Life in the Fast Lane: A Municipal Roadmap for the Information Superhighway

By Miles R. Fidelman

"A country that works smarter; enjoys efficient, less-costly government guided by a well-informed citizenry; produces high quality jobs and educated citizens to fill them; paves a road away from poverty; promotes life-long learning, public life and the cultural life of our communities - this is the promise of the National Information Infrastructure."

- The Center for Civic Networking, quoted by the White House in The National Information Infrastructure Agenda for Action, September 1993.

Why Should Local Government Care About the Information Superhighway?

A hundred years ago, lack of a railroad stop condemned many towns to a lingering death. Thirty years ago, interstate interchanges helped many communities to prosper, while those on back roads stagnated. Now the "information superhighway" is coming. Will your town be ready?

For communities that prepare, the information superhighway, or National Information Infrastructure, will help streamline internal operations of municipal government, improve delivery of town services to citizens and businesses, reduce traffic congestion and air pollution, bring new educational opportunities to local schools, and help local businesses prosper in a global marketplace.

What is the Information Superhighway, and Who's Building It?

To many, the information superhighway is nothing more than a vague concept with lots of front-page press. Telephone and cable companies promise "video dial-tone," 500 channels of movies, home shopping, interactive video games and other services of dubious value. The federal government's National Information Infrastructure Agenda for Action promises "a seamless web of communications networks, computers, databases, and consumer electronics that =C9 will change forever the way people live, work, and interact with each other." These pronouncements all imply that the national information infrastructure is ill-defined, does not yet exist, and will be built from scratch. In reality, the system is far more concrete and mundane, and largely already exists.

It is useful to view the national information infrastructure as an extension of the electronic networks now used by corporations, government agencies, universities, and other large organizations. Over the past two decades, most large organizations have built data networks linking all of their computers. In some cases networking has extended industry-wide, and has become central to the conduct of business: financial and securities transactions routinely move by wire; reservations flow from travel agents' terminals to airline, car rental, and hotel computer systems. The national information infrastructure promises the next logical step - ubiquitous data networking that reaches every office and home in the nation - everywhere the telephone reaches today.

The beginnings of the national information infrastructure are already in place. More than 23,000 organizational networks are now linked together in a global network-of-networks called the Internet, which began modestly as a government-sponsored research network. Twenty years and billions of public and private dollars later, the Internet has become a vast and seamless "telephone system for computers" linking commercial, government, and academic networks. The technology used is mature and widely available; properly designed networks are reliable and secure from unauthorized access. In Massachusetts, perhaps 500,000 individuals, in almost all of our colleges, universities, and high-technology corporations, use the Internet daily. Federal agencies (ranging from the Department of Defense to the Cooperative Extension Service), and an increasing number of state governments (notably California, Texas, North Carolina, and Maryland) use the Internet to disseminate legislative, job, procurement, and other information.

Our challenge now is to build "electronic city streets" to link homes, schools, libraries, hospitals, and small businesses to this ever-growing information superhighway. Personal computers, inexpensive local area networks, and decreasing connection costs are bringing smaller and smaller organizations into the Internet. Planned upgrades to telephone and cable networks hold the promise of bringing seamless data service to every desktop with a personal computer and, within a few years, to every cable-equipped television set.

What Are the Local Benefits?

Along with the rest of the workday world, municipal government has adopted computers for routine tasks. Even the smallest town now has at least a few personal computers sitting on desktops, and many town offices have at least rudimentary local area networks. Mid-sized and larger towns are using inter-building networks to provide access to central accounting systems; to link computers for electronic mail; and to connect fire, police, and ambulance dispatching systems; etc.

Significant new opportunities arise as municipalities begin to link internal computer networks with external networks:

Electronic data exchanges and electronic funds transfers are now common business practices; the paperless exchange of requests for proposals, purchase orders, invoices, and payments is a proven way to cut administrative expense. A number of federal agencies routinely distribute RFPs electronically; and the federal government is about to initiate a government-wide program to support "electronic commerce." Several states and municipalities have begun to disseminate job listings and RFPs via the Internet.
Municipal agencies can reduce costs by sharing. In Massachusetts, eleven regional "Automated Resource Sharing Systems" support libraries across the state. School systems increasingly use networks to access world- wide educational resources ranging from university faculty, to the Library of Commerce, to on-line images from space.
Networks offer opportunities for increased coordination between agencies. The U.S. Public Health Service, Howard University's School of Social Work, and the Health and Human Services Coalition of the District of Columbia are piloting a "Community Services Workstation" to provide integrated record keeping and coordinated case management.
Businesses can conduct routine transactions by modem (e.g., filing building permits) to reduce staff time as well as downtown traffic congestion.
If a municipality keeps documents and data in on-line form, it can easily provide electronic access via modem and public terminals (e.g., in libraries). This can improve service to residents while reducing demands on staff time. For example, Minnesota Datanet provides on- line access to statistical, demographic, and geographic data around-the-clock. In Massachusetts, the city of Cambridge has begun to provide municipal documents via the Internet. The city of Boston has begun to offer information through its own computer bulletin board. Both cities have more ambitious plans for the future.
ATM-like machines can provide 24-hour service to citizens, both at the town hall and at convenient locations around town. In California, InfoCal kiosks provide access to government services in malls and other public places. In Massachusetts, the city of Newton is planning a similar system.

