write a story about the product launch when there is so little to report about the product’s standard commercial details. As the story reports:
…there’s been virtually no marketing or promotions surrounding the project, and officials have been quiet on details such as the channel lineup and what kinds of pricing packages will be offered. Also unknown is exactly when in January the system will be unveiled.
Parts of the article repeats things we’ve know but that are nice to see repeated: The January launch is still on. There will be “mulit-hundred” channels—with lots of HD. On Demand and Digital Video Recording (DVR) service. There will be caller ID on screen. And internet capacity will be huge. (Though, in an obvious editing error the 10 meg minimum low-end package gets presented as the maximum offering. That’s simply a mistake on the part of the Advertiser.) We’ll have 100 megs of intranet.
With the Advertiser reportw a few more interesting details leak out. About the set top box:
A small box also will be available in which customers who do not have regular online access will be able to access some parts of the Internet through their television. Huval said some features, such as videos, may not be available, but the goal is to bring the Internet into homes that otherwise might not have it without those customers having to pay additional fees.
That makes it sound as though 1) Any telecom subscriber will be able to get a box that enables limited Internet on the TV and 2) that it will be available without “additional fees.” That sounds good!
It also looks like they are contemplating some sort of community portal:
The televisions also could have several menus for users to choose from, with some featuring community news and announcements.
Terry Huval (LUS head) also addresses the reasons why local denizens would switch saying:
“Our pricing might be more attractive to them,” he said, adding that the costs are expected to be an average of 20 percent less than current providers’ standard rates. “The quality of the product they’re going to get is going to be superior. And it’s a local operation, tailored for Lafayette. We look at what our community needs. This system is owned by the citizens of Lafayette.”
Price, quality & hometown pride. I’m not sure what other reasons there can be…. I’m looking forward to signing up when it becomes available in my section of the first build.
Today’s Independent carries what will undoubtedly be the first many stories on Lafayette’s new community-owned fiber-optic system. It’s contains exciting details of the sort that will lead to extensive national coverage when they are officially announced.*
Sadly, you have to wait until the latter half of the story to catch a whiff of the excitement. The Independent leads with graphics, a head and a subhead that distract from what ought to be the meat of the story. While granting that there is more than a bit of the usual media tendency to try and generate excitement with sensationalized coverage, this wound is largely self-inflicted.
The Lead
First, note the dire graphics visible in the print/pdf version. Then see the Head: “Ready for Prime Time?” And Subhead: “Lafayette Utilities System is tight-lipped about its highly anticipated fiber-to-the-home telecommunications service, due next month. Will it live up to the hype?” If you read through to the end of the story you’ll find that the clear answer is “Yes!” But you have to make it down to that part—and be knowledgeable enough to be excited by the low-key presentation you find there.
LUS has certainly been “tight-lipped” about their project. And, frankly, with good reason—there is no reason to give Cox and AT&T any additional ammunition to use against our community.**
Still, letting fear of the incumbents be the reason for not talking to the community is the wrong decision and this story in a sympathetic local newsweekly is evidence of that mistake. Eye on the Prize: The overwhelming goal of LUS right now has to be to generate as large a number of enthusiastic users as is possible. The way to do it is drive excitement, enthusiasm, talk, and local pride. You can’t do that from a hunkered-down position. There comes a point where people sensibly assume that no news is bad news. And while there has doubtless been disappointments about issues ranging from contractors, to channel contracts, to the practical availability of nifty technical features not letting those questions arise and dealing with them easily as they are solved or explained hands the incumbents the advantage of introducing issues and setting the context—something they have proven time and again they will do in unfair ways. The ancillary benefit of dealing openly and forthrightly with things like channel contracts and contractor issues is that everyone grows used to Cox et al. making silly claims and with LUS regularly showing how foolish they are. In short order people decide they don’t trust Cox’s attacks even before LUS makes its explanation. That’s the way it worked during the fiber fight and that is how the community was inoculated against the last minute nonsense put out by the incumbents and their allies that worked so well elsewhere.
The upside of talking is that your community—and subscriber base—is both excited by the new features and understands their sensible limits. You can’t achieve even one of those necessary prerequisites to widespread adoption without an ongoing conversation.
