[RTC List] Follow-up from RTC luncheon

[Larry Goldberg]

First of all, kudos to all who organized and pulled off yesterday's  
luncheon.  Job well done and I, for one, thought it was very effective  
(and timely).

Now the hard work must begin.  Unfortunately, the "take-away" from the  
meeting (everyone, please correct me if I'm wrong) were the following:
No one is in charge.  There are a lot of players all volunteering to  
help make something happen, but no one is coordinating everything.  
Jacqueline Debets (Humboldt Co. Economic Dev. Dept.) stated one of the  
more notable contributions by saying that a "Prop. 50-type"  
organization was being organized with a circulating MOU between  
several counties behind the scenes and that this entity, if it's ever  
formed, may become a conduit for all projects.
"Jump into the pool - the water's great" (Connie Stewart) - all  
projects are welcome (there are no sharks in the water, to our  
knowledge).  While there is no process for submitting a proposal, no  
guidelines to meet and no stated goals or objectives, everyone can  
volunteer their project for future consideration.
While there is a concept being circulated for eight separate fiber  
links in Humboldt, Del Norte, Mendocino and Trinity counties, there  
are "only one concept" and have not been adopted or even discussed at  
length.  They are just one more "idea in the hopper" for future  
consideration.
There is no census on ownership of any publicly-funded project.  This  
topic requires some serious discussion insofar as we are spending our  
children's inheritance so we better get it right!
Sean McLaughlin has advanced an idea that I believe has merit.  He  
calls it the "70-10-10-10" concept.  His idea, as I understand it, is  
as follows: set aside 70% of whatever money is received (or requested)  
for middle-mile projects (regardless of the technology used), 10% for  
wireless projects (primarily to reach outlying communities which may  
not be on any fiber path), 10% for public agencies (and adoption  
education efforts) and 10% for last-mile and pilot projects.  I think  
this is something that merits additional discussion and, if we can  
agree on it, we should lobby for this to whoever does the final  
proposal.
Humboldt Co. (several representatives were present) needs to take an  
active role in this process, but has yet to take any "official"  
stand.  I recommend that we request that a discussion item be added to  
an upcoming BOS agenda for time to discuss this issue and begin to get  
a plan in place for how to proceed.
Time is of the essence.  We stand to lose our "edge" by falling behind  
the timeline.  Regs are expected to be out by mid-July, so we have  
approximately 30 days to get our act together.  We all want this to  
succeed, but it could easily degenerate into a free-for-all if no one  
steps up to the plate to get this process organized.  I personally  
would like to see Kathy Moxon and Sean McLaughlin take lead roles  
(along with Connie who is de facto leading the charge right now) to  
get the process organized and begin the vetting process (develop  
criteria for meeting our needs & develop a "master plan" to determine  
how we want to proceed).  Combined with an outside consultant (several  
names have been circulated) we can get on track but we need to move NOW.

Given the uncertainty of everything related to this issue coupled with  
the potentially vast amount of money which may be in play (at least  
10's of millions of $, I expect), we should be organizing, as a group,  
RIGHT NOW.  In my opinion, it is not enough that the RTC have a  
quarterly luncheon, listen politely to some speakers and go back to  
our business assuming that "someone" is taking care of things.  We  
need to ORGANIZE now and, at a minimum, develop a platform for what we  
want to see come out of this process.  To this end, I recommend to the  
RTC board that any or all of the following be considered:
Convene "emergency" meeting of RTC membership to discuss these issues  
and develop a strategy for how we're going to help in the process
Develop an official RTC statement of our recommended objectives for  
any project which emerges from the process to address our region's  
long-term broadband needs.  This should NOT come from one individual  
or even the board as a group, we need the membership involved in this!
Develop working committees who will volunteer to help with technical  
vetting, organizational management and whatever else it will take to  
get the best proposal developed by the community
Start meeting with elected officials to educate them on the matter and  
get their "buy-in" for everyone to work together on this project
Monitor the process with regular updates to everyone to keep us all  
"in the loop" as fast-breaking news develops

That's my two cents worth,  I would love to hear from others on how  
they think we should proceed.  I must emphasize, however, that we  
don't have time to waste.  I know it's June and lots of folks are  
thinking about vacations and Summer projects, but this is probably the  
biggest single opportunity that we, as a group, have ever had to deal  
with since RTC was formed.  I, for one, don't want to lose our  
standing as an area who has spent as much time analyzing our needs  
only to fall down when it really counts.

As an aside, I should mention that we have a Google Group forum,  
Northcoast Broadband Forum (northcoast-broadband- 
forum at googlegroups.com), which was organized after last year's  
Broadband conference to discuss topics just like this.  I recommend  
that anyone seriously interested in this topic sign up (or send me a  
request and I'll sign you up) so we can continue this discussion  
online in-between our infrequent meetings.  We should post all  
proposals, documentation and public discussion topics so anyone who  
may be interested can participate.  Just an idea.
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