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- Question: Now that the funding for border-to-border no-residence-left-behind highspeed broadband access in Vermont is at hand, what could stop us from fulfilling our e-state dream? (see here for the good news on funding). Answer: Us! Question: How can we save us from ourselves? Answer: Un-sunset 30 V.S.A. § 248a. To understand this bureaucratic answer, read on. The plan for extending...<br clear="both" style="clear: both;"/> <br clear="both" style="clear: both;"/> <a href="http://ads.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=8fd3e21c6cca50221530d6020886b818&p=1"><img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://ads.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=8fd3e21c6cca50221530d6020886b818&p=1"/></a> <img alt="" height="0" width="0" border="0" style="display:none" src="http://segment-pixel.invitemedia.com/pixel?code=TechBiz &partnerID=167&key=segment"/><img alt="" height="0" width="0" border="0" style="display:none" src="http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-8bUhLiluj0fAw.gif?labels=pub.29436.rss.TechBiz .9195,cat.TechBiz .rss"/>
Question: Now that the funding for border-to-border no-residence-left-behind highspeed broadband access in Vermont is at hand, what could stop us from fulfilling our e-state dream? (see here for the good news on funding).
Answer: Us!
Question: How can we save us from ourselves?
Answer: Un-sunset 30 V.S.A. § 248a.
To understand this bureaucratic answer, read on.
The plan for extending highspeed broadband to every residence depends on radio links using next generation cellular technology called LTE. The technology will provide us mobile as well as fixed service through a single account. It will indubitably lead to improvements in coverage for cellular voice service as well. But there's a catch. The base radios for this service ? like all cellular services ? need antennas mounted above interference. Although some of these antennas can go on public buildings and in places like church steeples, many if not most of them will have to be placed on towers. And most of these towers will be new. If we already had towers in the unserved parts of the state, those parts of the state wouldn't be unserved.
The towers can't be invisible or they won't work. At a minimum, the antennas need to be mounted twenty feet above the tree tops. If there are multiple service providers on a tower, which we hope there will be, the antennas for each service need to be separated by ten vertical feet. In general the tops of towers will be forty feet or more above the tree tops. Towers in high places are also a good thing from a communication point of view and high places aren't invisible either.
Although most people in a given area will be happy with new service, it is inevitable that some of those with the best views of the towers aren't going to want to have towers built in their view. NIMBY ? Not In My BackYard syndrome ? is a fact of human nature; it's not unique to Vermont. But those who oppose projects of any kind have learned how to use Vermont law ? particularly Act 250 review by District Commissions and local zoning reviews ? to impose very long and often fatal delays on projects.
Remember, the federal stimulus money awarded to Vermont Telephone (VTEL), the Vermont Telecommunications Authority (VTA), and others must be spent within three years! If these projects are unreasonably delayed, they may literally never get done.
When the Vermont legislature enacted Governor Douglas' e-state proposal in 2007, it recognized the danger that NIMBY poses to execution of this ambitious plan. To assure that tower-building didn't get unreasonably delayed, it allowed applicants for projects of three or more towers to go to the Public Service Board (PSB) rather than District Commissions for approval and set strict timelines for hearings. Moreover, local jurisdiction over these projects was preempted by this new 248a process. The 248a process was deliberately modeled after the procedure used by the PSB for electric utility projects. To oversimplify, Act 250 review considers only the negative aspect of a project including aesthetic impact (towers aren't invisible); 248a review requires the PSB to minimize impact BUT allows for the reasonable mitigation of impact by the public good that comes from a project (you need towers to get coverage).
Town by town review of multi-tower projects would be impossible. If one town insisted on re-siting one tower, than other towers would have to move to avoid coverage gaps and the project would start all over again. The 248a single review of the whole project by the PSB solves that problem.
But the whole authorization for 248a reviews expires (sunsets) July 1, 2011 ? just when we're likely to need it most. Very simply, execution of our e-state plan for border-to-border broadband and cellular access depends on the next legislature and the next administration cooperating on a bill to removes the sunset clause. The language is as simple as "30 V.S.A. § 248a(i) is hereby repealed." This should happen in January at the start of the new legislative session so that project planners will know that they can become project builders in a reasonably short time. We have a lot to do and we can't let NIMBY stop us.