The Meat
Now on to what should be the real meat, and the real excitement, of the story. First there is a restatement of what we’ve heard before going all the way back to the early discussion of the idea before the council…claims that some doubted would survive to the product launch. We see that they have:
LUS will sell phone, cable and Internet services individually, but Huval says the better deals will come with ordering the “triple play” combination package. That service of expanded basic cable — more than 80 channels — local phone service, and Internet service with a download and upload speed of 10 MBps will sell for approximately $85 a month. It will also include 100 MBps speeds for peer-to-peer Internet communication (when two LUS subscribers communicate with each other)[Note: that should be Mbps]. Huval adds that on average LUS’ prices will be 20 percent less than the standard rates now offered by its competitors.
The basic claims were always essentially: More for Less. That’s being realized with a full triple play, a full suite of channels, stunningly fast internet for the cheap tier, and a price level 20% lower than the competition. The 100 megs intranet was added after the initial promises and constitutes an exciting feature that only makes sense on a community-owned network. It’s a feature that requires some explanation (talk with the public!) to really appreciate. But among other things what it will make trivial is video telephony, easy sharing of any content–up to High Def Video, and all sorts of innovative small business models. Much of that would be made yet easier by making static IP addresses standard…or at least making the addition of such trivially inexpensive.
Other promises were for advanced services and since LUS has decided to go with an all IP system (something once in doubt) that will be relatively easy. In that department we’ll apparently get caller ID on the TV screen for starters but expect a raft of nifty integration features downstream.
Most exciting, because we’ve heard so little about it, is the set top box internet capacity…and it too requires explanation to fully appreciate. LUS will be the first, absolutely the first, to make the internet available to its users without having to buy a computer and a monitor. This is a huge deal that will immediately catapult LUS into the the head of the line in terms of the digital divide. Instantly Lafayette will have a larger percentage of its households capable of using essential internet services than any place in the nation. (Long-time readers will recognize that I’ve advocated this alternative before.) Realizing the potential of email (still the killer app of the internet) and even limited internet access will require education…and, yes, talking it up. The downside, and there is always a downside, is that the browser won’t be as capable as the one in your computer:
The TV browser is limited. It will only display Web sites that are Personal Display Assistant-optimized. PDA-optimized Web sites are largely text-based with limited graphics and pictures, and LUS’ TV browser won’t allow for any online videos. Huval explains the feature wasn’t put in place to allow subscribers to go to YouTube.com and watch a series of videos on their TV.
“It’s a light browser,” he says. “It’s not designed to have the kind of horsepower that you would have on a PC. It’s not to say we couldn’t do [online videos], but we’re the first ones in the United States trying this, and I don’t want to be pushing our system this early in our new business.
It’s good to be getting that news out there now…the idea that this is unique and forward-looking is absolutely true. (Trust me I’ve looked. Somebody in rural Canada sorta kinda used this feature for local information from the video provider; not general internet access no matter how limited. It was very vague info and may not have been the same box that LUS is using.) It is also true that this is limited. And that those limits should not have to persist. —The feature has been buried in advanced set top boxes for a long time, probably a decade and never turned on by the incumbents that sell services. (That, discouragingly, is not all that hard to understand: they want to sell a more capable, higher-priced internet package. It is only a community-owned network that sees the rationale in providing cheap, easy access to the whole community.) Because it was never turned on the feature has atrophied and never been upgraded by the producers…just carried forward in new models. Some of the underlying capacities are used sparingly for integration into WAP cell phone stuff (now dying) and interactive little picture in picture things for various set top box guides and the like. Not much upgrade is needed if none of the buyers are allowing the users to interact with the richness of the internet. So, in effect, LUS is limited by the decisions made by competitors that didn’t share its generous motivation. Here’s to hoping that actually having one visible customer that uses the full capacity of the internet features of the box will encourage the bean counters to expand that capacity. Really, this should be a software issue. Modern IP-capable set top boxes are already full computers capable of advanced video protocols, pushing HD quality video to the screen and with the hardware built in to negotiate multiple IP protocols…it should just be a matter of putting the package together and having a network customer willing to let their customers use it. LUS will be that customer
Exciting, exciting times. We’re about to get everything we asked for.
Footnotes:
*I expect an official announcement no later than the last city-parish council meeting of the year…that’s the last possible moment and that fits the (unfortunate) LUS pattern. An official Press Conference with all the bragging trimmings would be much preferred and would create more excitement than letting reporters and the public overhear a council power point. Still… Stay tuned.
