Notes From Breakout Sessions

Mendocino County Broadband Conference Break-out Sessions The following topics, issues, and questions were discussed during Break-out sessions in our last April 8 Broadband Conference in Fort Bragg. For a narrative summary, please check out video clips on our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ukiah/Mendocino-Broadband-CommunityInitiative/68735666694?ref=ts Note: a Facebook account is NOT required to view this page.

1. State/Federal Funding Opportunities • Who in Mendocino County will take lead? County & Colleges? • How to access ARRA funds? For what purposes? • CSD/SD – How to qualify? • Digital Redwoods Project to serve RCC Area. • www.ntia.doc.gov/broadbandgrants - comments by April 13. • Who will support the public/private network after it is built? • What is the timeline for these projects? • Is there enough need from public partners to warrant a project/network that is large enough to also serve currently unserved/underserved areas in rural areas? 2. E-Commerce to Stimulate Local Economies • The health of our community depends on getting new sources of revenue because traditional ones are falling away. • Must have broadband to keep our kids here on the coast and to attract new people to move here. • Telecommuting is a big need for a rural population. Save the time and costs of driving to town. • Need affordable service for everyone. • Home based business can get even stronger with broadband. • Businesses can get more jobs from the outside if have high speed Internet and then can hire more people to do the work. Need it to grow our competitive edge. • There is an assumption by those outside of here is that we all have high speed and it is embarrassing to say we do not. Inequality not acceptable. • Staff training is a big factor to do on broadband. Reduces expenses when do not need to drive over the hill • • • • • • •

Strategy – Need to know what our options are. What each type of service is cable of? Opportunities – Grow a business, bring in employees from other areas. Belief that we all have broadband capabilities. What are the bandwidth requirements for high tech (Silicon Valley) businesses to locate in Fort Bragg? Visitor attraction – They expect it! Need – Business from home on their off hours.

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Need – Identify customer base. Need – Better understanding of what is available. Educate! Attract visitors – market. Training for employees; Cost cutting. Keep up with technology. Belief that everyone would have Broadband. Opportunities – Save money by telecommuting; reduce carbon footprint. Cloud Computing. Challenge – No new residents to move here due to lack of residential services. Identify customer base in Broadband.

3. Telemedicine • Mendocino - best place to live, not the best place to have a stroke! • Medical Specialty deficiency. • Needs (Medical Profession) greater than supply. • Reimbursement. • Bandwidth barrier. • Reduce Patient transport. • Expand to homes. • Reach MDs at their homes.. • Share health records. • Will save lives. • Robot Trials.

MRI

PIPE

Clinics Homes Patients Medical Provider U.C .

Hospitals (local)

4. Library Services • The library is the broadband resource of last resort. You can get only an hour on their computers, but if you bring your own, you can stay all day and even overnight in your car parked outside. By the way, the one-hour limit is

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suspended if you are taking a test on-line, or are writing a resume. There is software installed to help people write resumes. There should be ways to let libraries own e-books, which could be downloaded into a Kindle or Sony reader for free, or a very small fee, but which would have a short lifetime in the device. Library usage is going up. Funding is going down. Hours are going down. New books are fewer. There can be environments where noisy people can do noisy things online, such as game playing or conferencing. It just requires scheduling.

5. Policy Workgroup • Outreach to be pro-active vs. re-active. • Need for participation in public process to advocate for communication facilities. • Need to develop mechanisms that creatively develop standards to cause development of infrastructure with development. • Code requirements vs. reality. • Inclusion of infrastructure in road design – public roads vs. private roads. • Co-work location, coop business locations, need to mesh with zoning regulations. • Performance enhancement via code compliance. • Need for regulations to be adaptive to changes in technology. • Inclusion of communication infrastructure in development guidelines. • Entitlements can protect the provider and hinder development. • Development of fiber connection, co-location or other infrastructure opportunities in granting new commercial towers. • Welcome follow-up input. 6. Schools & Colleges, Distance Learning • Everyone has broadband access – Libraries (hubs), homes. • Partnering to leverage funds. • Lack of bandwidth video. • Who gets the Revenue? • Declining enrollments. • Filtering. • Systems reliability – power network. • Students widely dispersed. • Aversion to lack of face-to-face. • Teachers, specialties. • Reach home schoolers. • Connect drop-outs. • Connect remote students. • More offerings – 5%-20%. 7. Demand Aggregation • The public needs to be more informed about the longer-term benefits and what they do not know is coming which will increase their need and usage. People