E-State
- Yeah, wow! Last week we learned that Vermont Telephone Company (Vtel) was awarded an $81 million federal grant and $35 million loan for its Wireless Open World (WOW) last mile broadband infrastructure project; Vtel will add $30 million of its own equity. It's hard to overstate the significance of this project, particularly in the context of the middle mile grants...<br clear="both" style="clear: both;"/> <br clear="both" style="clear: both;"/> <a href="http://ads.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=86eb300b48b5abc388dc2d1436c01958&p=1"><img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://ads.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=86eb300b48b5abc388dc2d1436c01958&p=1"/></a> <img alt="" height="0" width="0" border="0" style="display:none" src="http://segment-pixel.invitemedia.com/pixel?code=TechBiz &partnerID=167&key=segment"/><img alt="" height="0" width="0" border="0" style="display:none" src="http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-8bUhLiluj0fAw.gif?labels=pub.29436.rss.TechBiz .9195,cat.TechBiz .rss"/>
Yeah, wow!
Last week we learned that Vermont Telephone Company (Vtel) was awarded an $81 million federal grant and $35 million loan for its Wireless Open World (WOW) last mile broadband infrastructure project; Vtel will add $30 million of its own equity. It's hard to overstate the significance of this project, particularly in the context of the middle mile grants we were awarded just last month, our sustainable adoption grant, our Smart Grid grants, our mapping grants, the state's Backroads Broadband program, the capital appropriation of $4.5 million to the Vermont Telecommunications Authority (VTA), a 1200 mile fiber backbone buildout by VELCO on its transmission network, our public safety network project (VCOMM), other public investments, and continuing investment by the state's private carriers.
Basically all of the capital is in place for Vermont to achieve its dream ? very high speed Internet and cell service everywhere, leading the nation in broadband rather than following, having telecommunications be a reason companies move here instead of an obstacle to economic development! It's now up to us to execute ? don't underestimate the difficulty of that. I'll write more shortly on what execution means now that the money is in hand; but the rest of this post is about VTel's WOW plan and how it gets us to universal broadband coverage.
Specifically, Vtel is providing three things with the money: fiber to the home in their "traditional" service area around Springfield, Vermont; wireless Internet access reaching virtually all of the estimated 15% of Vermont residences which can't get good broadband today as well as many small businesses; and neighbor-to-neighbor training to "show how broadband can help find jobs, improve schools, start businesses, access federal and state assistance, and enhance rural life."
All of Vtel's current telephone and broadband customers in fourteen towns in the Springfield area will get fiber to their homes and what Vtel describes as GigE service. A gigabit is one thousand megabits (you knew that, right). GigE means speeds up to one gigabit per second (1 gps). Vermont's minimum standard for acceptable broadband is 5 megabits per second (5 mps); so GigE is 200 times the minimum and more than a thousand times faster than basic DSL ? forget about dialup. We don't need GigE speed today; we will someday, though; and it's good to be way ahead of the curve. Vtel sells this service now as a $34.95/month addon to a few of their customers. It does have a 500 Gigabyte monthly limit after which extra charges are assessed, however (there are eight gigabites in a gigabyte). BTW, GigE service is what Google had been promoting for nationwide service and plans to demo in some lucky location. According to Vtel President Michel Guite, Singapore hopes to complete a GigE network by2014; he promises we'll have ours by 2012 or 2013.
In the unserved areas of Vermont, VTel will be building an LTE network ? LTE (Long Term Evolution) is so-called fourth generation (4G) cellular data technology. It is the technology which both AT&T and Verizon Wireless are planning to deploy in their networks as are most of the world's major carriers (some, like Sprint, are betting on a similar but competing technology called WiMAX). Note that what we are getting is so bleeding edge that it hasn't been commercially deployed anywhere yet; there's a risk in that but lots of benefit in being a leader. LTE should be capable of data rates well in excess of 10 megabits (10 mps) in each direction and upgradable to much more. It is a mobile technology so your smart phone or laptop or netbook or iPad or Kindle will be connected not only at home but also as you travel.
Indubitably one of the reasons why Vtel got the second largest award announced in this round nationwide ? 10% of the total awarded ? was that VTel has been investing its own money for years to acquire wireless spectrum (space on the radio waves in Vermont). This spectrum is a rare commodity and is required to offer this service.
The award that Vtel got is only for broadband coverage; there are no stimulus funds for cellular deployment. But the LTE network Vtel is building is the kind of network cellular carriers plan to use both for voice and data. In fact, more and more smart phones already support voice over IP (voice on a data network) so that services like Skype can work. Three years from now, when this network is fully deployed, I'll be very surprised if it isn't filling most of the gaps in our cellular voice coverage.
So, WOW!