What Are Some Other Benefits?

Just as electricity, streets, and sewers are core infrastructures that serve residents, businesses, and government alike - so too is the information infrastructure a community-wide need. Proper development of a community-wide information infrastructure is a key tool for stimulating economic development and reducing traffic congestion.

Networks provide a way for small companies and isolated communities to reach global markets at very low cost. The information infrastructure holds opportunities for creating new jobs in a changing economy. In the small rural community of Linton, North Dakota, 200 data processing jobs were created at a satellite office for a large Philadelphia travel agency.
Massachusetts is a key travel destination for members of the academic and high-technology communities - markets that can be reached effectively through the Internet. Palo Alto, California, Boulder, Colorado, and Austin, Texas, are already using the Internet as an inexpensive way to disseminate tourism information.
"Telecommuting" holds major promise for reducing traffic congestion, addressing air quality mandates, and attracting or holding residents in professions amenable to working from home (typically higher-income residents who can add to a town's tax base). Diamond Bar, California, plans to reduce government-related travel by nearly 2,000 trips within two years using telecommunications. The Diamond Bar City Net is expected to attract state funds targeted for reducing government- related travel as a compliance component of the Clean Air Act. In Santa Cruz, California, the Intell-I-Center telework center is being planned with the city's economic development agency; a key purpose is to greatly reduce the 20,000 commuter trips to San Jose.

How Do You Plan Your Town's Information Infrastructure?

"Electronic city streets" will be built largely by telephone companies, cable companies, and electric utilities, driven by their own agendas. There are, however, strategies that local governments can use to influence this construction to maximize community benefit:

Form a network planning committee. Without a vision and a plan, nothing can be accomplished. Communities with such committees often find local telephone and cable companies very willing to collaborate toward shared goals. Many school districts and libraries are already involved in network planning and can provide the core of a town-wide committee. This committee should focus not only on internal networks and operations, but also on the broader issues of ensuring that an appropriate information infrastructure reaches every home and office in town. Accordingly, even in larger communities with sizable staffs, it is important that the committee include residents and local business people. Massachusetts, with its concentration of computer and telecommunications firms, is blessed with a large pool of skilled and willing volunteers to serve on such committees.
Plan internal networks and computer systems around industry standards for interconnection and interoperability, both to keep plans in line with product availability and to maximize ability to exchange data with residents, businesses, and other government entities. In particular, plan systems around the Internet standard "TCP/IP" communications protocols, which are now a mature technology and a de facto industry and federal government standard.
Look to cable television operators as likely network providers. Cable networks are more suitable for providing data service than currently deployed telephone networks. The city of Fitchburg uses a cable-based institutional network (I-Net) to link a multi-department Geographic Information System. Lexington is in the process of linking its schools to the Internet using an I-Net. In Cambridge, Continental Cablevision provides city-wide data networking and Internet access over its cable system as generally available commercial offerings. Involve your local cable commissioners in the planning effort.
Expect electric utilities to become major players in the local information infrastructure as they deploy the wiring needed for remote meter reading and remote load management systems. These investments have very short payback periods, putting electric utilities in a uniquely advantageous position to deploy telecommunications facilities. Municipalities with electric light departments are in a particularly good position to deploy fiber optic cables and become telecommunications players in their own right.
Look into new wireless networking technology and services for rural communities with dispersed populations.
Focus considerable attention on stimulating community- wide availability of Internet connections for local residents and small businesses. Within large organizations, it typically costs well under $100 per month for a 24-hour, high-speed "network wall plug," while the same connection can cost ten times as much for a home or office with one computer. You can lower the cost with data-over-cable offerings and emerging telephone company services (notably ISDN and Frame Relay), which can bring the cost to small users down to levels approaching those available to large organizations. Also look for ways to make very-low-cost access available to all, including public terminals in libraries and collaboration in local efforts to build "FreeNets" and other public access systems.
Plan for your internal systems to connect to the Internet. A single Internet connection can provide the most cost-effective way to link your town's systems to external networks, including library networks (which are moving toward a consolidated, Internet-based model), educational networks being developed by the state, federal networks, etc. If your external link will support applications with high reliability requirements (e.g., library card catalog terminals), plan for a redundant connection. To protect internal systems and sensitive data, plan for a "firewall" machine, and consider the use of encryption (both are common practices for companies that connect internal networks to the Internet).
Make use of your contractual power. For example, the city of Seattle, Washington, has issued an RFP for development of a "city-wide information highway" to serve both internal needs and to provide services to all residents and businesses. Seattle is seeking "an investor/developer or group of investors/developers to build and operate a telecommunications network, or information highway, in the city [to] eventually provide two-way voice, data, video and multi-media communication capabilities to all the residents, businesses and institutions." The city is offering inducements based on its internal use of services, ownership of existing rights-of-way and infrastructure (utility poles, conduits, and wires supporting its electric light company), and the city cable franchise. A similar strategy is available to larger Massachusetts communities; smaller communities could implement the strategy on a regional basis through cooperative purchasing.

