Notes From Breakout Sessions

8/14/2019 Notes From Breakout Sessions

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Mendocino County Broadband ConferenceBreak-out Sessions

The following topics, issues, and questions were discussed during Break-out sessions inour last April 8 Broadband Conference in Fort Bragg.For a narrative summary, please check out video clips on our Facebook page:http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ukiah/Mendocino-Broadband-Community-Initiative/68735666694?ref=tsNote: a Facebook account is NOT required to view this page.

1. State/Federal Funding Opportunities Who in Mendocino County will take lead? County & Colleges? How to access ARRA funds? For what purposes? CSD/SD How to qualify? Digital Redwoods Project to serve RCC Area. www.ntia.doc.gov/broadbandgrants - comments by April 13. Who will support the public/private network after it is built? What is the timeline for these projects? Is there enough need from public partners to warrant a project/network that is

large enough to also serve currently unserved/underserved areas in ruralareas?

2. E-Commerce to Stimulate Local Economies The health of our community depends on getting new sources of revenuebecause traditional ones are falling away. Must have broadband to keep our kids here on the coast and to attract new

people to move here.

Telecommuting is a big need for a rural population. Save the time and costs ofdriving to town.

Need affordable service for everyone. Home based business can get even stronger with broadband. Businesses can get more jobs from the outside if have high speed Internet and

then can hire more people to do the work. Need it to grow our competitiveedge.

There is an assumption by those outside of here is that we all have high speedand it is embarrassing to say we do not. Inequality not acceptable.

Staff training is a big factor to do on broadband. Reduces expenses when donot need to drive over the hill

Strategy Need to know what our options are. What each type of service is cable of? Opportunities Grow a business, bring in employees from other areas. Belief that we all have broadband capabilities. What are the bandwidth requirements for high tech (Silicon Valley)

businesses to locate in Fort Bragg?

Visitor attraction They expect it! Need Business from home on their off hours.


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Need Identify customer base. Need Better understanding of what is available. Educate! Attract visitors market. Training for employees; Cost cutting. Keep up with technology. Belief that everyone would have Broadband. Opportunities Save money by telecommuting; reduce carbon footprint. Cloud Computing. Challenge No new residents to move here due to lack of residential services. Identify customer base in Broadband.

3. Telemedicine Mendocino - best place to live, not the best place to have a stroke! Medical Specialty deficiency. Needs (Medical Profession) greater than supply. Reimbursement. Bandwidth barrier. Reduce Patient transport. Expand to homes. Reach MDs at their homes.. Share health records. Will save lives. Robot Trials.

4. Library Services The library is the broadband resource of last resort. You can get only an hour

on their computers, but if you bring your own, you can stay all day and evenovernight in your car parked outside. By the way, the one-hour limit is

PIPEMRI

Clinics

Homes

Patients

Hospitals(local)

U.C

MedicalProvider


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suspended if you are taking a test on-line, or are writing a resume. There issoftware installed to help people write resumes.

There should be ways to let libraries own e-books, which could bedownloaded into a Kindle or Sony reader for free, or a very small fee, butwhich would have a short lifetime in the device.

Library usage is going up. Funding is going down. Hours are going down.New books are fewer.

There can be environments where noisy people can do noisy things online,such as game playing or conferencing. It just requires scheduling.

5. Policy Workgroup Outreach to be pro-active vs. re-active. Need for participation in public process to advocate for communication

facilities. Need to develop mechanisms that creatively develop standards to cause

development of infrastructure with development.

Code requirements vs. reality. Inclusion of infrastructure in road design public roads vs. private roads. Co-work location, coop business locations, need to mesh with zoning

regulations.

Performance enhancement via code compliance. Need for regulations to be adaptive to changes in technology. Inclusion of communication infrastructure in development guidelines. Entitlements can protect the provider and hinder development. Development of fiber connection, co-location or other infrastructure

opportunities in granting new commercial towers.

Welcome follow-up input.6. Schools & Colleges, Distance Learning

Everyone has broadband access Libraries (hubs), homes. Partnering to leverage funds. Lack of bandwidth video. Who gets the Revenue? Declining enrollments. Filtering. Systems reliability power network. Students widely dispersed. Aversion to lack of face-to-face. Teachers, specialties. Reach home schoolers. Connect drop-outs. Connect remote students. More offerings 5%-20%.