Personal
- Next June'll be my 50th high school reunion. The class is putting together a book and we were all asked to write an essay of 400-750 words on what we've done since graduation. Here, in 748 words, is mine: Harvard would have been just an enjoyable waste of time if I hadn't had to learn to program computers to get...<br clear="both" style="clear: both;"/> <br clear="both" style="clear: both;"/> <a href="http://ads.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=ef3c11cfffcec0f1899f1aab89f4a256&p=1"><img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://ads.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=ef3c11cfffcec0f1899f1aab89f4a256&p=1"/></a> <img alt="" height="0" width="0" border="0" style="display:none" src="http://segment-pixel.invitemedia.com/pixel?code=TechBiz &partnerID=167&key=segment"/><img alt="" height="0" width="0" border="0" style="display:none" src="http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-8bUhLiluj0fAw.gif?labels=pub.29436.rss.TechBiz .9195,cat.TechBiz .rss"/>
Next June'll be my 50th high school reunion. The class is putting together a book and we were all asked to write an essay of 400-750 words on what we've done since graduation. Here, in 748 words, is mine:
Harvard would have been just an enjoyable waste of time if I hadn't had to learn to program computers to get a job in the computing center to pay my tuition. When I graduated ? knowing I would be a novelist and just needing to earn a living, there were more jobs for computer programmers than people with a BA in History and Lit.
I programmed at Equitable Life in NY, then at Union Carbide in NY and Chicago with a brief intermission for active duty training in the National Guard. Even a short time in the army taught me what it was like to be a hopeless underachiever - "your other *** left, Evslin". I did get to serve in both the Chicago Convention and the Bobby Seal riots, however.
Started a computer consulting business, Solutions, in 1969 and moved to Vermont soon after. Married for the first time in 1973; son Jarah was born in 1975. Wrote the first software for bank to automated clearing house (ACH) transactions and Solutions became a software business. Was elected town moderator, probably to shut me up during town meeting.
Married Mary in 1979 and have lived happily ever after. She came with Kelly. Kate was born soon after.
Ran for the US Senate in 1980; lost. Was Vermont Secretary of Transportation for two years. Went back to Solutions, which Mary had been running, and switched from mainframe to micro software. I wrote and she sold the first Macintosh communication programs.
Sold most of Solutions, including me, to Microsoft in 1991. We moved to Vancouver, BC, where I ran another Microsoft acquisition (their first email product) and the remnants of Solutions. Later moved to Redmond and led the email group and development of what became Outlook and Exchange.
Left Microsoft for AT&T in 1994 after a disagreement with Bill Gates over the future of the Internet. AT&T put me in charge of their Internet strategy; and I led the development and launch of their first ISP, AT&T WorldNet. We popularized flat-rate, all you can eat dialup Internet access at $19.95/month.
But I couldn't convince AT&T to invest in VoIP ? basically it meant cannibalizing the (then) lucrative voice business. Knowing that the majors weren't going to invest in what we thought was a great new technology, Mary and I started ITXC (Internet Telephony Exchange Carrier) in 1997 in our poolroom (Princeton equivalent of a startup garage). It was a good time for raising money; VCs camped on our doorstep.
We developed technology to use the Internet to carry the middle of calls placed from one phone to another ? mainly international. Our customers were phone companies. Actual callers didn't know or care that they were using VoIP. This allowed us to use the cheap pipes of the Internet and to undercut the monopoly rates on international calls that phone companies liked to charge. We became the seventh largest wholesale carrier of international calling minutes in the world.
ITXC went public in 1999. Roller-coaster. First day opened at $12; closed at $27. Went as high as $127 on one heady day when we were also at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Then the Internet bubble burst; went as low as $1 before recovering a little. We weren't invited back to Davos.
Fought off a hostile takeover attempt in 2003 but were then in play and were acquired in 2004. ITXC is now part of giant Tata Communications; Mary and I retired.
I finally wrote my novel: hackoff.com: an historic murder mystery set in the Internet bubble and rubble. Self-published, over-estimated demand, and still have boxes of them left. Will give out free at reunion.
We moved back to Vermont and got involved in trying to get better rural broadband. Mary was founding Chair of the Vermont Telecommunications Authority.
In early 2009 Governor Jim Douglas asked me to be Vermont's Chief Recovery officer (Stimulus Czar). He said he needed someone who both had startup experience (the state was about to get $1 billion) and knew where the men's room is at the legislature (I had been Transportation Secretary 30 years before, remember). Some of the money was well spent; some not; a lot still hasn't been. But we will have a smart electrical grid and much better broadband.
Am now Chief Technology Officer for the State working on energy and telecommunications policy and using IT much more in state government. That'll end sometime before reunion and I'll re-retire and see what comes next.
