Terman Community Center, 661 Arastradero Road, Palo Alto, CA
Keith Cooley reported on the status of the ICT study of telecommunications for Palo Alto. Keith spoke to Bernie prior to the meeting who asked him not to discuss the specifics of the market forecasts. The 1st 2 phases are done - this included a review of existing telecommunications facilities and providers in the city, what other cities are doing, potential competition, markets, market forecasts, etc. The advisory panel has 4 members - Keith, a telecommunications expert, a representative from Stanford, and one from EPRI. They met with the head of the Utilities Commission Paul Grimsrud, Bernie Strojny, and Councilmembers Huber and Anderson. The city has an extensive coax network which includes microwave transmission and switches. ICT looked at 8 different services up to the year 2002. The Services are: leasing of bandwidth on a backbone network, leasing of duct space or pole capacity, leasing of dark fiber or cable, CATV, switched digital services, Internet access, switched voice and long distance voice. They predict the largest growth will be Internet access for small business & residential, followed by switched data services such as frame relay & ATM. They did the analysis by market segment and concluded that most growth would be residential. It was unclear how residents would benefit from city involvement or from competitors in the market. Would major outfits like MFS and Pac Bell just take care of large businesses? No projection was made beyond 2002. The report was not written for people without technical backgrounds. There was lots of criticism of the study by the panel because it wasn't clear and lacked vision.
ICT now is looking at phase 3 and evaluating 8 different business opportunities such as leasing of bandwidth, leasing cable, switched voice, leasing duct space, the city providing various services, etc There is a mixture of options with city owned and leased vs. city leased from others either to use or resell being studied. It was suggested that the consultants be invited to speak to us. Bob noted that they made a presentation to Cable Co-op and said almost nothing because they were told not to be specific before the staff has reviewed and approved the report. They made it clear that they could not give any details before the report is presented to the Council. It probably would not be useful to have ICT if they can't discuss things. There is a need to get better information from the consultants, especially on benefits for the community. The 2 hour meeting spent 1.5 hours for the consultants presenting with only .5 hrs for discussion.
Those who offered to be on the PACOMNET committee discussing city telecommunications should convey their thoughts via e-mail to Keith. Keith will initiate discussion on PA-COMNET of our vision of telecommunications for Palo Alto.
Joe Huber will be invited to speak at the next meeting to give his perspective on the process and reports to date, and to get input from us and Keith. (He was contacted that day and agreeed to attend the Oct. 11 PACOMNET meeting to give his perspective, and to hear ours).
Richard Adler spoke on Seniornet. The project began in 1986 to see if seniors were interested in and could use computers and networks. Studies show that people over 55 are less likely to use computers. This probably is due to lack of access, and lack of direct experience in the workplace, not lack of interest. To counter this 75 learning centers or classrooms were set up all over, in libraries, schools, centers, etc. Each has a group of computers run by seniors. There's no center in Palo Alto, and the one in Little House in Menlo Park is no longer operating. The network was via Delphi but in 1991 it was moved to AOL which has a graphic interface. There are about 18,000 members, 4-5,000 active in AOL. Topics are health, social support, fitness, etc. Older people benefit the most from access because it counters loneliness and boredom.
There have interchanges with groups in Japan, students, etc. They have a web site http: network. The oldest member is a 102 year old woman in a nursing home. A major goal is to set up a site in Palo Alto. To do so they need space, 5 to 10 computers, and someone to set it up and run it. Most of the people who run centers are retired, often from places like IBM. Also they need sponsors to pay the costs, about $25,000 if there are no computers available. The senior center has computers and teaches classes, but the computers have no modems. It may be possible to give the seniors modems and get them hooked up relatively cheaply. Paul, Richard, Bob, and Jerry offered to work on setting up a site in Palo Alto. The most likely is the senior center,but others are possible.
Teresa Martin was introduced. She worked with the Boulder network which no longer exists. She is working on new media in San Jose for the San Jose Mercury, developing software and getting internet access for the newspapers, and making them service providers.
It was noted that getting on-line access can be expensive. An informal survey showed a range of providers and costs. We should report who we deal with and our experiences, quality of support, etc., so that we can do the equivalent of restaurant reviews of Internet providers.
Smart Valley started a community event page so that people can both access and enter events. Events such as candidate debates could be posted.
The next meeting will be Wed. Oct. 11, with Joe Huber asked to speak on his reaction to the telecommunications study. In the interim we should e-mail our thoughts on what we want the study to do. JJ Singh also will be asked to speak.
The MPAC program on Tell Your Internet Story will be on Sept. 14. There are about 10 people already signed up. People who call may win prizes which were donated by various companies.
The meeting was adjourned at 8:40 AM.
Respectfully submitted by Bob Moss