How Does a Community Protect Its Interests in the Regulatory and State Planning Arenas?

The availability of local network services, at affordable prices, will be the subject of many public utility commission hearings and cable franchise negotiations over the next several years. Much of this will occur at the state rather than the local level. At a time when more Massachusetts cable franchises are coming up for renewal than during any previous period, and telecommunications companies are beginning major overhauls of their under-the-street wiring, local authority is being shifted to state and federal authorities. The National Communications Competition and Information Infrastructure Act of 1994 (HR3636), passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in June, would strip local government of most of its authority over telecommunications facilities.

To protect the interests of your city or town , it is critical to become involved in state-level processes that will establish telecommunications policy. To have a better chance of affecting your community's telecommunications future, you should:

Use whatever influence the community has during cable franchise negotiations to make town-wide data networking a priority service.
Become active, both directly and through organizational representatives, in the state public utility and cable commissions.
Monitor pending federal legislation, which calls for joint federal-state boards to establish policy in areas that include universal service, equal access, and interoperability. If this law is passed, position for seats on these critical joint boards - directly, through the state utility and cable commissions and through organizational representatives.
Become active in efforts to ensure that all state networks can be accessed through a single connection between a town's internal network and the outside world, and that funding is available for these interconnections. The commonwealth is planning several major projects to network schools, libraries, and state offices. Municipalities should also begin pushing the state to develop a standardized mechanism for electronic data exchanges and electronic funds transfers between municipal, county, and state governments.

What's Next?

Now is the time to start planning to take advantage of the evolving National Information Infrastructure, and to take steps to insure that your town is not left behind.

The following documents and organizations can provide help:

Background Documents:

U.S. Dept. of Commerce. National Information Infrastructure Agenda for Action (1993).

U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Making Government Work: Electronic Delivery of Federal Services, OTA-TCT-578 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, September 1993).

State Information Policy Consortium, National Information and Service Delivery System: A Vision for Restructuring Government in the Information Age (1992); available through the National Conference of State Legislatures,1560 Broadway, Ste. 700, Denver, CO 80202; (303) 830-2200.

Center for Civic Networking, A National Strategy for Civic Networking: A Vision of Change (91 Baldwin St., Charlestown, MA 02129; (617) 241-9205, fax: (617) 241-5064, email: ccn@civicnet.org).

Telecommunications Policy and Planning:

National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors (NATOA); Susan Herman (213) 485-2866.

Massachusetts Community Antenna Television Commission (the state cable commission); Frank Foss, (617) 727-6328.

New England Cable Television Association, (617) 843-3418.

Center for Civic Networking, 91 Baldwin St., Charlestown, MA 02129, (617) 241-9205, fax: (617) 241-5064, email: ccn@civicnet.org.

National League of Cities; Cara Woodson, (202) 626-3021.

U.S. Conference of Mayors; Kevin McCarty, (202) 293-7330.

Municipal Information Systems:

Massachusetts Government Information Systems Association; Richard Walsh, (617) 552-7085.

K-12 School Networking:

Massachusetts Telecomputing Consortium; Beth Lowd, (617) 621-0290 ext. 229.

Consortium for School Networking, P.O. Box 6519, Washington, DC 20035-5193; (202) 466-6296, fax: (202) 872-4318, email: cosn@bitnic.bitnet

Library Networking:

Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, A Strategic Plan for the Future of Library Services in Massachusetts (Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Board of Library Commissioners, Boston; (617) 267-9400, July 1993).

Miles R. Fidelman is president of the Charlestown-based Center for Civic Networking. The center was instrumental in bringing public access Internet terminals to the Cambridge Public Library. Mr. Fidelman has spent twenty years applying computer networks to a wide range of problem areas. He can be reached as mfidelman@civicnet.org

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Miles R. Fidelman                       mfidelman@civicnet.org
President                               91 Baldwin St. Charlestown MA 02129
Director of Civic Networking Systems    617-241-9205 fax: 617-241-5064
The Center for Civic Networking

Check out our Civic Network gopher and web servers:
at a unix prompt: gopher gopher.civic.net 2400
gopher URL: gopher://gopher.civic.net:2400/
web URL: http://www.civic.net:2401/

Information Infrastructure: Public Spaces for the 21st Century
Let's Start With: Internet Wall-Plugs Everywhere=20
Say It Now, Say It Loud: "I Want My Internet!"=20
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This document prepared by Brian Combs.
Last updated: 07/29/95