White

Paper: Act Locally First and Act First on Advanced Connectivity

Act Locally First and Act First on Advanced Connectivity

Prepared for the U.S.UCAN Task Force on Community Anchor Network Economic Models

April 15, 2011 Shaun Abshere, WiscNet Associate Director

Comprehensive communities must be connected not just locally, but nationally Without U.S. UCAN, community anchorswill be unable to use advanced broadband applications with the vast majority of other anchors in the U.S., and will be limited to communications with just nearby anchors. Agree Definitions and Implement Fundamental BTOP Strategy. Community is a primary focus of the BTOP Comprehensive Community Infrastructure program that funded the U.S. UCAN proposal. So, too, is the concept of community anchor institution (CAI). The Task Force should settle the definitions of these concepts (and others that derive from them; see below) and remain alert to competing definitions that may adversely change the focus of your recommendations or the sequence in which U.S. UCAN staff and their collaborators carry them out. For all to succeed, firm ideas and timing are everything. A familiar BTOP-compatible definition for community is a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality or region, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage. A common belief is that a community institutes and sustains a variety of diverse organizations to meet specific social needs (which is a BTOP-compatible definition for CAI). A community sometimes may ask its diverse CAIs to work together over time to overcome a complex social obstacle, such as the lack of advanced broadband services, which a single CAI acting alone cannot address effectively. This belief -- that diverse local CAIs should and will associate actively to comprehensively deliver a complex community-improving benefit -- is fundamental to the Obama Administrations strategy for BTOP: The strongest [BTOP] proposals are the ones that have taken a truly comprehensive view of the communities to be served and have engaged as many key members of the communities as possible in developing the projects.
[Lawrence Strickling, Administrator, US-DOC-NTIA, March 2 2010] [Executive Summary, U.S. UCAN BTOP Proposal, March 2010]

