David Fletcher: Voice and Data Networks

Utah Communications Agency Network

Wed, 22 Dec 2004 15:56:09 GMT

I met with the executive board of the Utah Communications Agency Network for 4 1/2 hours yesterday. UCAN provides 800 MHz trunked radio service to over 100 state and local agencies in Utah. With so many agencies involved, the governance can be real tricky and there have been a number of rumors being proliferated that needed to be dispelled. UCAN provides the most advanced, integrated component of UWIN and the Omnilink that ties together the other networks resides at the VECC facilility where UCAN is located. The board voted yesterday to reduce the state rate by $2 per radio per month. One of the rumors suggests that the state is working on an IP radio system that would completely replace UCAN in the short term. That would be a mistake, but I do feel that it is important to continue to review technology to see how we can improve the way we operate. The UCAN infrastructure is a valuable asset for both state and local members of UCAN and should be leveraged along with other public communications infrastructure operated by ITS and UEN to maximize benefits to the citizens and government agencies throughout the state.

The FCC is expanding the availability of funds for telemedicine. I hope we can take advantage of this to benefit the Utah Telehealth Network while expanding the cooperative efforts of UTN with other network infrastructure providers.

UWIN 2005 Action

Sat, 04 Dec 2004 00:23:18 GMT

The UWIN Governance Board met this morning. We reviewed progress from the first year which has been substantial in almost every one of the initial action item list. I prepared a proposed list for 2005 to stimulate thinking in areas like grid computing, wireless application development, PDA services, mesh networking, etc. After members have a chance to review them and add many of their own, we'll review and vote on an aggregated list in January.

SDR approved by FCC

Fri, 26 Nov 2004 15:57:17 GMT

Rural Utah now has a new online resource.

Last Friday, the FCC approved the first software defined radio. I tried to order one of these devices so that we could begin testing it in the UWIN area, but no one from Vanu was available today.

The state's SONET ring in the Salt Lake Valley is supported by XO Communications. Here's an interesting map of their nationwide network. Indiana University provides the NOC for the Abiline Network and has some interesting online monitoring capabilities that may be of interest to states as they continue to expand their network capabilities. The Weathermap shows how the system is operating. UEN has been coordinating with Pacific Northwest Gigapop and CENIC to get NLR through Utah.

Utah Information Security Conference

Thu, 29 Jul 2004 14:12:47 GMT

I spent yesterday morning at the State information security conference. Governor Walker (video stream coming) announced an increased focus on cybersecurity and asked for each department to appoint a Chief Security Officer that will be part of the State Information Security Council. She was followed by Rob Clyde, CTO of Symantec, who gave an excellent presentation. While hunting around, I found these video / audio streams of several recent conferences that have some interesting information on current trends. Simple registration is required.

Yesterday afternoon, we signed off on the Omnilink installation at UCAN. I learned that Indiana and Ohio are using the same technology to support their statewide wireless initiatives. Indiana's Project Hoosier SAFE-T is at a similar stage and is being coordinated between all levels of government. Here's a map of their current and planned implementation. The terrain makes the task very different from Utah where we have the mountains to deal with.

NCSL Meets in Salt Lake City

Mon, 19 Jul 2004 15:29:03 GMT

The National Conference of State Legislatures begins its annual meeting in Salt Lake City today. Recently, NCSL published two studies discussing the negative impact of electronic commerce on state revenues. The report estimates that the loss for 2003 to state and local revenues was $21.5 and $33.7 billion.

Twenty-five states now have some kind of public affairs network. Although Utah is not officially represented here, there is regular coverage of the legislative session on the two major university-supported stations with KBYU providing daily coverage of legislative news during the session and KUED provides periodic coverage of state government issues on its Civic Dialogue series. This report summarizes the status of public affairs networks.

Interesting rundown on Rock Regan's dismissal as CIO of Connecticutt:

Virginia is creating a new statewide radio network called STARS (Statewide Agencies Radio System). They just awarded a $329 million contract to Motorola. The first phase becomes operational in December 2005. The system was funded partially by $159.3 million in bonds approved by the Virginia legislature.

