[Davisgig] A) Broadband "Core Utility" + B) Meetings + C) DavisGIG Committee meets Wed Oct 7th at Sudwerk at 6:30pm

[Robert Nickerson]

Hi Davisites

A) The WhiteHouse Broadband Opportunity Council has just referred to 
Access to Broadband a “Core Utility” This is a big deal, and a big 
report. Thanks for the Tip ET! We are reframing Internet Access as a 
utility, and the DavisGIG community-owned plan fiber for fiber optic 
network is a  de facto a  more utility style implementation of Internet 
access.

http://www.engadget.com/2015/09/22/white-house-says-broadband-is-a-core-utility/

B) This month has been about meetings, here are some good meetings 
DavisGIG has had recently. These are important becasue the convey the 
vision to other leaders and stakeholders in the community and help move 
the project along.

I'd like to really encourage other folks in the community to come to 
these and share their $0.02. When you present our civic leaders with 
multiple perspectives from people with diverse life experiences all 
advocating a similar goal for the City, it helps convince them this is 
the right choice.

So thank you to everyone that arranged these events and attended them on 
our behalf over the last month. Lets move this along.

Meetings

1 - DJUSD with Director of Instructional Technology and IT Manager

2 - David Greenwald - PVOD

3 - Soroptomist luncheon

4- Jumpstart Davis

5 - DCN Executive Committee Meeting

6 - Chief Innovation Officer

7 - Felisha Alvarez - Davis Enterprise

Details

1 - The Meeting with DJUSD was presented as an initial meeting to brief 
people in the superintendent's office on the project, andinvite their 
participation in future discussions with other stake holders involved in 
building out our municipal fiber optic network. IT was a 45 minute 
meeting, attended by myself, Richard Lauckhart from El Macero, along 
with Marcia Bernard and Bob Kehr. We provided an overview of how the 
network would operate, the benefit it would bring to the schools, their 
stronger negotiating position with Comcast for future Inet use, and 
other issues. They indicated they would discuss it amongst their 
technology committee, to come up with additional things they could do 
with a fiber optic network to all the homes and businesses. They were 
very concerned about digital divide issues and reaching all of the 
students in Davis. This plan does do that, as it was conceived, so that 
is a strength. They asked what they could do to help, and we suggested, 
get engaged with the process, at a task force, and 2x2 meeting level to 
advocate and support the deployment of a municipal fiber network. Joing 
the volunteer list. Further asked that if it went forward they re-engage 
at the board level with DCN or a future DavisGIG operating committe of DCN.

2 - David Greenwald met me at the Makerspace and did a 10 minute 
interview for the Jumpstart Davis Event, made no promises and delivered 
nothing. His recorder is nice, I think I'm going to get one for our next 
General Meeting.

3 - Had a very comfortable reception and delivered an extemporaneous 
lecture about DavisGIG to the Soroptomist group. We really need to 
engage further with this network and more like it. Most of us are 
surrounded in realms of tech geekery, and so take fiber optic for 
granted as a naturally preferable evolution for Internet Access in 
Davis, this group were over half retirees, and yet I felt everyone not 
only understood the concept, they were largely positive on it. There was 
a 20 minute or so talk, with about 15 minutes of great questions. We 
were able to distribute our 3-4 Internet contact points to their list, 
and I heard some options and good feedback. Thanks HB!

4 - Jumpstart Davis is a regular monthly meetup to showcase local 
entreprenuerial activities. Thank you to the many DavisGIG Volunteers 
who came to support our talk. IT was also somewhat extemporaneous, with 
presentation slides from our prior Library outreach effort. A lot of 
City leaders were present as well, and it was great for them to hear all 
the general rambunctious energy from all our supporters and other 
attendees at the event. We reinforced contacts with community leaders, 
made some new allies of the effort, and really drew great enthusiasm 
from a dinner party at a nearby table. A good thing is that this meeting 
led to 2 future meetings which happened this week, with CIO of the City 
and the Enterprise. Scott Ragsdale from Davis Roots spoke in passing 
about helping get this sold in Davis, but no contact has been 
forthcoming from him. He also said soemthing like that at the Small 
Business Boost conference and didnt return any email then either, so 
likely no help there.

