Illinois
Broadband Deployment Council (BDC)
September
14, 2006, 2pm
SPRINGFIELD
ATTENDEES:
Ryan Alderks, Rochelle
Municipal Utilities; Joe Annett,
Alcatel; Jason Bird, City of
Princeton; Michael Dickson, WIU; Rex Duncan, SIUC; Ronald Duncan,
Shawnee Community College;
Bart Ellefritz, Office of Senator Durbin; Kay Gregg, Rural Partners; Dan
Hamilton, Mt. Vernon Net, Inc.; Tom Hampton, AT & T BCS Enterprise Select;
Brad Housewright, Heartland Communications and Internet Services; Melanie
Ignjatovich; Jody Johnson, University of Illinois Extension; Mark Kinkade,
Illinois Department of Transportation; Missy Kinsel; Pete Knopf, Illinois
Virtual High School; Dr. Dave Loomis, Illinois State University; Donna McCann,
McCann and McCann; John Miller, Illinois Deaf and Hard of Hearing Commission;
John Muhs, AT&T; Lynn Murphy, Illinois Century Network; Sara Nelson,
Senator Durbin's Office; Melville Nickerson, Citizens Utility Board; Mayor Chet
Olson, City of Rochelle; Deno Perdiou, SBC Illinois; Doug Power, Regional Development
Institute; Andrea Preston, Illinois State Board of Education; Marcelo Quiroga
Battelle; Drew Robertson, Movaz Networks; John Scrivner, Mt. Vernon Net, Inc.;
Deborah Seale, SIU Telehealth; Lori Sorenson, Illinois Century Network/CMS
BCCS; Terry Sullivan, Shiloh CUSD # 1-Edgar County CUD #6; Don Wood, Assoc. of
Illinois Electric Cooperatives; Philip Wood, Verizon; Ted Young, Illinois
Tollway Authority.
CHICAGO
ATTENDEES:
Katherine Dawkins, Digital
Educator; E. G. Enbar, Equip for Equality; Gerry Galloway; Dana Peissig,
Alcatel; Chuck Brown, Integrated Technology; Jose Cerda, City of Chicago; Tim
Collins, IIRA; Bruce Cooper, NOW Wireless; Tony Hylton, City of Aurora; Dan
Maloney, Comcast; Rex Parker, City of Park Ridge; Wally Pierce, Alcatel; ; Jill
Rendleman, Illinois Finance Authority; Shannon Rooney, Ald. Manny Flores;
Charles Wu, CW Lab.
The
Lieutenant Governor welcomed guests and thanked members of the council for
their participation.
Carolyn
Brown Hodge tabled the June meeting minutes for the next meeting pending
revisions.
IVHS
fits into the broadband conversation because they consider themselves a digital
content creator and aggregator. If their courses are to be interactive and
engaging, they will require bandwidth-demanding modeling, simulations,
streaming media, and work with large data sets. They remain challenged by the
fact that IVHS is also charged with making sure courses are designed for the
lowest common denominator in terms of connection speeds. IVHS would like to
design more courses for broadband, but many students only have access to
dial-up at home.
Katherine
Dawkins discussed laws designed to protect consumers against Internet dangers.
(A handout accompanied the presentation.) The Deceptive Trade Practices Act,
Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, Delete Online Predators Act
and Schools Safety Applying Faculty Excellence Act 2003 were reviewed. Then
some statistics on youth Internet use were presented, including:
·
77million
teenagers and children now use the Internet.
·
65%
of all of online
sexual solicitation or harassment incidents occurs in chat rooms
·
The
FBI arrested 1649 Internet predators in 2005
·
14%
of teens have met an online acquaintance in person
·
85million
children and adults use Myspace
·
Internet
pornography is a 4 billion dollar business
·
Over
$13 million dollars were lost in 2005 from online scams
Katherine
stressed defined the following terms: chat rooms, instant messaging, text
messaging, bulletin boards, social networking, spam and phishing.
Dave
Loomis à The effort to map broadband
penetration at the residential level by zip codes continues. The hope is now to
match Internet availability to underlying economic and demographic information.
Phase 1 – identifying local providers through the state – of the project is
complete. The final report will be ready by the end of the year.
Because
of proprietary concerns, broadband availability will be the main focus of the
study, rather than service and pricing options. In response to concerns that
zip code data will provide a less-than-comprehensive marker of broadband
availability, Dave noted this study is not the end-all-be-all, but rather the
beginning of an effort to understand broadband availability. At the study’s
end, he suggested, maybe zip code regions that appear the least developed,
should be further investigated.
John
Scrivner à suggested via teleconference
that the study should mention the prerequisite costs of service for the various
broadband options.
Lt.
Governor à encouraged everyone to
cooperate with the landmark study.
Rex
Duncan à Connect SI is a 20-county
community and economic development initiative that is considers the
availability of affordable BB as the driving force behind economic development
efforts.
