The Patrick/Murray transition team Technology Working Group (that’s a mouth-full) has an online community meeting planned for December 11th @ 7:00pm on BMG. How about we start pulling together a list of topics to cover?
The diary on the ODF battle with Microsoft is definitely a great place to start Will Open Source Software Get a Fair Shot in Patrick’s Administration?. But what other issues should be raised with the working group? Anyone have thoughts on opportunities for cost savings, new technologies that should be brought to bear, inefficiencies in the current system, etc.
One of my all-time favorite areas is telecom (yawn if you like telecom). There are always opportunities there to save some money and create some efficiencies. MPLS (MultiProtocol Label Switching), for example, is becoming more prevalent as the next generation of frame-relay and is already available from a number of carriers in the Commonwealth (except Verizon, of course). MPLS could be used to consolidate a significant number of voice and data circuits thus saving major dollars and simplifying management of the telecom infrastructure. Sorry if this is too techie but I thought it could be a good example. I’m sure the working group would like to hear other ideas (techie and non-techie) from the community.
Is competition in the state’s telecomm industries fair, or are there more steps we can take to ensure that we do not have telecom monopolies?
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Verizon is a terrible carrier, I have had more problems with them than anyone, both residential and commercially…having good viable affordable (competative) alternatives is imperative to holding giants like Verizon accountable to their customers. With these guys, we can only vote with our money (as in, go elsewhere). Is there enough competition to ensure that?
I definitely believe there are enough alternatives out there. In my various jobs I’ve dealt with Paetec, One Communications (formed by merger of Choice One, CTC Communications, and Conversant), Global Crossing, XO Communications, AT&T, MCI, and Sprint (plenty more out there). I have been able to get pricing significantly below that of Verizon for voice and data lines. The problem with Verizon is two-fold. First, their pricing (at least to the public) is controlled by statute (FCC I think) so it’s hard from them to compete. Second (and most important), Verizon pretty much always controls the last “quarter-mile” of any circuit. Basically the copper or fibre that runs from the closest CO (Central Office) to the end user’s location. So you can never escape them completely. However, you can reduce your dependency on them by working through one of the other carriers. When it comes to problem resolution the other carriers can have more influence on Verizon since they control a large customer base.
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I know the Commonwealth has a contract for wireless services (voice, data, Blackberry, etc.) with Verizon but no clue about voice and high-speed data lines with Verizon or any other carriers. I would expect so, but who knows!?
Here’s an excellent article from Computerworld dated 04-Dec-06 about the ODF battle:
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Inside story: How Microsoft & Massachusetts played hardball over open standards
As I understand it the solution in place is using a converter for ODF. Everyone can keep M$ Office and no longer any need for a Linux operating system.
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This week, Novell’s Open Office will include support for Open XML. Wonder how that’s going to turn out, is M$ going to support both ODF and (their own) Open XML?
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Is that a resolution, a standard?
MS came in later with their version (Open XML). Do I need to answer why they came up with their own version instead of using the existing widely used/known ODF?
I guess it depends on the goal of the ODF initiative. Is it to create a storage standard for all publicly available (which should be everything) documents so that anyone in the Commonwealth can access them without having to pony up for MS Office? Or is it to move the Commonwealth away from a Microsoft monopoly and hopefully reduce licensing costs?
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If it is the former then I don’t think Microsoft won anything. Using a plug-in (or, down the road, any ODF compliant Office type suite) to store the files in an ODF format meets the requirements. If it is the latter, then yes, Microsoft would consider it a victory since they continue to get the licensing revenue.
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Another Microsoft victory would be if their new OpenXML “standard” is incorporated into the Commonwealth’s policies. Hopefully that will not be the case.
Indicative of BMG’s parochial vision of technology is the ignorance – on this list – of the most substantial public investment in technology, namely the E-Rate, at $4billion a year for the past ten years or so. In BOSTON, this has wired dozens of community centers – both public and nonprofit – with deeply subsidized T-1 and higher bandwidth at a 90% subsidy. In NO OTHER CITY has this taken off.
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In other words, Boston centers spend $43/month to get the same bandwidth centers in Cambridge or Springfield or Westfield or Brockton or New Bedford or Methuen or North Adams would have to pay $1000/month to get.
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In other words, there IS no serious state policy to access the net until or unless somebody in some agency figures out what they figured out in Boston: there is nothing in the law – specifically the Telecommunications Act – that defines either a classroom nor a library. That little hole is plenty to subsidize access in all kinds of places – community, commercial and others – for anything that gives any number of K-12 kids access to the net. With that access, kids and their families could do everything from sell crafts to learn urdu, and access drives content.
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So why blather about Open Source or Microsoft or any of hundreds of other techie options when, outside of the major cities, kids and their parents are still trapped on dialup? Mostly because most of the techies in the campaign and on this blog don’t pay attention outside their day to day of chat.
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Phooey. If you want to change the world, use the tools you can to do more for those who would change it even more.
that’s interesting stuff, JoeB. How about being nice instead of a know-it-all next time?
