Multi-Network Collaborations Extending the Internet to Rural and Difficult to Serve Communities

This paper was presented at the 1994  CAUSE Annual Conference
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                MULTI-NETWORK COLLABORATIONS
             EXTENDING THE INTERNET TO RURAL AND
               DIFFICULT TO SERVE COMMUNITIES

             Dr. E. Michael Staman, President
                       CICNet, Inc.
                    Ann Arbor, Michigan


PREFACE:

The Rural Datafication presentation was based in large part 
on Dr. Staman's recent testimony before the US House 
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.  The following 
is the written text of the testimony. 

     Committee on Science, Space and Technology
     U.S. House of Representatives
     Washington, DC
     Hearing on The Technological Transformation of Rural
     America
     July 12, 1994 

Testimony of:
     Dr. E. Michael Staman, President
     CICNet, Inc.
     Ann Arbor, Michigan


Mister Chairman and members of the Subcommittee:

Your invitation to participate in today's hearing came during 
a time when we at CICNet have increasingly found ourselves 
engaged in a number of forums discussing rural America's 
access to the National Information Infrastructure (the NII).  
Thank you for the opportunity to discuss theseissues in with 
you. 

The growth of both the number of users and the applications 
of the Internet (that element of the NII which is available 
and working effectively today) has astounded even those of us 
who have been its most optimistic proponents for many years.  
It has grown from a resource used primarily by the research 
and education sector as recently as five years ago to a 
significant force within the nation's business sector today.  
It will become a major element of our global competitive 
posture within the decade. 

Perhaps the best way to clarify its status at present is to 
quote directly from the July 7th, 1994 issue of USA TODAY: 

"Across the USA, thousands of companies are tapping into the 
mother of all computer networks -- the Internet -- to find 
job candidates, communicate with customers, work out 
technical problems and peddle their wares. ... Having an 
Internet address is rapidly becoming a requirement for doing
business, ..." 

As with the deployment of all national infrastructures in the 
history of this nation, we need to insure that all citizens 
participate fully in both the evolution and the promise of 
this new resource.  Its potential to transform the way we 
work, communicate with each other, and even enjoy portions of 
our leisure parallels the potential of virtually every other
massive infrastructural change, whether it was the 
development of the railroads in the early 1800's, the 
electrification of urban areas in the late 1800's and rural 
areas in the mid-1930s, the establishment of 
telecommunications connections in the late 1800s, or the 
development of urban and interstate transportation in the 
early to mid-1990s. 

My comments today will focus on barriers to access to the NII 
that exist within rural America, and on several key 
initiatives needed to further encourage and enhance rural 
acceptance and use of the NII.  For the record, I have 
submitted several additional documents which might be of 
interest to the committee.  Specifically: 

1.  A paper discussing CICNet's Rural Datafication Project.  
This project has been funded by the National Science 
Foundation. 

2.  A report on CICNet's second annual conference on Rural 
Datafication. These conferences, the most recent of which 
involved approximately 350 people, literally from around the 
globe, has become one of the key forums at which people 
gather to discuss problems related to extending and using the 
National Information Infrastructure in rural America. 

3.  A working paper discussing several of the issues which we 
believe to be of critical importance as the nation continues 
its evolution to a National Information Infrastructure. 

4.  A document containing the full text of my report in 
response to your invitation to present testimony, from which 
my comments today will be drawn. 

So that my comments might be presented in the correct 
context, I need to begin with a description of my 
organization, CICNet, and CICNet's owners, the major research 
universities throughout a portion of the midwestern
United States. 


THE COMMITTEE ON INSTITUTIONAL COOPERATION

The "CIC" in CICNet stands for "the Committee on 
Institutional Cooperation," a thirty- five year-old 
collaboration among the following universities: the 
University of Chicago, the University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign, the University of Illinois at Chicago, Indiana 
University, the University of Iowa, the University of 
Michigan, Michigan State University, the University of 
Minnesota, the Pennsylvania State University (the most recent 
member), Purdue University, the Ohio State University, 
Northwestern University, and the University of Wisconsin-
Madison.  There are over 75 separate and unique 
collaborations currently operating under the aegis of the 
CIC. 

