South Coast Telecommunications Alliance (SCTA) Held at General Research Corporation, Santa Barbara CA May 24, 1995 - Minutes of Meeting ______________________________________________________ Dale Taylor, moderator Sharon Clausen counted 59 people in attendance. The topic of discussion for tonight: A Brief Overview of Several Community Networks Announcements: --Dale: The petition on the communications decency act is online at the following WWW address: http://www.cdt.org/petition.html For more info go to: http://www.cdt.org/cda.html --Dave Oster (doster@silcom.com) gave the Treasury report. Please donate for xeroxing and refreshments, presentations. --Shawn Miner announced that the newly formed WestNet is in need of volunteers. Look for announcements online or write shawn7@rain.org. The $35 intro fee goes to develop a well-fleshed system--more computers, modems, lines. --John Danner spoke about a project on teaching kids to repair and recycle old computers. Write to johndan@aol.com for more info. --Ann Cameron announced new Santa Barbara Adult Ed classes on computers and Internet training. More schedules are available at Wake and Schott Adult Ed centers. --Jan Ballard (jwb@rain.org) announced Commons Design Team meeting an the 3rd wednesday of the month from 4:00 to 6:00 at RAIN offices. The topics covered include what the code of ethics might be for a collaborative culture. --Alan Pritchardannounced that the SCTA logo is online at www.silcom.com /scta. --Nancy Oster announced that Silicon Beach (silcom.com) has a WWW access to the tri newsgroups. Its a lot easier to read and post messages than using tin or other standard newsreaders. If you don't have the tri newsgroups through your service, you can get to them through the WWW. Just go to http://www.silcom.com The Presentations: Bruce Hanna (bhanna@piweb.com)on the Blacksburg Community Network: -They have Ethernet to the Internet to homes for $30/month. He related the refusal of a prospective employee of a SB company that didn't want to come because of the lack of this facility in SB. -This is not another IAP, but a complete integrated community network. The orientation is local and access is very low cost. It's free at the library. -Focus is on newsletters , schedules, yellow pages, information on each city agency, etc. -BellAtlantic fronted $7,000,000 to build the network which was fee recoverable. -This is a community with far less resources than SB that has, through close cooperative efforts, achieved the goal of a completely integrated community network Nancy Oster (noster@silcom.com) on the Cupertino "City Net" -Nancy looked and couldn't find it on the Internet because of their concern over internet security issues. They use a First Class front end for the Internet, but wouldn't enlarge on the overall architecture. -The networking technology used to connect the participants was modems, ISDN, and spread spectrum wireless. -The network architecture and content is based on community access needs, not Internet connectivity. -Nancy emphasized the simple intuitive GUI for getting the maximum number of people online. Although the demo was on a Mac, it was emphasized that the GUI package will work on Windows as well. -Wally Dean, who gave the demo , emphasized the imperitive to get everyone online-- schools, agencies, police, fire departments, city government, parents, etc. -Cost is $50/ year for individuals and $200/ year for groups or agencies. John Wiley (john@silcom.com or j-wiley@rain.org) spoke on the San Diego region's network. "PNet" (now CTSnet) was an early pioneer in building an online community there. John put some San Diego URLs in his "Netscape Bookmarks" page, accessible from www.silcom.com/~john -John noted that the San Diego community network is in rapid flux. The City of San Diego now has a large page with lots of local links and government info. There was nothing but an "under construction" notice two weeks ago. -He liked the NOSC (military) page, which seemed to have the most community links. -CTSnet (a SD IAP) has a mostly business-oriented page. -RIUS is behind the rapid expansion of the SD City/County pages. -San Diego Computer Society is one of the oldest and best in the country, but has only recently formed an Internet SIG which apparently is only user training in focus. SDCS has apparently done little or nothing to build a community network. focus -SB is fortunate to have SCTA. We are well positioned to build a true community network, both in hardware/software, and in content. Darrel Doehr (darrel.doehr@caddy.uu.silcom.com) spoke about the Detroit Freenet. -MichiganNet is a cooperative statewide network. -The freenet is totally volunteer and are short on modems and looking for money for lines, modems, equipment. -He viewed the local newspaper from the freenet service and was able to check the local sports action. -The freenet is run out of TarDeck, a US Army facility that used to be for Chrysler Tank construcion. -The goal was to offer free access to everyone regardless of economic status. Dale Taylor (dale@rain.org) spoke about the Phoenix "Economic Commerce Network" -The motivation behind the formation of the ECN was the potential impact on local industry from NAFTA. There were 12 machine shops in the concerned group of businesses which participated in this network trial. -DEC set it up, but there were considerable regulatory issues to overcome. It took them months to get authorization and a day to install. -Dale said that the network was only available for a year and that the year is up. The future of the network is now uncertain. -http://ns.ecn-phx.com/channel1.html After a 10 minute break and insistant nagging the meeting resumed: Nancy Oster spoke briefly on the NTIA grant applications from the 805 area code: --Ther were 30 applications from the 805 area code. --Just phone numbers , who has submitted, and a brief overview are available online --Several have decided not to persue grants past the LOI --RAIN, Oxnard High School, Visiting Nurses, APCD, and others Jeff Carmody (jcarm@rain.org) from the APCD talked about their NTIA application: --Server at APCD as well as telnet link so anyone can connect and notify them of information or see announcements or regulations. --Funding is various: EPA for $100k, and NTIA $250k --NTIA proposal is mostly for hardware and software to do the connectivity. Discussion on how Santa Barbara can have its own "City Net": --What are the key ingredients?? Bruce says its a non-threatening collaboration of enthused people from the key areas. --There seems to be confusion over whether this is about more universal Internet access or about a"community" centered network. --The need for such a network needs to be clarified in order to get people to make it happen. --John Wiley will head up a committee to write up a recipe to make a community network happen. --The city and county doesn't have the budget to premptively offer the support unless a good reason can be shown-- how it will save jobs/money. --"War Stories" help to show people how the Internet (a city net) could be used to improve the economy, the quality of life, etc. This could be extend to what "could be" available and how it might help. --Saving money or improving efficiency may be a threat to their jobs. Efficiency by itself may not be a threat. Getting more out of the existing staff. --Another issue is will this make the jobs of the overworked government staff more difficult. Has to do with what is offered, and how it is presented. --We need to understand what information content is actually needed by the community. --Brainstorm on one of the newsgroups. tri.general Next meeting 6/28/95... _________________________________________________________________________ David Oster, CEO | Wide-Area Network Interface Cards MultiAccess Computing Corporation | Novell * FTP * Macintosh * Windows 805-964-2332 fax 805-681-7469 | Frame relay * SMDS * CDS * DXI _________________________________________________________________________