Coverage of Utah Wireless Integrated Network Initiative

Wed, 07 Jul 2004 15:38:57 GMT

News coverage of Governor Walker's UWIN press conference:

Western CIO Forum to be held in August

Tue, 29 Jun 2004 14:40:55 GMT

Remedy, best known as a help desk solution, has a new product called "Citizen Service". Since we own the help desk product, we may want to look into this as a way to extend the value of Remedy to the state. I have also asked that we look into the value of NextPage's GetSmart for Remedy product.

I missed this interview with Val Oveson in Baseline magazine. Val discusses ROI and metrics.

The Western CIO Forum 2004 is scheduled to be held in Santa Fe on August 1-3. Utah's enterprise architect, Randy Hughes will be on a "Web Services in e-Government" panel.

I think with the changes in Western Governors leadership that we will see less focus on information technology and more on the Greater Sage Grouse. Not a bad thing, just different.

Pennsylvania is still having problems with their statewide voice (radio) network. Reports say it has cost about $240 million and is still far from complete. In Utah, we have made a lot of progress with UWIN and are now really pushing the 700 MHz mobile data component with much of the voice solution now in place.

Coverage of Governing magazine's recent Governing Technology 2004 conference.

RTLS and RFIDs for Homeland Security

Wed, 26 May 2004 15:01:13 GMT

Just returned from Washington, DC, where we met with Dr. David Boyd, program director for Project Safecom. We discussed finding funding opportunities for using RTLS and RFIDs as a UWIN-supported project. Real Time Locating Systems (RTLS) are fully automated systems that continuously monitor and track the locations of assets and personnel. In the homeland security context, we would have vehicle-mounted RTLS systems that could form a grid in responding to a given homeland incident or natural disaster. These mobile RTLS systems would convey data to incident management through the 700 MHz statewide data network and or broadband 4.9 GHz and 802.11 access points depending on the location. Check out this presentation (Reality Online) from Accenture.

Boyd is also involved in supporting the federal government's Integrated Wireless Network project. Perhaps UWIN should look at ways to partner with IWN. Another agency to keep an eye on is HSARPA. HSARPA is a homeland security agency fashioned after DARPA that was created last year. I don't see much activity there yet.

Boyd also told us that Tom Ridge is planning to create a new program management office to create greater interoperability and innovation among the first responder community. Here are a few more details. Dr. Boyd has only been with Homeland since 2003 (that's right, it was only created then). Here's more on his background. His testimony to the House Reform Committee is a very clear statement of what Project Safecom is about.

NIST provides this interesting list of organizations, companies, and technologies associated with public safety wireless. Their Advanced Network Technologies Division is interested in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks, an area where the latest Utah proposal seems to fit.

Statewide Wireless Networks

Fri, 07 May 2004 14:06:21 GMT

Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge meets with Utah emergency responders. He was very complimentary of the UWIN project and stressed the importance of integrated communications systems.

John Kavanaugh was just promoted to vice president of Northrop Grumman, state and local public safety solutions, Commercial, State and Local Solutions business unit responsible for public safety command and control centers, highway transportation management centers, statewide wireless communications systems, automated identification systems, criminal justice systems, and other public safety solutions in the state and local marketplace. Kavenaugh received his bachelor's degree in business administration from Weber State University. NG also has an RFID implementation support center.

Tom Ridge will be in town today. He will be giving the commencement speech at the University of Utah and then visiting with a small group of state and local government homeland security officials.

The May issue of Capitol Connections is online.

The Utah Wireless Integrated Network governance board meets today.

Accenture has a new eGov report. I'm having a little trouble accessing it.

Wow, New York State just awarded their wireless network contract to M/A-COM. Some say that the contract may be valued as high as $2 billion. Utah's approach (UWIN) is certainly less costly - and hopefully just as well integrated. The contract is the largest technology contract in New York's history, but will not include any coverage in wilderness areas of the Adirondacks or Catskills.