These institutions serve the region and the nation on a truly 
impressive scale.  Collectively they account for more than 
17% of the Ph.D.'s awarded annually, approximately 20% of all 
science and engineering Ph.D.'s, in excess of $2.5 billion 
in externally funded research annually, and over 17% of the 
holdings of the Association for Research Libraries.  With an 
aggregate total in excess of 500,000 students, 33,000 
faculty, and 57 million volumes within their libraries, these 
institutions are truly a resource which consistently enhances 
both the quality of life and the global competitiveness of 
both their region and the nation. 
 
In 1988, CICNet was founded as a CIC not-for-profit 
corporation to provide inter- institutional CIC-university 
network infrastructure and network access to the National 
Science Foundation Network (NSFNET). Today, in addition to 
all of the CIC universities, both Argonne National Labs and 
Notre Dame University participate in CICNet Board of Director 
activities. As part of the CIC community of activities, 
CICNet is now part of the infrastructure providing NSFNET 
connectivity to over 400 colleges and universities, 
commercial or other organizations throughout its seven-state 
region of operations.  A recent study indicated that 
approximately 20% of the traffic on the United States 
Internet backbone (NSFNET) came from throughout the CIC 
region.  Given the above, and the rural community and 
economic development activities that are part of the mission 
of many of the CIC-universities, it should be of little 
surprise that these universities would encourage CICNet to 
move in directions designed to increase both NII access and 
services for rural areas. 


RURAL DATAFICATION IN AMERICA

Several years ago CICNet, in collaboration with NSF-sponsored 
networks in eight states ranging from New York to Iowa, was 
awarded $1.3 million by the National Science Foundation to 
conduct a project that we entitled "Rural Datafication."  The 
intent of the project is to find ways to create Internet 
infrastructure and services in difficult-to-reach and 
difficult-to-serve user communities.  It was, and is today, 
the only project of its kind in the nation -- focusing on 
strengthening the ability of state networks to deliver 
services to rural communities while simultaneously attempting 
to develop workable solutions which scale to vast geographic 
regions and huge user populations.  The state networking 
organizations now participating with CICNet in rural 
datafication activities include INDnet (Indiana), IREN 
(Iowa), MICHNet (Michigan), MRnet (Minnesota), netILLINOIS 
(Illinois), NYSERNet (New York), PREPnet (Pennsylvania), 
WISCnet (Wisconsisn), and WVnet (West Virginia). 

During the course of the project we have been in contact with 
citizens from throughout the nation, held several national 
and regional conferences focused on rural access and services 
to the NII, and participated in forums on the topic in 
Minnesota, Oregon, West Virginia, and Iowa.  We have learned 
a great deal during this process. I would like to discuss 
four of the most important topics with you today. 

I have entitled the first topic "common themes."  There are 
common themes which occur whenever the topic of access in 
rural America is discussed. They focus on the need for equal 
and affordable access for all citizens, the need for pro-
active community and economic development strategies based on 
telecommunications technologies, the creation of enhanced 
training and support for the large percentage of the 
population which has yet to understand the potential of an 
NII, the development of improved information services which 
both serve and stimulate communities as they contemplate the 
promise of the NII, and the need to insure that somehow rural 
America participates fully in the services which will be made 
available via the NII. 

This last "theme" is particularly critical, and is not well 
understood either in rural America or in Washington.  As the 
"superhighway" increases in capacity, steps must be taken to 
insure that same capacity is available throughout the land.  
Polices or practices which create high performance, robust 
infrastructure in urban areas or within selected segments of 
our nation while simultaneously creating low-speed, low-
performance infrastructure in the remainder will actually 
serve to exacerbate an existing problem of "information haves 
and have nots." 

It is becoming clear that, marketing and public posturing to 
the contrary, depending only upon market forces to deliver 
high-quality, supported, information infrastructure and 
services to rural America will result in both a long period 
of time for such services to become available and a further 
exacerbation of the problem.  The worst thing that we can do 
is "wire 'em for dial access" and proceed to install fiber-
based infrastructure only in locations where market forces 
(read, return on investment) would normally justify such 
investments.  We are not yet at a point where market forces 
will best serve our national agenda of equal access for all 
citizens. 