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Keep Well-Connected Shared Locality the Early Focus of U.S. UCAN Economic Models. How, then, should U.S. UCAN begin the work of connecting together widely distributed comprehensive community infrastructures? How should U.S. UCAN help CAIs to connect to its national backbone via dark fiber and through associations that CAIs control? As a first principle, the Task Force should recommend that (1) well-connected shared locality be the early connectivity-focused strategic organizing principle in U.S. UCANs concept of community, and that (2) U.S. UCAN postpone an emphasis on the competing service/application-focused definition of community as shared community-service sector (e.g., only those CAIs which comprise a local/regional/national healthcare provider community). A U.S. UCAN economic model that prematurely diverts resources into custom efforts for particular community-service sectors rather than focusing resources now on enabling well- connected localities will work against the establishment of BTOPs comprehensive community infrastructure strategy. It will divide many communities anchor institutions into the Haves well served, well connected and the Have-Nots. While U.S. UCAN may come to offer services and applications of high value to particular community-service sectors in many specific localities, the Task Force should recommend that until all BTOP-funded CCI projects are completed, connected and well-established, U.S. UCAN and its collaborators focus on programs and services that comprehensively and inclusively promote advanced broadband connections for the greatest number of diverse institutions in specific localities and without regard to their specific community-service sector. Our experience in Wisconsin (see below) is that over time and with sufficient community connectivity, a single-minded, comprehensive focus on connecting many types of individual CAIs will evolve naturally toward the demand for services and applications by CAIs that amplify their effectiveness within their own community-service sectors and, as importantly and inexorably, across both similar and dissimilar community-service sectors. What to Prefer and What to Resist in Scaling U.S. UCAN Economic Models. Given this BTOP strategy that wants both comprehensively-connected and community-engaged CAIs, U.S. UCAN must carefully select the scale and the means to be of feasible, credible service to ultimately several hundred thousand diverse CAIs. To meet this scale challenge, the Task Force should strongly prefer an economic model that aims specifically at entities formed by CAIs which organize and associate in an inclusive, ongoing manner to benefit their specific localities by controlling and sharing advanced broadband connectivity (preferably using dark fiber) and services. The Task Force should strongly resist endorsing an economic model, programs or services for U.S. UCAN that (1) gives little or no impetus to joint engagement and local collective action by
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diverse CAIs to get advanced connectivity or that (2) gives premature impetus to community- service sector-specific application development. Gracefully Transition Internet2 Sponsored Education Group Participants (SEGP). If U.S. UCAN receives from Internet2 the responsibility to serve the SEGP-connected educational institutions, museums, libraries, art galleries, and hospitals now active in 39 states, then the Task Force should recommend a transitional economic model and plan that gracefully terminates the SEGP program. Importantly, the Task Force also should recommend that U.S. UCAN staff, in partnership with Internet2 SEGP sponsors and Internet2 connectors, immediately begin providing outreach programming and consulting services to the SEGP-connected institutions that will assist them to get advanced connectivity and to form or join CAI network associations (defined below). Focus on Local CAI Network Associations. The Task Force should recommend that the primary community entity of interest to U.S. UCAN be the local CAI network association, defined as an organization of diverse CAIs which share (1) a continuing interest in serving a specific locality or region, (2) a common purpose to control, govern and sustain an advanced broadband infrastructure in their locality that will connect them to the national UCAN backbone and (3) a common goal to use advanced broadband applications with both community-wide and global reach. Importantly, beyond the definition given above, the Task Force should not recommend a set of U.S. UCAN requirements to officially define a CAI network association. Matters of governance, legal form, legal obligation, fiscal agency, and so on should remain local matters; what matters to U.S. UCAN should be how to leverage the joint engagement and local collective action by diverse CAIs first to enable advanced connectivity and later to stimulate the demand for advanced services. Focus on State UCAN Membership Associations. The Task Force should recommend that the primary state entity of interest to U.S. UCAN be a state UCAN organization, defined as a membership association whose members include but are not restricted to local CAI network associations in their respective state. To support a SEGP transition, the Task Force also should recommend the inclusion of SEGP- connected community institutions in the state UCAN organization. Similarly, this state association also might serve those CAIs that must delay forming or joining local CAI network associations. Pending its broader recommendations on business and membership strategies (see below), the Task Force should consider recommending that these state UCAN organizations take the role and responsibility to act as U.S. UCANs intermediary, aggregator and agent for serving local member CAI network associations in their respective states.
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In this role, for example, a state UCAN organization would have the primary mission and responsibility in its state to extend U.S. UCAN resources and its own resources to assist CAIs and their local CAI network associations get advanced connectivity. Recommend the Connectivity-Oriented, Scalable BTOP-compliant Business Strategy. The Task Force should analyze whether a U.S. UCAN business strategy will be both (1) feasible and (2) comply with BTOP commitments if U.S. UCANs primary customers are fifty similar state UCAN associations where each serve in their respective states no more than several hundred local CAI network associations and a legacy group of formerly-SEGP-connected individual institutions which are steadily migrating into local associations. For comparison, the Task Force also should analyze whether an alternative U.S. UCAN business strategy will be both (1) feasible and (2) comply with BTOP commitments if U.S. UCANs primary customers are either an indefinite number of dissimilar intermediary organizations or the hundreds of thousands of individual CAIs that are spread across the United States 3.5 million square miles, or some hybrid of both. Consider Wisconsins Applicable Experience. We at WiscNet believe that the first business strategy described above is preferable and more likely to succeed because it anticipates and serves at manageable scale the community- motivated and economically-driven migration of diverse CAIs from their standalone connections into shared broadband infrastructure governed by local CAI network associations. Weve witnessed and supported just such a growing migration in Wisconsin for the last eleven years. Our successful BTOP proposal is built around serving just such local CAI network associations, both existing and new. Our statewide associations strategic plan for 2011-2016 continues to put local CAI network associations and their advanced connectivity at the focus of our service delivery strategies while also meeting our SEGP obligations. For these reasons, we believe that the Task Force should consider whether our successful technical and economic implementations of the connectivity first, local CAI network association and state UCAN membership association concepts should be adopted and promoted by U.S. UCAN as national best practices. Define Measures of Success for Comprehensive Connectivity & Community-Engagement. To sharpen and quantify a U.S. UCANs strategy focused on comprehensive connectivity and community-engagement, the Task Force should recommend three fundamental external measures of success: 1. Annual increase in the national count of local CAI network associations with advanced connectivity to the UCAN national backbone 2. Annual increase in the national count of active CAI network associations
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3. Annual increase in the national tally of CAIs with advanced connectivity to the UCAN national backbone All local CAI network associations, no matter their source of infrastructure funding, should be of interest to U.S. UCAN. (The Task Force, of course, also might recommend a derivative measure that annually counts how many CAI network associations with BTOP-funded infrastructure are served by U.S. UCAN or its collaborators.) Stratify UCAN Membership. The Task Force also should recommend that U.S. UCAN staff collect and analyze relevant governance and business practice documents from those existing regional and state R&E networks which serve the broadest spectrum of CAIs as a necessary first step toward refining the initial principles, roles, responsibilities, and economic relationships between U.S. UCAN, the state UCAN associations and their member CAI network associations (subject to the exception that such a model charter should not limit the organizational innovations created by local CAI network associations). Based on this analysis, the Task Force might recommend, for example, what role that the state affiliates (e.g., a state library association) of the national CAI community-service sector associations (e.g., American Library Association) active in U.S. UCAN should play in the selection, formation and governance of the state UCAN organization. While community-service sector associations vary considerably in their mission, charge, authority, etc., many can play a constructive part helping promote and develop CAI participation. In the 39 states with approved SEGP programs, the Task Force should recommend that U.S. UCAN staff invite each states (1) Internet2 SEGP sponsors, (2) Internet2 network members, (3) Internet2 connectors, (4) BTOP-funded CCI projects and (5) pre-BTOP CAI network associations to convene and mutually select an existing association (e.g., the state R&E network) or establish a new entity to serve as the state UCAN organization. We at WiscNet think that it is crucial for state UCAN organizations to use existing organizations already committed to the same ends, such as state R&E networks, and to make such organizations an integral part of any new structure. This state UCAN organization will represent and serve the states current and future CAI network associations, presumably in the form of a statewide membership association, and also represent and serve the legacy SEGP-connected institutions. In the remaining states, the Task Force should recommend that U.S. UCAN staff invite each such states Internet2 university and network members and Internet2 connectors (if existing) to jointly convene an effort that includes BTOP-funded CCI projects and pre-BTOP CAI network associations to mutually select an existing association or establish a new state UCAN entity that (1) will be identical in function to the formerly-SEGP state UCAN entities (described above), (2)
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will join U.S. UCAN as the states representative member and (3) be in all other ways identical in membership rights, privileges and fees as a formerly-SEGP state UCAN member. The Task Force should recommend that U.S. UCAN also take the form of a national membership association and seek such state UCAN entities as its primary members from these formerly-SEGP states. Let Natural History Guide the Timing of UCAN Service Profile. If the Task Force recommends a business strategy that includes identifying U.S. UCANs primary customers as fifty similar state UCAN associations which each serve in their respective states (1) several hundred local CAI network associations and (2) a legacy group of formerly- SEGP-connected individual institutions which are steadily migrating into local associations, then the corresponding U.S. UCAN service profile strategy should take into account what we know about the timing of service demand in long-lived CAI network associations. In Wisconsin, an eleven-year-old local CAI network association has been served continuously by advanced broadband connectivity at national, regional and last-mile scales. The Chippewa Valley Inter-networking Consortium exhibited the following natural history as they grew in count-of-members and service-sectors: Early Stage: Each CAI seeks advanced connectivity that benefits its parochial interests. CAIs primarily seek to connect their own multiple sites. CAIs principally want improved Internet access to external resources. Important return-on-investment justification: aggregate applications within each CAI. Maturing Stage: CAIs seek connectivity that mutually benefits multiple similar CAIs: e.g., healthcare providers share advanced applications (i.e., within service-sector). Educational institutions and libraries share advanced applications; Government and public safety entities share advanced applications (i.e., across similar service-sectors). Mature Stage: Multiple dissimilar CAIs seek mutually-beneficial shared connectivity and applications: e.g., public safety entities share applications with healthcare providers; Government and education share data and applications (i.e., across dissimilar service- sectors). The Task Force should note the changes in demand from advanced connectivity to services and the expansion in customer-focus over time across a broad spectrum of CAIs served by this comprehensive community infrastructure. The Task Force also should note that CAIs interest in and support for shared/advanced application development does come but in later stages