It
exists to serve not simply Carbondale, but Edwardsville and places like the
SIU-Springfield School of Medicine.
Connect
SI seeks to identify and leverage existing fiber backbone(s).
He
stressed the need to make a business case for private and public players who can
mutually benefit from broadband deployment.
Lori Sorenson à ICN is engaged in strategic planning with its
statewide constituents. Its planning leadership committee includes community
colleges, universities, K-12, municipalities, and health care agencies. ICN is
developing a report on the future of its operations that will compare the ICN
to similar entities in other states, and chart its successes since its 1997
founding.
ICN has increased the
capacity of its backbone to support advanced research/applications, expand
access and have a network point of presence in every LATA (Local Access and
Transport Area). Last-mile challenge continues to plague the ICN. They are
always looking for last mile scalable solutions.
Successful collaboration with
regional network people (like NIU’s Power & Krause) help them deliver more
service. An
October 2 meeting at Parkland
in Champaign will finalize the ICN progress report, leading to a long-term
action plan with specific steps. ICN is also holding regional meetings starting
in October among core backbone, policy, and regional technology staff where
they will meet with constituents and survey their clients’ specific needs.
In October, ICN will announce
changes in cost recovery rates thanks in part to ICN’s merger under CMS two
years ago, which will permit increased capacity and lower costs.
This
will save money for educational, municipal, and health care customers.
Lt.
Governor à Have you discussed selling
ICN?
Lori
Sorenson à I have not participated in
any conversations regarding a sale of ICN.
Business
access continues to be a regulatory concern. CMS wants to hire regulatory
experts to assess implications of private network status or becoming a CLEC
(Competitive Local Exchange Carrier).
Lt.
Governor à Does ICN have as many
subscribers today as it once did?
Lori
Sorenson à Yes. There are over 7,000
ICN subscribers. But, especially in rural areas, some customers have
disconnected and gone to DSL. ICN v. DSL represents an “apples to oranges”
comparison. ICN offers guaranteed bandwidth and secured networks, unlike
residential broadband providers. Non-for profits are allowed to join, and many
do, especially in the Chicago area.
Mike
Dickson à Added that ICN does not own
any circuits or bandwidth. ICN is a group of users who band together through
state government to procure bandwidth for computer services.
In
essence they have no capital or infrastructure to provide, so they could not
sell any assets.
John
Scrivner à Added that he wants to be a
last mile provider for ICN in Jefferson County. He would like to see a program
for network operators to become “qualified” ICN distributors, in the same way
some larger companies have been able to.
Lori
Sorenson à Again, regulatory concerns
are implicated. Iowa’s ICN become a CLEC subject to many regulations and lost
its USF e-Rate access.
Rick
Johnson à Schools have left ICN to
join his CLEC for higher bandwidth and VPN access.
AT&T
has a wireless network for the entire city of Springfield in progress. SkyPilot
is handling the engineering and network design. AT&T is responsible for the
Internet gateway, web portal services, customer support, back office,
maintenance and repair work. Siemens will serve as the equipment provider and
installer. The wireless cloud will cover 25-30 square miles. Free 200kbps
Internet access will be available throughout this area, and it will be
supported through paid advertisement. The difficult part will be covering areas
surrounding the lake. This part of the network will be supplemented with
Cingular broadband services.
Higher
speed residential and business access will become available at daily, weekly,
and monthly rates. AT&T expects the Springfield City Council to authorize a
pole attachment agreement by mid-October, at which point the network design and
deployment can begin. The entire project will come at no cost to the city;
rather, it will be funded by the project participants (Siemens, AT&T and
SkyPilot).
Phil
Wood à Verizon DSL is expanding to 15 new rural
areas in Illinois, including the central & southern parts of the state.
Details will be sent to Carolyn Brown Hodge.
Carolyn
Brown Hodge à A consumer asked about
limited DSL availability in Macomb. Any ideas about whether Verizon will
increase capacity in this area?
Phil
Wood à This is a complicated issue better addressed
outside of the BDC.
Mayor
of Rochelle à addressed the value of
working together with municipalities, representatives, IDOT, and private
entities.
Deborah
Seale à Currently there is no reimbursement available
for mental health teleconferencing. Fortunately, states set their own rules for
Medicaid.
Lt.
Governor Quinn à Expressed an interest in
developing a law to address telehealth shortcomings in the state.
Dana
Peissig à Explained that Alcatel works
with state, local, municipal governments to establish public telecommunication
networks. He explained that his company returns 12% of profits to R&D. A
merger between Alcatel and Lucent will happen in the next 2 months. He noted that Alcatel can help rural
counties exploit local infrastructure (e.g. towers)
Jeff
à Invited interested parties to participate in
the wireless pilot project in Chicago’s Albany Park – Ward 33
Lt.
Governor à Thanked all those in
attendance and suggested Dec. 6 as a possible date for the next meeting.