The second topic that I would like to discuss with you is 
best described as "the uniqueness of unique-user 
communities."  While somewhat obvious if one were to think 
about it for only a moment, this topic is of interest to 
rural America because there is little in our public policy 
which seems to recognize its existence and importance.  
Actual uses of the information and services which are 
available even today via the network turn out to be different 
for different communities.  That is, like all infrastructure 
and all communities of users, the needs, goals, and uses to 
which the NII will be put by groups such as the native 
American community are vastly different from those of, say, 
the agricultural community, public libraries, k-12 education, 
youth groups, small businesses and the like. 

Understanding these differences and developing strategies 
accordingly will accelerate the time when the promise of the 
NII becomes real for these communities. Such an effort will 
require the involvement of our universities, the communities 
involved, and the government.  A critical element of any 
initiative in this area is the support and services that can 
be provided by the nations NSF-sponsored mid-level networks. 

The third topic is "local ownership."  Ownership of the 
problem by those most directly affected -- the nation's 
towns, communities, and their concomitant citizens' groups -- 
combined with the now rapidly evolving groups of "virtual 
communities" -- is critical to the success of the NII. There 
is probably not, nor should there be, sufficient 
discretionary revenues within the coffers of either our 
states or the federal government to meet the needs for the 
kinds of high-performance infrastructure that will ultimately 
be required by every city and town in America, and the 
absence of such infrastructure to the edge of any community 
will inhibit the development of appropriate infrastructure 
within. 

By creating strategies which cause local ownership we will 
enhance local investment, creating a dynamic which will 
hasten the day when the NII is truly part of the fabric of 
the nation.  There is little doubt that such local ownership 
will result in better and more appropriate solutions at the 
local level, and that solutions developed and funded locally 
will be more effectively used than something developed 
without local involvement or investment. 

We should be careful not to confuse the messages of 
affordable access and suitable capacity in Topic #1, "common 
themes", and the "local ownership" theme of Topic # 3.  To 
accelerate the evolution of an NII which extends not only to 
every city and town, but also to individual homes and 
businesses, we must BOTH insure that our telecommunications 
carriers deploy adequate infrastructure to support NII 
applications AND create strategies which cause communities, 
their citizens, and local businesses to experiment with and 
understand the power and potential of an NII. While seemingly 
a delicate balance, accomplishing both goals will accelerate 
the immediate uses of existing infrastructures and community 
interest in investing as new infrastructure becomes 
available. 

The final topic involves "building on existing efforts."  We 
should not forget or ignore the fact that there are already, 
and in some cases have been for many years, ongoing efforts 
at community development using whatever technologies are 
available.  For instruction in the problems and successes 
related to these initiatives one need only contact 
individuals at places such as Eastern Oregon State College, 
which is attempting to serve citizens resident in some 42,000 
square miles, West Virginia University, which contemplates 
training some 2000 teachers in the use of the Internet during 
the next three years, or Virginia Polytechnic and State 
University, which is using its "Blacksburg Electronic 
Village" project as an endeavor to bring the entire citizenry 
of a single town into the NII movement.  At CICNet, a 
"Building Electronic Communities"  project is attracting 
inquiries from around the world, and one can now find
initiatives similar to those above in many pockets throughout 
the land. Their hallmarks are the involvement of volunteers, 
universities, usually some state or federal involvement, and 
sometimes (but, unfortunately with increasingly less 
frequency) mid-level networks. 

We have examples and models upon which we can build, and 
whatever polices are developed should encourage and enhance 
initiatives such as those cited above. 


POLICY IMPLICATIONS

Both he NII goals of the current administration and NII 
services to rural America can be accelerated by several 
important policy initiatives. Initiatives are required which 
guarantee affordable access, stimulate the expansion of 
capacity at the local level, and create local leadership and 
ownership of this new and unique resource.  In the process, 
market forces need to continue to evolve naturally while, 
simultaneously, initiatives are developed which stimulate 
enhanced volunteerism, the continued role of our 
universities, and the contributions of the not-for-profit 
mid-level computer networks.  I have recommendations in three 
areas: pricing, infrastructure, and services. Specifically, 
the following should be created: 

1.  An environment in which access will be affordable for all 
citizens. In the process of creating such an environment, 
avoid usage sensitive or time-based pricing.  Citizens will, 
I believe, pay a fair price for volume (flat rate 
proportional to available capacity), but experimentation and 
innovation, two critical elements in creating an environment 
in which we can realize the promise of the net, will 
experience a premature and tragic demise if discouraged by 
the burden of usage-sensitive pricing. 