It sounds like you’re advocating a Commonwealth-wide policy that would be similar to the City of Boston policy, right? Sounds like a good idea to me. Anything the Commonwealth can do to assist in bringing the internet into public spaces is a good thing. Schools, community centers, libraries, even town halls should be able to leverage something like that. Any place that should be accessible to the general public.
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I think a another question is wired or wireless? In a wired model should the Commonwealth also subsidize the computers and software needed to access the internet? Not to mention making sure they are both physically secure from damage and theft as well as technically secure with firewall and anti-malware software. Or go wireless where the Commonwealth subsidizes the wireless infrastructure and people need to purchase their own computer and assume the responsibility for their own security?
20 years ago a referendum in Cambridge called for municipal cable. Then MediaOne got interested, their silent partner Tip got engaged, and a second referendum called for privatization. In Spokane there was no Tip, so now they pay $20 for the same thing Comcast and RCN charge $100 to $130. The only reason we pay tribute to the fatcats is that they bought our political system. If we really won last month, we’ll take it back.
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There’s no accountability for cable operators, but they use your municipality’s access to phone poles. All we get – at most – for that privilege is an underfunded local access channel. Your cities and towns have lots less expensive bonding capacity to broadband everything in town so why are we jerking around with the current players? Along with cable we might just add some green power sources and municipal gas and electric. If Belmont can have a municipal power company – and rates lots lower than neighboring Cambridge – what’s wrong with other cities? Decentralizing power is the easiest way to delay or deny global warming, and that same decentralization works even better, faster, and cheaper for cable and broadband.
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A state policy that supports bandwidth at low cost, with public contracts for publicly owned providers, preferred bidding for providers with lower rates for public and low income clients, and some real challenge to monopolistic practices could effect not only a municipality, but the whole country.
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The easiest transition is sympathetic municipal wifi, with state police support for subsidized emergency telecommunications and easy access via public roads, highways, and even the Turnpike for buried cables and wireless networks. It works in cities like Austin, so what’s wrong with us here?
I know Braintree has a municipal cable company and electric which is far less expensive than Comcast. Mansfield where I live has a municipal electric company and we have a lower rate then most other towns.
has so perverted western civilization that the predatory business practices pioneered by them have become IT industry standards. Any switch away from Microsoft will be an improvement for all humanity.
1. Web pages should be BOBBY Approved for accessibility by those with disabilities. Like wheelchair ramps, this isn’t particularly hard if considered during the initial design phase, but can get cumbersome when trying to retrofit.
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2. Never, ever, ever use ActiveX on a web page. There’s absolutely no damned reason why a citizen of the Commonwealth should have to use Internet Explorer on Windows to access public information. Ever.
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3. Never, ever make documents available (only) in Word or Excel. The official documents available online absolutely must be accessible by folks with various operating systems and applications, including free versions of each. Therefore, Word had better be accompanied by pdf, txt, or other format, and Excel had better come with csv or similar.
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4. Cookies. Are they really necessary for that particular web page? If they’re for statistical sampling, are you protecting privacy? You’d better be…
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5. Privacy. Protect our data. Seriously. No, seriously. Get to know and love encryption. Get to know and love restricting personal data only to those gov’t employees who need it — and only when they need it. Get to know and love restricting gov’t collected data from law enforcement unless they have a warrant, and from private enterprise unless you’ve got the express written consent of each persons data. The government must be very careful about the collection, storage, and access of the data of individuals.
I’m a tech authority in NO way, but I am the tech coordinator for a small public school here in Massachusetts, and it’s been a pet peeve of mine for a long while that the Dept of Ed assumes most of the time that everyone they deal with has Windows, Word, and Internet Explorer. They have made some strides in making stuff available in html and pdf, but to really interact with their web apps, you’d better be using IE, and often times you need Excel.
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This amounts to a public subsidy of a private corporation (which I suppose is nothing new), but it annoys the hell out of me.
I’m no techie, but I am dismayed that so many towns in Central and Western Mass still have no broadband access. I know Shutesbury and Leverett have been aggressively trying to get high-speed internet for many years, and other towns are equally frustrated with the non-responsiveness of Verizon and cable providers.
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In 2006, everyone in the state should have broadband access. It’s essential for education, job training and development, health, grassroots politics, and for attracting jobs and employed people to lots of our smaller towns.
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I hope the transition group will make this a priority. No town should be stuck as an internet backwater.
It’s hard to believe in this day and age an entire town can go without broadband? That’s unfathomable!
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That definitely sounds like a priority which should be taken up. Surely the Commonwealth can facilitate the wiring of these towns in any number of ways. That would be an investment that could pay major dividends to the Commonwealth, residents, and businesses well into the future.
Unfortunately, there seem to be lots of towns without Broadband. I understand the free market problems, but it seems to me that high speed access is critical and should be universal. Stan Rosenberg and Stephen Kulik are working hard on this issue in the legislature. This year’s legislature created the Wireless and Broadband Development Council in the Office of Economic Development. Pioneer Valley Connect and Berkshire Connect have more information about the really slow progress toward broadband for every town.
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If you really want to see how pathetic the cable and DSL providers have been, check the Western Mass Broadband Availability Data Base. I hope the Patrick administration kick starts the work already underway.