More on: Rendell caves and signs HB30 - Verizon can prevent municipal networks statewide

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Jock Gill <jg45 () mac com>
Date: December 3, 2004 9:43:14 PM EST
To: Gerry Faulhaber <faulhaber () law upenn edu>, Farber Dave 
<dave () farber net>
Cc: Hendricks Dewayne <dewayne () dandin com>, Jock Gill <jg45 () mac com>
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 () mchsi com>
> Date: December 3, 2004 4:16:28 PM EST
> To: dave () farber net
> 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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