** Recall that Cox and AT&T have consistently tried to destroy the network, and failing that weaken it, at every turn. Beginning with trying to pass a law to outlaw the idea, to achieving a very restrictive law that places unfair and anti-competitive limits on LUS (but allows Cox and AT&T to freely engage in the very same activities), to waging an expensive public relations battle to thwart the will of the community (which they lost resoundingly), to repeatedly suing the community after the loss (which failed repeatedly but achieved the purpose of delaying the launch by years) to, currently, running a website devoted solely to generating bad publicity about a competitor that doesn’t yet have the first customer (how often do you see that? Never. An anti-Panasonic site by Sony? Bad form.) No, LUS is right to think that the incumbents are out to get them and will take unfair advantage of anything that they know. That’s the clear history and to act as if it isn’t true would be irresponsible.
Lafayette, in the person of Terry Huval, participated in Monday’s “National Broadband Strategy Call to Action” in Washington. He was among a high-flying group that have worked to build a national policy to promote broadband availability and use. The signatories range from Google to AT&T to the American Library Association to the Communications Workers of America to Cisco to Teletruth to Internet2…and the Lafayette Utilities System. In short: a baker’s list of representative of every contending group that has an interest in promoting a more available and better internet.
Quite frankly some national policy is needed. It may come as a shock to hear that the US doesn’t have a policy—to hear that it doesn’t have a coherent approach to the most basic infrastructure need of our time. The record is clear: countries that have widely available, capable, inexpensive wired and wireless networks have them because they’ve instituted real national broadband policies. Not necessarily the same strategy—but some strategy. (The US experience is a substantial part of how we know policies work: the US is the clearest example of what happens when you lack such a policy: we dropped from 1st in the world to near the back of the industrial pack in the last 15 years and pay more for broadband than countries with much better service. Countries with a systematic plan have roared to the front—and saved their citizens real money to boot.)
Frankly, the whole Fiber Fight here in Lafayette has been a consequence of our national failure to deal with the issue. With a real national policy building our network would have been either 1) impossible (had the incumbents had their way) 2) explicitly legal and federally protected (had the progressives prevailed). A fight was only possible because there was no policy. So Lafayette has, as the highest profile and most successful battle to put in place a real forward-looking plan in at least one place in the US, involved in this issue for a long time. Lafayette is also involved because Jim Baller, LUS’ attorney and champion through much of the fight was the organizer and chief proponent of the gathering.
So, with such a long-standing good reason to get on with it why does the idea of a national broadband policy take off now? Well, Baller has been driving this forward on the basis of national pride and competitiveness and that provided some traction as the US continued to slip in the rankings. But with a new, progressive administration and the collapse of the financial market there is a the new acceptance of infrastructure construction as economic stimulus. It’s apparent that there will be a big(ger) stimulus package soon that shifts the emphasis from giving money to people who have made bad decisions to stimulating the economy by building things that we can all fruitfully use. With money on the table for the incumbents, the unions, and the equipment manufacturers the dawning possibility of actually getting a national broadband policy in place that will promote the interests of the municipalities, the internet companies, and the net citizen groups all see the value of coming to an accommodation before the moment passes. That may be (is) a somewhat cynical view. But it fits the moment it seems to me. Economic stimulus in hard times seems an effective motivator.
With some background out of the way on to the Call itself: It is only a call…not the plan itself. Probably the most important single accomplishment so far is getting such broad consensus on the idea of a national policy. To date the incumbents have fought the very idea of a national policy or promoted the idea that our current incoherent approach somehow constituted an implicit one. Getting them to help promote the idea that a policy is desireable is the biggest single accomplishment of the day. The meat of the two page call is the suggested goals.
Goals
- Every American home, business, and public and private institution should have access to affordable high-speed broadband connections to the Internet.
- Access to the Internet should, to the maximum feasible extent, be open to all users, service providers, content providers, and application providers.
- Network operators must have the right to manage their networks responsibly, pursuant to clear and workable guidelines and standards.
- The Internet and broadband marketplace should be as competitive as reasonably possible.
- U.S. broadband networks should provide Americans with the network performance, capacity, and connections they need to compete successfully in the global marketplace.
Even a cursory read of that reveals a lot glittering genralities…the “built by a committee” nature of the thing is apparent. Baller himself, during the introduction (see video above), spoke of the judgment of some that the call is “mealy-mouthed and watery.” His point the current document is only a start on a larger project. The call for universal, affordable access is particularly noteworthy. That, by itself, calls for a huge project to reach everyone and substantial change to the current structure of telecommunications policy.
And there are a few points of real progress: Beyond agreeing that a broadband policy is necessary and should be affordably available to all, the various interests seem to agree that broadband is infrastructure. Getting agreement there is a real advance. Even more specifically: both AT&T the Communications Workers union talk about an refreshingly ambitious target: a 10 megs standard and making broadband cheaper overall.
