[IP] More on: Rendell caves and signs HB30 - Verizon can prevent municipal networks statewide
Begin forwarded message:
From: Jock Gill <jg45@xxxxxxx>
Date: December 3, 2004 9:43:14 PM EST
To: Gerry Faulhaber <faulhaber@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Farber Dave
<dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Hendricks Dewayne <dewayne@xxxxxxxxxx>, Jock Gill <jg45@xxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [IP] More on: Rendell caves and signs HB30 - Verizon can
prevent municipal networks statewide
Gerry,
You are very welcome.
I think we can agree that there is no perfect solution. Your mention
of TVA reminds me of the conditions in 1935 when FDR felt obliged to
create The Rural Electrification Administration
"Morris Cooke, an electrical engineer and advisor to the Power
Authority of New York, pointed out this notable difference between
rural and urban life to Congress. In his now famous “12-Minute Memo,”
he made the case for the federal government to get involved in rural
electrification: how it would increase farm production (irrigation/milk
refrigeration), improve the standard of living, and how it could be
accomplished at a reasonable cost.
Cooke gained national attention in Pennsylvania when the Governor
commissioned him to conduct a feasibility study for electrifying rural
areas of the state. The state legislature voted against Cooke’s
proposal, but when FDR was elected governor of New York, he hired Cooke
to study the St. Lawrence River’s hydro power potential for providing
electricity for businesses, residential areas, and farms in the future.
[Would that the current Governor of the fair state of PA knew his
history!]
Cooke’s paper convinced President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) that the
federal government should promote rural electrification. In response to
the memo, FDR’s first act was to establish the Rural Electricification
Administration (REA) in 1935, appointing Morris Cooke the head of the
REA and providing $100 million for rural electrification. In today's
dollars including inflation, that would equal approximately $1.3
billion – SOURCE: Consumer Price Index."
< http://www.basinelectric.com/Profile/Companies/History/ >
And of course, LBJ rode the electrification of West Texas to a life
time of politica power. See "The Story of the sad Irons".
"Tuesday was ironing day. Well, I don't intend to take you through the
entire week here, but I'll never forget the shock it was for me to
learn how hard it was to iron in a kitchen over a woodstove, where you
have to keep throwing the wood in to keep the temperature hot all day.
The irons--heavy slabs of metal--weighed seven or eight pounds, and a
Hill Country housewife would have four or five of them heating all day.
In the Hill Country it's nothing for the temperature to be 100 or even
105 degrees, and those kitchens would be like an oven. The women of the
Hill Country called their irons the "sad irons." I came to understand
why."
<http://hnn.us/articles/685.html>
And of course Truman had to extend this to cover telephony in 1949.
"1930–1950
In the 1930s, the Great Depression descended upon America and prevented
many rural subscribers from being able to afford telephone service. As
a consequence, many rural telephone facilities deteriorated and fell
into disarray. In short, poor phone service in the 1930s and 1940s
became the
standard in rural America. By 1949, only 39% of rural Americans had
telephones.20 This state of decline prompted the federal government to
establish a telephone loan program modeled after the successful
electric programs that were launched under the Rural Electrification
Act of 1936 (RE Act). The so-called telephone amendments to the RE Act
were signed into law by President Harry Truman on October 28, 1949.
These amendments have provided the necessary financing for the
evolution of rural telecommunications from a patchwork of old and
broken down
equipment to a landscape of modern technology."
The above from a White Paper at: <
www.ntca.org/content_documents/white_paper-1.pdf >
So we have a very successful history of public sector involvement in
the development of reasonably equitable and reliable national power and
telephony grids.
And now we see the Japanese committing $47 billion dollars for 10
gigabit infrastructure to be in use by 2010. This is $47 billion for
an area the size of California.
The problem is, as we all know, that no private company can invest the
funds necessary to bring all Americans every where 10 gigabits of
connectivity in any reasonable time frame - much less by 2010. So is
America to fore go 10 gigabit connectivity simply because the private
sector can neither fund it nor justify it in terms of ROI within
tactical time frames? Is our national commitment to innovation to be
held hostage by a corporate market dogma?
Or are we going to find innovative ways to leverage individual customer
premise equipment investments, as in the PC revolution ala David P.
Reed's analysis, with private sector and public investments to get the
job done by 2010? Can we invent a solution that is greater than the
sum of the parts and transcends the limits of corporate, individual or
public financing alone?
Regards,
Jock
Jock Gill
Meme Intelligence
http://public.xdi.org/=Jock
On Dec 3, 2004, at 7:05 PM, David Farber wrote:
Begin forwarded message:
From: Gerry Faulhaber <gerry-faulhaber@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: December 3, 2004 4:16:28 PM EST
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [IP] More on: Rendell caves and signs HB30 - Verizon can
prevent municipal networks statewide
Thanks, Jock, for your informative response. As I mentioned at the
very front of my note, I really don't like this legislation. I think
letting municipalities in otherwise unserved rural areas build their
own BB is a great idea. I'm glad rural Washington has had this
opportunity and I wish the rural areas of Pennsylvania eventually have
the same choice.
But it is still true that many municipalities are not quite so
enlightened.
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