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(which suggests that U.S. UCAN has time to consider its above the network application service strategy). Consider an Early Stage Bundle of Services. Given the preponderant number of CAI network associations that are in (or yet to begin) an early stage, the Task Force should recommend a timeline for U.S. UCAN service deployment which corresponds to this natural history derived from actual experience and local success. For all CAIs, whether in CAI network associations or not, the important early stage network service that U.S. UCAN should provide is indirect and direct assistance to get advanced broadband access to the UCAN national backbone, e.g., to commodity Internet network sites and services delivered through and probably mingled into the network service provider portfolio of the state UCAN association. An early stage bundle of U.S. UCAN services (preferably offered through the state UCAN membership associations to their local member CAI network associations) might focus on national standard services that credibly and economically meet the demand to build organizational capacity within these local CAI network associations to provide effective governance, network and fiscal operations that are transparent and efficient, shared technical support and similar sustaining functions. A similar early stage demand for national standard capacity building services likely will exist in those state UCAN associations that are not existing statewide membership associations with network service portfolios, e.g., state R&E network associations. For example, its likely that many state UCAN associations will welcome and even purchase national-quality consulting services that help them settle how to equitably, economically and efficiently deliver a statewide network service built on aggregating many independent local CAI network associations; defining and staffing such consultancies are an opportunity for collaboration with StateNets and The Quilt. If U.S. UCAN receives from Internet2 the responsibility to serve the SEGP-connected educational institutions, museums, libraries, art galleries, and hospitals now active in 39 states, then U.S. UCANs early stage service bundle must meet the demand for how to gracefully manage the transition of these CAIs to equivalent or better services offered by state UCAN associations or local CAI network associations. Here, too, the important U.S. UCAN services likely will be outreach programming and consulting services, in partnership with Internet2 SEGP sponsors and Internet2 connectors, to the SEGP-connected institutions that will assist them to form or join CAI network associations and get advanced connectivity. Use State & Local Associations to Aggregate UCAN Services. Pending its broader recommendations on business and membership strategies, the Task Force should consider recommending that the state UCAN organizations defined above take the role