Arkansas Governor, Mike Huckabee, just announced the Arkansas Wireless Information Network (AWIN). Phase I alone is projected to cost $27 million. What we could do with that kind of money.... Arkansas passed several bills to develop statewide wireless back in 1999. This is one of several collaborative projects for the state.

NENA will be holding a wireless E-911 conference here in Salt Lake City on May 23-25. NENA also has a couple of E9-1-1 presentations on how to deal with VoIP:

We are analyzing the benefits of VoIP in conjunction with a new building that is nearing completion.

Governor Ernie Fletcher, the new Governor of Kentucky, held his first online chat the other day. Governor Leavitt did that a few times here. Here is the transcript from Fletcher's online session. He discusses a few technology issues.

TechNet

Fri, 30 Jan 2004 17:44:53 GMT

This just in from Community Broadband Networks:

In a letter to mayors and city councils of the 18 UTOPIA cities, a group, TechNet, representing the leadership of much of America's high tech industry strongly advocated the cities back the multi-city UTOPIA FTTH (fiber to the home) project: "We strongly endorse the UTOPIA city fiber project and wish you well in bringing it to a successful launch in 2004"

This week, West Valley City became the first member of UTOPIA to vote in support of the bond to fund the initial rollout.

Wireless Webb Reports

Mon, 26 Jan 2004 13:43:18 GMT

Boyd Webb, in the Jan. 26th edition of his Wireless Planning Newsletter reports:

On January 16, 2004, the UWIN Technical Steering Committee created four technology teams to address specific issues and make recommendations back to the UWIN TSC.

·         Mobile Data – Team Leader: Forrest Roper, Millard County.

·         Narrowband Migration – Team Leader: Boyd Webb, State ITS.

·         802.11x – Team Leader: Tim Cornia, State DPS.

·         Incident Command – Proposed Team.

Boyd's Wireless Update

Mon, 19 Jan 2004 20:20:53 GMT

Boyd Webb, network planner in ITS, is now producing a periodic newsletter with news and information regarding the development of wireless voice and data in the state. Here's issue #2.

FTTH in Truckee

Thu, 08 Jan 2004 18:13:51 GMT

Business 2.0 reports a new fiber-to-the-home project in Truckee, CA. The article mentions that Utah's UTOPIA project is the biggest such project in the country.

Developments in Utah Broadband Deployment

Thu, 18 Dec 2003 16:28:13 GMT

Al Bonnyman does a great job of covering news of municipal broadband developments around the country and he's been giving a lot of ink to Utah lately. He points to an article by Karl Bode of Broadband Reports that states that Utah is at the center of the nation's largest broadband political debate. Al also pointed out this article in today's issue of New Utah discussing Lindon's participation in the UTOPIA project.

Cedar City debates UTOPIA

Wed, 17 Dec 2003 15:08:41 GMT

Mayor Gerald Sherratt of Cedar City is calling the decision to join UTOPIA "the most important vote in the city's history." Sherratt is the former president of Southern Utah University. The new library at SUU is named after him and is an excellent online source of information.

Roger Black was in Cedar City last night as residents debated the merits of the proposed fiber network. Read more about it in The Spectrum or the Salt Lake Tribune.

I came across the Mountain West Digital Library which I had seen before, but has expanded since then. It looks like an excellent service with access to 88 active CONTENTdm collections at universities in Utah and Nevada.

Latest on WiFi

Wed, 10 Dec 2003 15:51:46 GMT

Rob Flickenger, author of Building Wireless Community Networks, posts a comment on his O'Reilly blog about how Weber State University students put up a wifi link across the Great Salt Lake for an 82 mile 802.11 connection. The comment was picked up by SlashDot, generating hundreds of comments about everything from Utah and polygamy to wireless access on the UVSC campus. Rob offers some pointers on setting up point-to-point links.

Cerritos, CA, is implementing a citywide mesh wifi network for broadband service. E-Minister Stephen Timms is planning to get WiFi into every British Library. China is mandating its own encryption standards for WiFi.

