Project Management

I live in one of the most beautiful places on Earth, among people I love, doing the work I enjoy. We build community and a sense of shared success as we help create a commonwealth among us. Simple efforts with neighbors to share a ride, share discoveries, generate more economic activity, we can focus on what we know we can do. That is, contribute to our community by making wise choices about how we spend out resources. They can be time, money, ideas, enthusiasm, knowledge, insight. Our society is driven by economics.

On Orcas Island, there are several efforts over the past few years that have yielded some benefits to our community. As we examine the resources and potential we have, and reach out to understand the opportunities shaped by the regulatory, market and technology changes occurring constantly, we learn more about how we can build a stronger community. As we work together to build the facilities and infrastructure on which our businesses, schools and public safety are empowered, we build a stronger community. We can do this in an open, interactive way, using today’s social networking tools and systems.

As a community, we have. This section links to the various sources of interactive, communications facilities we have that provide some of these services. They offer a model for other projects, where highly interactive, structured, respectful interaction produces broad benefits among the stakeholders and participants.

Each of us has a responsibility to ourselves and to our community. Reaching out across our community to create a stronger commonwealth is a crucial daily vote.

Glenwood Community Broadband Network the CBN, was envisioned by the City of Glenwood Springs Electric Department. My ISP in Aspen offered to handle installation, customer service and sales for CBN. Soon hundreds of subscribers were joyfully using Broadband services managed by Aspenworks with infrastructure by the CBN.

Background

One of the most profitable governmental agencies anywhere, the Glenwood Electric department, like so many around the turn of the millennium, were concerned about the advent of free market economics in energy offerings. Also like many other electric companies, they viewed the Internet as a cash cow, a gold making machine which might be turned on, and produce additional revenue for the City. The City Manager of Glenwood Springs, Mike Copp along with John Hines the City’s Electric Department manager announced on November 10, 2002, that Aspenworks, Ltd would be their first ISP, and begin accepting orders.
CBN had Contracted with Brunetti DLC to deliver the braodband network in 2002, for the initial engineering, and construction project management and other contractual obligations.

Summary of Costs and upcoming plans

notes: 2002, initial fiber/consulting/equipment/canopy wireless network: $3.5 million dollars.
Glenwood prices $40-50, $80-110 business, sells direct and through reseller ISPs. Total of 5,000 subscribers, the town is 4.8 square miles, 8,600 residents, median income 1999 of $44,000.

March 2005, a State bill which threatened the community broadband system passed the state senate. The Colorado law requires all municipalities who wish to offer broadband service to hold public hearings to ensure that they have a fiscally sound business plans for their projects. It also requires them to comply with the same state and federal “fair play” laws that private providers must follow.

http://www.geeknewscentral.com/2011/11/07/municipal-broadband-measure-passes-in-longmont-colorado/

http://www.muninetworks.org/content/community-broadband-preemption-map

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/technology/2011/11/telecom-lobby-killing-municipal-broadband/420/

State of Washington Anti-Muni-broadband Law

Glenwood Springs Post Independent article – Votes have say on fiber network.. April 7, 2008

GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colorado — A ballot question mailed to Glenwood Springs voters would authorize the city to provide Internet, telephone and cable television service.

It’s an initial step in a proposal to sell those services directly to homes through fiber-optic cables.

“It’s the authorization to expand the system that we have in place now,” said Mayor Bruce Christensen.

A state law requires voter approval for a city to provide those services. But a yes vote doesn’t mean the city must proceed. A second vote would be required later — possibly in November — to let the city enter into $12 million in debt to install the infrastructure, according to city manager Jeff Hecksel.

He said the $12 million bond would be repaid by user fees, and not taxes, over a 20-year period. A feasibility study indicates that no other subsidy will be necessary if the city can get about a third of its potential customers to use the services, he said, and the city may also be able to find other sources of funding to lower the $12 million figure.

If the ballot question were approved, the city could build out the Community Broadband Network installed in 2002, which directly connects fiber optics only to commercial customers in certain areas.