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just don’t understand that they need it now and more later. Maybe do an Electronic Town Hall like they did when they were organizing participation in MCN. Rennie can do an interactive questionnaire or survey to get a market survey. He would frontload the process with a pledge of support. MCN came up with thousands of people who would buy the service. Need neighborhoods to work together to get a whole road together to pledge support UP FRONT so no issues later when the service is available. This will streamline the process by handling the neighborhood dynamics early on. It is best to bring the service to every assessor’s parcel now for future buildout. Need community coordination and change leaders to work on this project in each area Need to help people understand that having Broadband will help the economy, which gives more tax money to fill the potholes, get computers in schools, and all the things taxes are used for. Start to educate people with the personal benefits in real daily life, then for the community. How will it enhance the quality of life? We would not need to drive over the hill so often. We would get to watch grandkids in Europe grow up with video conferencing. Get them excited about all there is on You Tube to inform, educate and delight. Teach them the joys of the new social relationship tools like Facebook. Need to teach them to “long for the immensity of the sea”. Get broadband declared a public utility for all to get prices regulated. Video conferencing is an important need especially in isolated areas like ours. This should be conceptualized at the county (or four county) level to scale costs. Need targeted testimonials telling stories about broadband benefits. Need neighborhoods to voice need & willingness to pay affordable prices. Broadband must be a public utility. Video conferencing in isolated areas. Need public meetings to show video – county programs. Public awareness of need – benefits. Internet will increase economy which increases money for pot holes, schools, services. Do another survey to get pre-registration.

8. Legislative Advocacy • There were three legislative reps there, and they all agreed on a lot of issues. They want to help. They want to be kept informed, but they DON'T want t get pages and pages of data or plans or applications. KISS (keep it simple, stupid) is the advice. If we want them to represent us before a committee, or to write a letter, they want the information they need in a few paragraphs. • Also, they would rather communicate with one person per organization, so we must have consensus.

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The public needs to be informed about the laws, about the government and about the technology. The legislators need to become informed about the technology. There is $7.2 billion out there. If we don't get a piece of that action, it will be our fault, not the legislators. They are on our side. But they are not allpowerful. The U.S. Senate is a special case. Since we are rural, it may be useful to work with rural organizations nationwide, because they can get the attention of a senator from Wyoming more easily than we can get the attention of a senator from California. Our legislators will pay more attention to a larger project. It will bring more votes. On the other hand, organizing pays off big-time Feinstein/Boxer Reps: If you represent a larger group -> roll up – County is better than community (resolution), regional (multiple counties) (all w/ resolutions); Let them know the groups who are supporting it. State Reps: Even when working at the Federal level, keep state reps informed. They may get coordination of developments before us. Give contact names who will be responsible for letting others know. Field Staff: Periodic emails – preferably from consistent sources. Prepare them for questions they might be faced with. Poss forewarn them of letter of support needs. Language – Keywords to include (common to all non-metropolitan areas). Keeping doors open. Beyond the local need to link with other constituencies. Work with states who are more rural than us -> more voice in those states -> legislative advocates for rural needs. Support letters from legislators. Give them the time necessary to act (weeks). 1) know the protocol of each office. 2) provide suggested wording. 3) make sure they know all the groups supporting the project. Stay on top of current legislation by “subscribing” online State & Fed Bills. FCC comments due by 4/13/09. What is broadband? What is rural? What is “unserved” and “underserved”? Application – Cross sector: marry community with needs to serve public services, emergency services, health, etc… Summary of applications – Communicate with field reps -> a set of facs (take to committee memorable); summary action of key points; draft correspondence & who it needs to go to; as brief as possible (less is more. This is a dynamic process); Ask clearly.