[Davisgig] Conference + Meeting with NOKIA(Alcatel/Lucent) + Send in a Letter + BIG Dog Party

[Robert Nickerson]

Hi Davisites

1) CONFERENCE - Back from the Broadband Connected Communities Summit in 
Austin TX. It did not disappoint.  Had my brain so packed full of fiber 
optic info, that by the end of it I couldn't process any new input.

The short of it is, what we are doing, is being thoroughly explored and 
pursued by other municipalities all over the USA. There is tangible 
excitement in this convention, like a great movement is afoot. The 
models being developed to deploy and operate these networks are changing 
city by city and month by month. Its a very active area, with lots of 
flexibility as to the best model for your particular deployment.   My 
main objective there was  to get a reality check about these sorts of 
networks at all levels, meet all the vendors, and to shop around our RFP 
for the Feasibility Study. Met with success on all counts.

A big thank you to one of the DavisGIG list members whom I met there, 
who happened to facilitate some key introductions. A big thank you to 
everyone who donated to send me there, I took a full half of my travel, 
hotel and conference expenses from donations raised by community members 
supporting DavisGIG.

Here are some people that I talked to who are very interested in the 
success of our project:

Florence Hudson - CIO of Internet2
Doug Dawson - President CCG Consulting
Craig Settles - Author Building the Gigabit City, Gigabit Consultant
John Paul - CEO Spiral Internet
Chris Frost - Network Operations CruzIO
James Hackett - Business Development CruzIO
Courtney Violette - VP Magellan Advisors
David Russell - Director Solutions Marketing Calix
Drew Clark - Best Best Krieger
Scott Bradshaw - President SiFi Networks
Adam Noll - FTS Fiber
Michael Brayen - Senior Director FTTH Sales Alcatel Lucent

I was able to meet a good variety of vendors and see some encouraging 
product developments. I'll put my notes up on the wiki as I have time 
and capability.

The closest muni, I found to our proposed model, is Ammon, ID. So worth 
following up with them especially.

2) MEETING - Out of the meeting made contacts with NOKIA's community 
fiber broadband team. This team came from Alcatel/Lucent, which means 
Bell Labs, so this is the best European and American talent in this 
space. This group does the hardware in both Lafayette and Chattanooga, 
and I'm sure you all know about there R+D commitment and acumen.

  They are working with Santa Cruz, and on 4/19 they are meeting with 
the City of Concord. All three members of their team will be around the 
morning of 4/20 at 9am  to introduce their product line, plus help us 
flush out a business case. Their team members are  lead, engineer and 
finance.  They want to meet us, and get a chance to be involved in our 
project. They will be spending a couple-few hours with us before they 
head North and will whiteboard their solutions and  how we can get to 
our goal.

  I'll have bagels and coffee at the Davis MAKERSPACE, see 
www.davismakerspace.org  its at 4/20 at 9am and would like to invite 
anyone from the group to attend and meet this fantastic team. Please 
RSVP so I can get a head count.

3)  CALL TO ACTION  - You've been on this list for a year, you are 
patiently waiting to break ground and get a fiber to your house. One of 
the major takeaways from this conference is that, these projects take an 
immense amount of political will, and citizen effort to succeed. I thank 
you all for being part of that, but warn you there is a long road ahead 
to a successful conclusion, and we are at one of those points that 
require  community effort to succeed. We need 15-20 minutes of your time 
to:

  - Write up a letter about why you think we need a community owned 
gigabit FTTP network, what it means to you, and what challenges you face 
in the current Internet Access marketplace.  Send it to the Staff 
representative of the Broadband Advisory Task Force, 
dparro at cityofdavis.org and CC help at dcn.org.

- Donate! Donate! and then give a little more. We need to collect $150k 
to fund the Feasibility Study.  Think about how important this is. Its 
not just a better Internet connection. What is happening now, all over 
the US, is communities are taking back control of the MOST IMPORTANT 
economic INFRASTRUCTURE used for every aspect of business, 
communications, quality of life, and community development, from for 
profit mega-corporations.  Not only are you seeing to better service for 
your household, you are helping your community flourish, and 
establishing a much needed revenue stream for your City. There really is 
no more important effort we could do to see to our city's future than 
this project.  So please give and generously.

Here is a link you can donate at:

http://www2.dcn.org/dcn/welcome/about/support

4) PARTY - The Sudwerk DOCK is having a special event fundraiser party  
for all the community non profits participating in the BIG Day of 
Giving, happening on the same day. It is open from 5-8pm.  We should all 
plan to come together and celebrate our efforts over  the past year, 
have a beer, and congratulate all our community non-profits 
participating in this fantastic event.

Thanks Everyone, and hope to see as many of you as we can on Wed April 
20th, and Tuesday May 3rd.

Rob Nickerson

Community Networking Advocate
President Davis Community Network
Volunteer Davis GIG
CEO Omsoft
Member Davis Makerspace