Creating a “Producer Network” Advantage

Brenda van GelderDirector, Virginia Tech eCorridors Program

EDUCAUSE MID-ATLANTIC REGIONAL CONFERENCE January 13, 2005

“Producer Network” defined

• Technically, it must be– symmetrical

– multi-megabit per second

– leveraging internet protocol technologies so that it is optimally functional for the most advanced applications

• It also must be– affordable

– ubiquitous

Presentation Overview

• A discussion of the opportunities available for higher education institutions to participate in developing producer networks

• An examination of a number of examples of successful producer network participation by higher education institutions

• A summary of the benefits to higher education institutions as a result of creating a producer network advantage

• Your experiences, ideas …

Opportunities

• Build goodwill with the community and region.• Provide research and field experience for students.• Minimize costs and reduce duplication of efforts.• Explore and establish creative public-private alliances as

means of deploying and testing new communications technologies both on and off-campus.

Opportunities (con’td)

• Enhance K-12 education by facilitating access to advanced network infrastructure that reaches local schools and libraries.

• Help to educate town and regional leaders, as well as state and federal policymakers, to help bring about a regulatory framework that supports affordable, open access to advanced network infrastructure for everyone.

Examples - research

• Research and field experience for students– Virginia Tech eCorridors program has graduate students

participating on a working group to develop a strategic plan for broadband network infrastructure for the New River Valley Planning District Commission. The students have utilized new GIS tools to develop strawman network architecture designs for the PDC.

– The Albuquerque High Performance Computing Center of the University of New Mexico has been working with the Pueblo Tribal Nations of New Mexico and the Bands of Mission Indians in California to be testbeds for a Statewide Wireless Tribal Broadband Network proof of concept.

Examples – research (cont’d)

– Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network• Its mission is to: • connect more people to Internet and broadband

services;• develop open-source hardware and software for

use by wireless projects world-wide; and, • build and support community-owned, not-for-profit

broadband networks in cities and towns around the globe

Examples – reduce costs

• Reduce higher education institutions’ costs while increasing options for access to infrastructure

– The Center for Appalachian Network Access (CANA) • The vision of CANA and Carnegie Mellon is to create a network of

similarly connected rural sites that create considerable economies and efficiencies of scale for the communities, states and region.

• It is expected that the individual communities will benefit from the installation of high speed access

• that the individual sites working in concert with neighboring sites will benefit from regional development strategies and

• that the entire community of CANA sites will benefit from cooperative purchase/sale agreements, best practice development and knowledge sharing.

Examples – private sector

• Leverage relationships with private sector vendors– University of California, San Diego: UCSD and its

partners have received a grant for $5 million Digital Village Grant from Hewlett-Packard.The three-year Digital Village Grant includes the construction of high-speed, broadband connections between 17 Indian reservations and the Internet, and includes the donation of HP products, services, consulting, and support.

Examples – private sector (cont’d)• Pennsylvania State University

– AT&T donated 500 miles of 24-strand single mode fiber optic cable worth more than $2 million to Penn State to support several pilot outreach projects within communities across Pennsylvania. Penn State Outreach will use the fiber optic cable to help close the digital divide in rural Pennsylvania communities that identify themselves as needing help in establishing high-speed Internet connections among public buildings, such as public schools, libraries and hospitals.

Examples – private sector (cont’d)

• Case Western Reserve University, Cuyahoga Community College, Cleveland State University– Founded “OneCleveland.org” a nonprofit provider of a

community-based ultra broadband networking services to educational, governmental, research, arts, cultural, nonprofit and healthcare organizations in Greater Cleveland.

– Subscribers to the network are connected to each other and the Internet backbone at gigabit speeds. OneCleveland also works with technology companies and its subscribers to develop and deploy next generation applications and services that take advantage of the network. Much of its equipment was donated by Cisco.

Examples – influence policy

• Educate policymakers and influence policies by establishing a dialog with state legislators, policymakers and community leaders– Virginia Tech eCorridors Program has published a

number of papers to help Virginia legislators understand the process and resulting implications of policies impacting the options available to localities for access to telecommunications infrastructure. This was made possible because the university had an ongoing relationship with localities desiring to obtain access to producer network infrastructure.

Examples – influence policy (cont’d)• UT-Austin

Telecommunications and Information Policy Institute. The Telecommunications and Information Policy Institute (TIPI) was established in May 1996 by the University of Texas at Austin, in response to the unprecedented opportunities in Texas associated with telecommunications. Originally established as a statewide resource, TIPI has grown to play a key role in advising both the public and private sectors in setting priorities and allocating resources at the state, national and international levels. As an interdisciplinary institute, TIPI engages faculty scholars from diverse colleges and departments from the University of Texas and various institutions of higher learning worldwide.

Examples – influence policy (cont’d)• Actively get engaged with efforts by Educause

Broadband Policy Group to affect change at the federal level and to influence policy. This coming year is a particularly exciting one for telecommunications policy making, as the FCC is revisiting the Telecommunications Act and will be rewriting major portions of it. The ability of communities and regions to build their own producer network infrastructures is one of the high-stake issues that is being debated and for which policy will be created.

Educause Broadband Policy Group

• The BPG recently published "Broadband America - An Unrealized Vision." This white paper articulates a higher education vision for a national broadband strategy, including recommended goals and action items federal policymakers should consider when crafting future telecommunications regulatory policy.

• http://www.educause.edu/LibraryDetailPage/666?ID=NET0409

Kenneth Massey, developer of Massey Rating System (9500 webpage ‘hits’ per day)

Kenneth Massey, developer of Massey Rating System (9500 webpage ‘hits’ per day)

Each week the BCS relies on Massey ratings for college football rankings

Each week the BCS relies on Massey ratings for college football rankings

Summary

• By participating in local and regional producer network infrastructure efforts, your Institution will benefit in the following ways:– More options for connectivity to your campus and to your

community of students, faculty and staff– Reduced costs for network access as a result of competitive

choices in advanced infrastructure and services– Greater visibility and constituency for your distance learning

programs as well as a more technology-literate student base– High “sizzle,” marketable innovations– Influence with local and national policymakers to help them

understand your technology needs and interests

Now let’s hear from you

• Please share your ideas and experiences. Is your institution already participating in a producer network effort in your community or region?

• Do you have other ideas on how institutions can participate in such efforts?

• Can you think of additional benefits that can be used to ‘sell’ involvement in such efforts to higher institution boards/ management?

Contact Information

Brenda van GelderDirector, Virginia Tech eCorridors ProgramOffice of the Vice President for Information Technology 1700 Kraft Drive, Suite 2000 Blacksburg, VA 24061

Phone: 540.231.1853e-mail: bvgelder@vt.edu www: http://www.ecorridors.vt.edu