The best the current network has ever done financially is to lose about $189,000 last year, according to the city. In 2002, the Post Independent reported that $1.6 million was paid to Brunetti DEC, a Denver consulting firm, and the fiber-optic network cost almost $3.5 million to build. Some local Internet service providers alleged consultants made threats to gain more of the market and complained funds were wasted by selecting Brunetti in a no-bid process.

Hecksel said the network got into its current situation through a series of decisions outside the original business plan. A city status report on the network says the network eventually operated with no business plan. That original business plan called for multiple services including video, and the network was equipped to provide services to more than just businesses, the report says.

Hecksel said public works director Robin Millyard has a saying that describes the current network: “It’s like having a Ferrari in a garage on a gravel road.”

The city believes expanding the fiber-optic infrastructure to reach homes will stop the network from losing money, improve economic development, provide employment opportunities and offer consumers more bandwidth plus a better and more diverse set of services.

“We really have a tremendous asset available to this community that’s being underutilized,” Hecksel said.

UTI Inc. and Alcatel Lucent, who pitched the business plan, said it could also lower costs and build infrastructure that would allow the city to better control its future. A UTI representative said at least $10 million a year is leaving the community to pay for voice, data and video.

Not everyone shares the view that governments should provide those services.

“I think it’s been proven across the country to not work well with any government body running it,” said Michael Mayer. “Stop, you don’t need to be doing this. See that road over there? Fix it. See that bridge that doesn’t exist? Build it. That’s what a government does.”

Mayer said he’s an independent software developer, system designer and technical business consultant who served as the director of strategic planning for Sopris Surfers from 2000-03. He believes that in order to compete, the city would need to undercut existing providers’ pricing for TV, Internet and phone service, and the only way it could do that is by having taxpayers finance the difference. He said the city should “stop the bleeding and get out” of the municipal broadband business.

Mayer believes small municipalities can’t keep pace with the fast-moving technology field, and he questions whether the city could provide superior services at lower cost than existing providers.

Hecksel said that even if this ballot question is approved, the city would only move forward if there’s a “high degree of confidence” that the business plan would succeed financially and benefit the community.

The Glenwood Springs Chamber Resort Association has asked its members to vote yes on the ballot measure. A chamber mailing echoed the city’s comments that the proposal would make the current network financially sustainable and provide better services. The mailing says a chamber survey shows “strong support” for the initiative among chamber members.

Under the business plan being considered, the city would sell its wireless infrastructure and customers and focus on providing Internet, TV and phone service through fiber optics. Hecksel said the city could provide the services itself, or partner with private companies who would get exclusive rights to the fiber-optic network.

If the city pursues expanding the fiber-optic infrastructure to homes, construction could take up to two years from late 2008 or some time in 2009.

Chris Dobbins, general manager of the Roaring Fork Internet Users Group, and Paul Huttenhower, general manager and president of Sopris Surfers, both have said installing the infrastructure for fiber optics to homes would be a good thing as long as the business plan is solid.

Dobbins said previously that consolidating Internet, TV and phone services into one fiber-optic package could save users money.

“It’s economic development. It’s choice,” Hecksel said.

“It’s a higher level of service,” Christensen said.

Contact Pete Fowler: 384-9121

Microsoft embarked on a superb effort market exploration effort in 2007 to quantify the Market for Mobile Broadband. Aspenworks provided global project management co-ordinating among Broadband Mobility Cellular GSMA members, hardware manufacturers, local Microsoft in-country office personnel, product support and local market research organizations. 200 Notebook computers were offered to in-country purchase intenders. Many were interviewed in person and their personal experiences relayed by video report to Microsoft HQ periodically. 100s of hours of interview materials were collected, and Microsoft reported satisfaction with the timely, and in-budget completion of this segment of the project.
Tandem ISDN As a full time Senior Project Manager, I traveled among 3 divisions of Tandem computers, co-ordinating the planning for communications protocol development, specifically for management interfaces to Advanced Intelligent Network elements, including the Service Control Point, Service Management System.
Mass Transit. As a project manager to create test gear for AVL and communications infrastructure, Aspenworks was responsible for the development of several systems that provided insight to mass transit providers.