7. Demand Aggregation The public needs to be more informed about the longer-term benefits and whatthey do not know is coming which will increase their need and usage. People


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just dont understand that they need it now and more later. Maybe do anElectronic Town Hall like they did when they were organizing participation inMCN.

Rennie can do an interactive questionnaire or survey to get a market survey.He would frontload the process with a pledge of support. MCN came up withthousands of people who would buy the service.

Need neighborhoods to work together to get a whole road together to pledgesupport UP FRONT so no issues later when the service is available. This willstreamline the process by handling the neighborhood dynamics early on. It isbest to bring the service to every assessors parcel now for future buildout.

Need community coordination and change leaders to work on this project ineach area

Need to help people understand that having Broadband will help the economy,which gives more tax money to fill the potholes, get computers in schools, andall the things taxes are used for.

Start to educate people with the personal benefits in real daily life, then for thecommunity. How will it enhance the quality of life? We would not need todrive over the hill so often. We would get to watch grandkids in Europe growup with video conferencing. Get them excited about all there is on You Tubeto inform, educate and delight. Teach them the joys of the new socialrelationship tools like Facebook. Need to teach them to long for theimmensity of the sea.

Get broadband declared a public utility for all to get prices regulated. Video conferencing is an important need especially in isolated areas like ours.

This should be conceptualized at the county (or four county) level to scalecosts.

Need targeted testimonials telling stories about broadband benefits. Need neighborhoods to voice need & willingness to pay affordable prices. Broadband must be a public utility. Video conferencing in isolated areas. Need public meetings to show video county programs. Public awareness of need benefits. Internet will increase economy which increases money for pot holes, schools,

services.

Do another survey to get pre-registration.8. Legislative Advocacy

There were three legislative reps there, and they all agreed on a lot of issues.They want to help. They want to be kept informed, but they DON'T want tget pages and pages of data or plans or applications. KISS (keep it simple,stupid) is the advice. If we want them to represent us before a committee, orto write a letter, they want the information they need in a few paragraphs.

Also, they would rather communicate with one person per organization, so wemust have consensus.


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The public needs to be informed about the laws, about the government andabout the technology. The legislators need to become informed about thetechnology.

There is $7.2 billion out there. If we don't get a piece of that action, it will beour fault, not the legislators. They are on our side. But they are not all-powerful. The U.S. Senate is a special case.

Since we are rural, it may be useful to work with rural organizationsnationwide, because they can get the attention of a senator from Wyomingmore easily than we can get the attention of a senator from California.

Our legislators will pay more attention to a larger project. It will bring morevotes. On the other hand, organizing pays off big-time

Feinstein/Boxer Reps: If you represent a larger group -> roll up County isbetter than community (resolution), regional (multiple counties) (all w/resolutions); Let them know the groups who are supporting it.

State Reps: Even when working at the Federal level, keep state reps informed.They may get coordination of developments before us. Give contact nameswho will be responsible for letting others know.

Field Staff: Periodic emails preferably from consistent sources. Preparethem for questions they might be faced with. Poss forewarn them of letter ofsupport needs.

Language Keywords to include (common to all non-metropolitan areas).Keeping doors open. Beyond the local need to link with other constituencies.

Work with states who are more rural than us -> more voice in those states ->legislative advocates for rural needs.

Support letters from legislators. Give them the time necessary to act (weeks).1) know the protocol of each office. 2) provide suggested wording. 3) makesure they know all the groups supporting the project.

Stay on top of current legislation by subscribing online State & Fed Bills. FCC comments due by 4/13/09. What is broadband? What is rural? What is

unserved and underserved?

Application Cross sector: marry community with needs to serve publicservices, emergency services, health, etc

Summary of applications Communicate with field reps -> a set of facs (taketo committee memorable); summary action of key points; draft

correspondence & who it needs to go to; as brief as possible (less is more.This is a dynamic process); Ask clearly.

Documents

Notes From Breakout Sessions