5 - DCN has regular weekly lunch meetings, and this last week it was 
attended by a very eloquent DavisGIG advocate Matthew Williams. He 
presented several new strategies he feels could help move our project 
forward in a more timely way, plus opinions on the financing and 
direction of the effort. Some good public relations ideas he brought are 
a student campaign in conjunction with DJUSD where we get all school 
children to donate a $1 or so, for their future broadband network, a 
powerful symbol.  He's also advocating financing the effort from revenue 
bonds, and paying for the network from ISP lease fees or “franchise 
fees” for accessing the network, rather than an every address pays for 
the service, which would trigger a Prop 218 vote, or some other tax. 
Finally, another solid idea is solicitng the MRIC folks to assist in 
putting forward funds for the preparation of the FSR, and so we can get 
this all done in a more timely way then going through the perceived 
slower public process. I very much appreciate someone who is as 
passionate about getting this done, and to let everyone know, as Matt 
has been forthcoming on this in these meetings. He is running for City 
council in 2016, and I believe DavisGIG will be a plank in the platform. 
IT seems now this is taken on a life of its own, but, hey a great 
meeting! And great to have another enthusiastic person that is community 
minded and determined to see this happen.

6 -  Had a great 1 hour talk with Diane Parro at the Davis Makerspace 
this morning. We discussed our backgrounds, the Internet, mediums of 
Internet transmission, what's needed, for DavisGIG to operate,  so on 
and so forth. GREAT meeting. We are fortunate, because it seems in her 
prior work in the County she has been liasoned on Broadband issues 
extensively out of Don Saylor's supervisor office, and has brought the 
issue forward for years through various committees if only to be 
stymied. Now this in Davis. After the meeting she has a good grounding 
of how networks operate, why fiber is better than coax, and why open 
access is better than monopoly Internet. Process going forward is 
getting something to council in the October/early Nov timeline, putting 
together her a workiing group, not a TASK FORCE,  to help get the 
RFP/FSR stuff done. Stuff we have been discussing since meeting 2 of the 
DavisGIG group. I've put it out there, that we want to just do all that 
now, and I'll be seeing what they say to that next week. 6/16 is right 
aroung the corner.

After this first, grounding in Internet Concepts, We are meeting again 
next week, time to have another person or two from our group to drop in 
and add their bit. Drop me a line. Especially someone that can put their 
FSR Hat and getting things done, and  reassure them we can take it on, 
at least fast tracking this process to some consultancy to get a quick 
turn around from a reputable agency. Several peoplein the community have 
put forward we could fundraise on that issue, , and perhaps get buy in 
from the Innovation Center folsk. She is also working on her round of 
higher level stakeholder meetings and getting buy in from other peole in 
town. Helped give her a list.

7 -  After DP left the Makerspace, Felisha Alvarez, a UCD grad and 
reporter from the Enterprise took a great in depth 1 hour or so 
interview on DavisGIG. I spun out the long yarn of our tale, our 
history, and how we have gotten to where we are. What comes next, and a 
lot of similar stuff that we went over with DP. We'll see if it goes 
anywhere, but she sounded very interested.

C) We should have lawn signs at our next meeting. Wed October 7^th at 
6:30 pm at Sudwerk.

Anyway – more is to be done. Please check out TRELLO ! 
http://www.trello.com/davisgig

Pick a task, get it done.If you need an invite email rob at omsoft.com. You 
should be able to see 4 or so boards covering general project areas, 
with lists for specific areas and cards for individual tasks. Add your 
own tasks or boards if you want. we are starting to have a need to flesh 
this project out, now that there is civic interest.  Go to it.

At least sign up and get us some free Trello Gold.

Onward.

RAN




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