Wireless Resources

Mon, 08 Dec 2003 14:59:14 GMT

There is a growing number of excellent resources focused on the development of wireless networks. Here are a few of my favorites.

For those who get involved with the UWIN project that do not have a background in wireless, I would recommend PSWN's primer on managing wireless networks.

UWIN Action

Fri, 05 Dec 2003 20:11:40 GMT

The Utah Wireless Integrated Network Governance Board met this morning and approved action on a substantial list of projects as part of Phase I which is to be completed by July of 2004. As a result, these tasks have been assigned to a specific project lead which will report on status and feasability of each project in the next meeting.

Install OmniLink to connect VHF and all 800 MHz
Connect Utah National Guard to the statewide voice network
Implement the smartphone interface
Implement secure enterprise solution and standards for 802.11 statewide
Work with FCC and Regional Planning Committee to complete the state plan for 700 MHz and 4.9 GHz
Expand 800 MHz voice service into rural Utah
Complete the UWIN website
Meet with the UAC and ULCT (outreach / education)
Develop maps of all hotspots
Develop a wireless information / data portal for PDAs / handhelds
Develop policies and strategies for reverse 911 and other notification services
Connect UDOT facilities in rural Utah to the state WAN
Develop plans and procedures for wireless local area networks for incident management and command
Replacement for CDPD
Implement 450 MHz Mobile Data on a wider scale
Implement 700 MHz Mobile Data
Support the UEN GeoMax project to increase bandwidth of the state education network from one end of the state to the other
Develop complete redundancy for the state microwave / WAN and geographic redundancy for state internet connectivity.

This is an ambitious list and there is a lot of nailbiting about how it will be accomplished. A financial committee has been formed to begin addressing the funding issues in a coordinated manner.

Utah's UTOPIA

Mon, 17 Nov 2003 15:02:26 GMT

Paul Morris is touting UTOPIA in this morning's issue of the NY Times. "It's an essential economic growth issue," he says. "The best network in the U.S. will be in Utah - not in New York, not in Chicago, not in Los Angeles." Qwest responds, "Why provide a Rolls-Royce when a Chevrolet will do?" I guess we'll eventually find out who wins that argument.

So far, the major push for home broadband has been focused on entertainment. More stations, more online gaming. I would love to see a reculturization that builds interest in other areas where broadband makes sense. Science, education, enhanced collaboration are all areas that will also benefit from the enhanced connectivity. To what degree depends on culture and what we value. What is our future?

Last month, Allied Telesyn was selected as the customer premises solution for UTOPIA's phase I fiber rollout. Joel Sybrowsky states that UTOPIA is the largest last-mile fiber project in the world. The South Korean government is investing 2 billion won to build an integrated broadband network.

I like Centerville City's new GIS application. You can drill down to individual lots in the city and then get information like garbage pickup day, address, and tax ID for any given lot. Centerville is one of 17 municipalities that have joined UTOPIA.

An article in yesterday's Times, "The Race to Wire America," discusses some of the other high-speed fiber and wireless networks that are being built along Utah's Wasatch Front.

David Sucher, who pointed me to this morning's article in the Times and is the author of the excellent City Comforts blog, refers to a nice interactive map of the Ground Zero area, as well as Chris Corrigan's Maps and Territories blog.

There are some very interesting Japanese blogs on Blogpeople.net.

Study identifies growth in wireless LAN deployment

Fri, 14 Nov 2003 23:55:25 GMT

Cisco released a study yesterday that identifies the benefits associated with implementation of wireless LANs. Sixty-nine percent of government organizations surveyed now have wireless LANs in production. This is behind every other sector included in the study and is up from 59% in 2001. Thirty percent of industries surveyed are now deploying WLANs company wide. Even though the adoption of WLANs is lower overall in government, it appears that government was also an early adopter with 39% of those with WLANs in place having deployed for over 2 years. Contentious issues in government continue to be security and cost. Another interesting point is the fact that government is leading all sectors in terms of outdoor wireless bridge deployment.