I would like to carefully place this recommendation in 
context.  The NII will grow to encompass the cables coming 
into people's homes, and they will want to buy movies and 
other services across the NII.  It is only reasonable that 
they pay the going rate for each of these services.  But what 
is most critical is that the following three elements are 
maintained: flat-rate charging for basic access to all 
network services, such as those now on the Internet that are 
free; freedom from any bundled extra services included by the 
carrier in the price; and freedom to pick and choose services 
offered by vendors across the network, and to pay for them 
directly to the vendor, with no involvement by the carrier. 

2. An infrastructural environment in which communities can 
and will assume ownership of their elements of an NII fabric.  
This is important because there are clearly insufficient 
financial resources to develop federally funded 
infrastructure to every city and town in America.  Modest 
community and economic development programs which have as 
their foundation the same imagination and leadership shown by 
the National Science Foundation when it created the 
"Connections Program," however, will stimulate significantly 
community involvement and the investment required to make a 
full NII a reality.  At the individual community level the 
initial investments necessary for proof-of- concept and 
demonstration activities are not large, and I believe that 
modest stimulation via federal programs will both create the 
initial investment and ownership, and larger local 
investments as local leadership and citizenry begin to 
realize both the promise and potential of the NII. 

3. A services environment in which those organizations which 
choose to continue to foster and develop community and 
economic development can do so with renewed vigor and 
strength.  Volunteerism, the role of not-for-profit 
organizations, the very special activities of organizations 
such as Eastern Oregon State College and the CIC 
universities, and the unique contributions that can continue 
to be provided by many of the nation's mid-level networks 
must be preserved if rural America is to realize the promise 
of a national information infrastructure. 

Finally, and perhaps most important, we need to create an 
environment in which local communities can and will create 
services of their own.  Services such as community 
information servers, structure providing access to health 
care information, activities to create virtual electronic 
communities of interest which encompass and then extend 
beyond local communities to a global environment, and 
initiatives which bring the digital library and other 
globally-based information resources to the desktops of 
individual citizens represent the promise of the National
Information Infrastructure.  We should never lose sight of 
these goals as we work very hard to make the NII a reality 
and a sustainable resource for the nation. 

I believe that our government has an opportunity transform 
America in ways which parallel the transformations resulting 
from the Rural Electrification Act of 1936.  I would like to 
close with a quote which I have used in other publications.  
It describes that impact much more eloquently than any which 
I could develop on my own. 
 
"As late as 1935 ... decades after electric power had become 
a part of urban life, the wood range, the washtub, the sad 
iron and the dim kerosene lamp were still the way of life for 
almost 90 percent of the 30 million Americans who lived in 
the country-side.  All across the United States,  wrote a 
public-power advocate, "Every city 'white way' ends abruptly 
at the city limits.  Beyond lies darkness."  The lack of 
electric power,  wrote the historian William E.  
Luechtenberg, had divided the United States into two nations: 
"the city dwellers and the country folks"; farmers, he wrote, 
"toiled in a nineteenth-century world; farm wives, who 
enviously eyed pictures in the Saturday Evening Post of city 
women with washing machines, refrigerators, and vacuum 
cleaners, performed their backbreaking chores like peasant 
women in a pre industrial age." 

... from a description of the US before the Rural 
Electrification Act of 1936.  (Robert A. Caro: The Years of 
Lyndon Johnson: Path to Power, Vintage Books, 1981, p. 516.)

Our opportunity and our responsibility are both clear.  Thank 
you, again, for the opportunity to participate in this forum.  
I stand ready to provide additional information today and, of 
course, will respond to similar requests in the future. 

E. Michael Staman

July 12, 1994