With LUS already setting up to offer 10 megs as their cheapo, slow tier and offering it all for 20% less Lafayette will have already met that goal. Nation, please take notice. Frankly, that should make it easy to see that the municipal alternative should be encouraged in any national policy….
Well it’s pretty last minute but…
Here’s something that folks interesed in tech, community, Lafayette, and/or the fiber network will be interested in: the LWV of Lafayette is having a noon meeting at the Community College that will feature a discussion with a number of our councilmen and one of the set of questions they’ve agreed to respond to is where they’d like to take our network in reference to issues like the Digital Divide, providing on-network services, and supporting an online version of AOC.
Got your own questions and suggestions? Come. Talk to the guys who really know and who make the final decisions.
Details: Time: 12/1/08, 11:30-12:00, social; 12:00-1:00, meeting
Place: Fine Arts Room of the South Louisiana Community College, Devalcourt Street
Google Map: 312 Delvacourt, Lafayette, La
UPDATE: I have been reminded of the really important parts by a polite piece of correspondence from a person I urged to come; that is: Food. Yes, food will be served. On the menu is what I am told is excellent gumbo and many of the League member’s favorite tidbits. Including, from our household, apricot bars. There will be a big pot, bring friends. Come!
Food For Thought
That’s Kevin Kelly sitting in the red chair on a darkened stage. He’s talking to an assembly of some of the world’s finest minds at a recent TED conference. He’s earned their attention by being, over the last 40+ plus years one of the most prescient thinkers on the globe. He not only sees real patterns — which is rare enough — but he has an ability to see the direction in which those patterns are moving. That’s a forbiddingly abstract talent and it’s always been hard for Kelly to make himself sound sensible when he first points to a pattern. It’s only later that his positions come to be taken-for-granted wisdom.
As you might surmise, Kevin Kelly has been a hero of mine for a long time; since the old Whole Earth Review through his work on chaos theory. His sort of integrative, obsessive, reportorial focus on what’s truly important is always worth listening to….and even if you are tempted to think that this time it might be a little over the top you should remember that he has pretty much always been right….
This time he’s on about the web. How amazing it really is. How amazing it is that we’re not just poleaxed by what we’ve got. How that’s only the beginning How the web is turning into an ever-more all-inclusive machine. And how that machine is evolving.
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Like the web you could just about take off anywhere in that talk and dip into some really fascinating and important stuff. For instance, Kelly mentions, in quick passing, photosynth. Long-term and retentive readers will vaguely recall that term; I posted on it back when I fell across the technology on the web. Take a look; I think you’ll see how it fits his thesis. Then consider: He considers that a throw-away line. There’s a lot of meat below that almost-glib surface.
Here in Lafayette we’ve got to start taking such stuff seriously. It’s now inevitable that we will be able to inhabit the leading edge of this brave new world when it appears. We’ll have bandwidth to burn in LUS’ 100 megs of intranet and the wireless network now abuilding and attached to that hard-wired backbone can provide ubiquity at speeds that will stun. (In my neighborhood mysterious black cylinders are being attached to LUS fiber on a pole on every block. As I walk past with my iPhone NAD a wifi network pops up….) But, frankly, having the hardware doesn’t give us the vision. We could use it to just give us “more” of the same—bigger bandwidth, better phones, more fun cable, all for less. And we should do that. But that is the LEAST we can do with our new network.
A network-centric future is upon us. The web will connect, for practical purposes, all points from hand-crafted links, to databases, to our relationships, to the bevy of things we make and use. What ties all that together; what makes it work; is how it is integrated. Right now we’re calling it “search” and Google is the god. But simple textural search and link-ranking (which is most of what Google does) is only the tip of the iceberg here.
What the world needs—and what Lafayette and a few other places are positioned to supply—is what will replace search. The new web needs big bandwidth and ubiquity—practically speaking a tightly integrated fiber-wireless network. The next web also needs the huge calculative power that Kelly mention but does not emphasize. Between LITE and ULL’s underutilized supercomputers we’ll have computational power to do the sorts of pattern recognition and integration that things like photosynth and other database integrative applications will need. Kelly notes that the new web will no be like the old web any more than our web is like television. The new way of making acessible all those things which the web will connect is the crux of the difference. I trust his insights there and can see the outlines of the patterns he points to.
What Lafayette, and other communities with the resources, should be doing is supporting and providing incentives for companies and individuals that want design for what only we can currently do: provide the next generation of integrative technologies—that which will replace search. Any x-prize, any portal, any support that does not take that into account will be missing the boat.