Utah Wireless Integrated Network

Fri, 07 Nov 2003 22:30:13 GMT

This morning, Governor Olene Walker signed her first executive order, officially creating the Utah Wireless Integrated Network (UWIN). The UWIN board met earlier this morning to discuss technologies and initiatives that will be part of phase I of the project which brings together a diverse array of interests including public safety, health, education, the national guard, local government, etc. to create one of the most progressive, interoperable networks in the country. See the press release for more information or watch KSL's coverage of the announcement. Governor Walker also announced that e-government would continue to be a priority during her administration. Chris Clark of the Associated Press also covered the announcement.

Here's the Executive Order creating UWIN.

E-911 Coordination Initiative

Wed, 29 Oct 2003 16:23:51 GMT

States are meeting today and tomorrow with the FCC in Washington DC to discuss E-911 deployment. The meetings are being streamed live. The Emergency Services Interconnection Forum has developed a readiness packet checklist for Phase 2. Chairman Powell of the FCC spoke this morning of the goals for the coordination initiative:

We all are committed to bringing the benefits of E911 technology to as many Americans as possible as quickly as is practicable;
We all recognize that such an effort requires extensive coordination and cooperation among all of the parties – government, PSAPs, Carriers, ILECs, and the public;
We all believe that resources for E911 should be deployed at all levels in such a way that every dollar spent is spent to save lives;
We all believe that consumers need to know and understand what is possible from E911 and what to expect from their wireless phones;
and We all believe that parties should not obstruct E911 deployment based on unnecessary delay or procedural gamesmanship at the state or federal level.

Jim Stewart of UEN provides a brief summary of yesterday's UWIN technical committee meeting on his weblog. Although a large share of potential UWIN users are law enforcement, we see it as much more than that, particularly as we focus more on the data component. The governance board of UWIN will meet again in early November.

Usability.gov has developed a new guide for web design and usability.

Tremonton Wants UTOPIA

Tue, 05 Aug 2003 19:30:15 GMT

In preparing to rollout a community broadband network in 17 different Utah communities, UTOPIA commissioned a feasability study to determine what the potential "take rate" of households would be in each municipality. The result was a spread that portrayed the potential adoption rate with a max, min, and likely rate. With a maximum rate of 92% and a likely rate of 76%, it appears that Tremonton holds the greatest potential. It is a smaller town and probably has fewer broadband alternatives than some of the other UTOPIA members, but it is very interesting to see the potential for broadband service in that kind of rural, agricultural setting. Overall, the likely rate for all UTOPIA cities is 58%. The potential for success looks good.

Wireless Intelligent Personal Server

Mon, 28 Jul 2003 20:02:44 GMT

The National Institute of Standards and Technology sponsors a series of advanced technology projects. One of the more interesting projects is the wireless intelligent personal server (WIPS) being researched by Rosetta Wireless. The project proposes to achieve an "order of magnitude" increase in the reliability of data transmitted over RF circuits. This and other related projects offer opportunities for creating "killer apps" to stimulate statewide interest of the developing Utah Wireless Integrated Network (UWIN). I am trying to learn more about the new NIST network for first responders.

Latest version of the Homeland Security Appropriations Act as just passed by the U.S. Senate

Risk Management and Technology

Wed, 16 Jul 2003 21:35:23 GMT

The latest issue of Risky Business, a risk management periodical published by Price, Waterhouse, Coopers, has several interesting articles. The linkage between information systems and risk management I believe is one that is still widely underdeveloped. I found two articles particularly interesting, "IT Systems Management, the Trouble with Technology" beginning on page 26 and "Linking Knowledge and Risk Management: Controlling the Information Flood" on page 15. COSO has been working with PWC to develop a draft framework for enterprise risk management. The final version will not be available until early 2004. When I think about it, it makes sense for the enterprise to have a strategy for enterprise risk management that aligns with and supports other enterprise strategies such as the strategic IT plan.

The latest issue of Mission Critical Communications has some very good information for those involved in wireless communications and interoperability, including UWIN team members. Unfortunately, the content is not available online. Free subscriptions are available.