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and responsibility to act as U.S. UCANs intermediary, aggregator and agent for serving local member CAI network associations in their respective states. Similarly, the Task Force should consider recommending that a state UCAN membership association consider each local member CAI network association as its preferred intermediary, aggregator and agent for serving the specific localitys community anchor institutions. Adopt Early Stage UCAN Cost Recovery Strategies and Mechanisms. The Task Force should recommend that U.S. UCAN take the form of a national membership association whose primary members and customers are the state UCAN associations. The Task Force should recommend that the early stage cost recovery mechanism be that U.S. UCAN publishes a rate-card for network access services that quotes an annual or longer-term fee to provide a committed level of national network access. As members of U.S. UCAN, the state UCAN associations will participate in the decision on fees and hold U.S. UCAN staff accountable for costing practices and management of expenses. For non-network services that might reach into the operations of either state UCAN or local CAI network associations, the Task Force should recommend that U.S. UCAN staff develop early stage cost recovery strategies that assume state UCAN associations will re-sell these services to their local members and that U.S. UCANs customer remains the state UCAN association. It should remain the prerogative of state UCAN associations whether they pass-through or mark- up the U.S. UCAN fees for consultancies, training workshops, etc. Conclusion. U.S. UCAN and its current and future collaborators should focus first on meeting the need to build comprehensive advanced connectivity and collaboration among CAIs at the community level. Act locally first and act first on connectivity. U.S. UCAN staff should recognize, work with, and build on the successful local CAI network association and state network membership association models that already exist. Contact. Direct questions on this paper to: Shaun Abshere, WiscNet Associate Director, 608-265-3790, sabshere@wiscnet.net

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