After listening to the description last night at the Economic Development Commission, I’m worried and I’d say bad, unless you get involved and help our IT Director who admits he knows little about Web 2.0 create a better application.
MADISON’S IT DIRECTOR PRESENTATION
First, here’s the explanation by Paul Kronberger, City of Madison IT Director:
He had a hand out, which I didn’t get, but should be in legistar today and I’ll link it if I remember. He says Google made an announcement about Google Fiber last month, they are going to launch an experiment, so they are soliciting interest and applications for ultra high speed connections. They are looking at serving 50K – 350K people total. He says it could be two communities or several that are smaller, and idea is to provide significantly higher broadband connections, 100 times faster than we have today, they issued a Request for Information and they will use that to decide which areas they will build these in. There is very little details in announcement, no criteria for evaluation, they don’t know many they will select, etc They have a number of goals, they will make a significant financial commitment. The IT department talked about the general costs and came up with cost of $97M for Madison, that is a round number and rough estimate, that gives you idea of magnitude of investment. He says this is an experiment, what happens and what benefits we will realize are unknown, could be new generation of applications that are network intensive which we can’t even contemplate today. He says 20 years ago people asks what we would use a computer for? We did word processing, the computers were not networked, well things changed a lot in 20 years. Google has new network deployment techniques, they are employing and installing networks that are more cost effective and efficient, and looking for open access network through multiple access providers, some of goals. As far as what city is doing, we made a commitment to respond, they think they have a good profile for it, we have a solid infrastructure to start with, good economy, UW, high tech industry, highly educated community, substantial local investment. This could be a big boost for Madison, the direct benefit to residents is that is is not free but they say it will be competitively priced, we don’t know what means, they assume it will be reasonable, don’t know number of people who would get this type of service. The benefit to high tech and biotech industries would be the enormous increase in network speed, could do a lot for economic development. He says he’s not an expert in the area, but he is stating the obvious, there would be more jobs. In round numbers, stabbing in the dark, $97 million, divided by 92K = 1049 job years, they used a calculator on the internet to come up with that number and they are not entirely sure that is right but it sounds significant to him. They are working on the Request for Information responses. there is a long list of questions, which are straight forward, he is working with city agencies to pull answers together. He says there was also an interesting announcement in last day or two, the City of Madison was part of effort by UW for a fed grant for network MUFN (Metropolitan Unified Fiber Network), it is a $6M grant and that might make us more attractive. We are working collaboratively with other people, the School District and UW are supportive, also workign with County and State. The Request for Information asks about what kind of community support there is for this, probably within an hour of the announcement we got many contacts, emails and calls and he did not see a single negative contact. The gist was Madison you have to participate. There will be a public meeting late next week, they are still finalizing it, they have to get more public input, they are preparing a survey for website that mimics questions on the Request for Information to get specific input from citizens. To close on a broad note, there must be a lot of benefits to Madison if selected, can’t quantify them, but must be out there.
DISCUSSION
Mark Clear (?) asked what are Madison’s chances?
Kronberger says he is not sure, sounds like small number of communities would be chosen, could be 1000s applying, he thinks we have a good profile but ultimately not sure.
Doug Nelson asks when the Request for Information came out.
Kronberger says 3 weeks ago.
Nelson says that there was a letter of support handed out and will be in legistar tomorrow.
There were no further comments or questions at the moment.
PUBLIC INPUT – THIS GUY SHOULD BE DOING THE PROPOSAL
Nathan Lustig says he is here to talk about community efforts, he works for a start up Entrustet a high tech business. They created Capital Entrepreneurs which is 50 high tech start ups. About 20 – 35 meet up once a month and they created a page on their website that talks about how to support the initiative and why. They have a Facebook page, Forrest (in the audience) is one of administrators and they have 1100 members and it is growing quickly every day. They set up a Twitter page page, they are posting updates about why people should support it – that is what they are doing so far, there is support in the business community, its definitively good to have reliable and faster internet, not a lot of choices right now and it would be a great addition, he urge them to join in.
NOW THERE IS MORE DISCUSSION
Doug thanks him.
Tim Cooley, Economic Development Director asks where Request for Information is at and how to support their work?
Kronberger hasn’t looked in last few days, thinking about getting many letters of support and attaching it to the response, he’ll have a large group of those. He got a call from the State Department of Commerce and may even get a letter of support from the Governor. There will be other private businesses too, given the format of the Request for information, they think they will attach a list of supporting parties and individuals.
Cooley mentions that a city recently rename itself Google.
Kronberger says he just found out today. [eyeroll]
Younkers says we need to one-up them and someone has to name their kid Google. He echos what Nathan put forth, he says he is tied into high tech community, there is support and excitement and they are looking for ways to support it – it is there to tap into. Alot of people want to help out, however you want to work with that energy and excitement, it will be better for you to use, public meeting will hopefully be great and he will help get people to show up.
Joe Clausius ask if Milwaukee is working on it, he says they would be the biggest competition.
Kronberger hasn’t heard, but he will call and ask.
Clausius says that they would not likely choose Milwaukee and Madison.
Julie Stone says she joined the facebook group. She says that her recommendation is to think on line a little bit, create a goodle wave to join conversation, get attention with more than attachments, that would be smart.
Mark Clear says that part of puzzle and amusement is there is no indication of what would help or not help, rename city, letters of support, create on-line communities, if you look at which cities has most facebook members – grand rapids wins,they have 12,000 people, he feels like they need to channel their energy, but mysterious what might be useful and what would be waste of time, no criteria that Google is admitting to, if any decision at all.
Cooley says there is a Google office here, should engage them to work on it, would be helpful.
Clear says he is working on it.
WHAT YOU SHOULD DO!
1. Don’t wait for the city to do this for us!
2. Join the Facebook Page and tell your friends!
3. Follow them on Twitter and tell your friends!
4. Comment and show your support
5. Watch for the survey on www.cityofmadison.com.
6. Attend the meeting next week and bring a friend.
7. Lets not just attach letters of support for the project to the application, lets show them we are creative and use technology!!! Add your ideas!!!!
