Community Technology Centers:

Exploring a Tool for Rural Community Development

(part 5 of 6)

by Christopher J. Campbell

The Center for Rural Massachusetts

University of Massachusetts, Amherst

This document contains many links. If you find that one is no longer in existence please contact us at:

ruralma@larp.umass.edu

NETWORKS IN MASSACHUSETTS

Up to this point, much of this exploration has dealt with issues important to community technology centers, wherever they are. This section and the next look more specifically at rural Massachusetts. Unlike Ainsworth and Fredericksburg, rural Massachusetts does not currently benefit from a state or federal program to establish rural telecenters. What state-level programs are promising to do, however, is establish information networks that have the potential to reach every part of the commonwealth. This chapter describes these programs and their potential impact. Local initiative will be important to bring these networks the "last mile." Access to these networks, the ability to reach out beyond the community to obtain a wide array of information resources could be one of the functions of a rural community technology center. This is the first aspect of networks in Massachusetts that touches on the community technology center.

The second aspect has to do with the infrastructure and service systems that bring telecommunications to and throughout rural communities in Massachusetts. The difficulties of building and upgrading telecommunications services in areas with a smaller and more dispersed customer base are a primary reason for investigating rural community technology centers. This chapter considers the telephone system, the most ubiquitous telecommunications network in rural Massachusetts, and two other telecommunications systems increasing in importance: cable TV and Internet service.

State Network Initiatives

No network initiative at the state level in Massachusetts is proposing anything like a Rural Area Network. However, some state-wide entities are building or proposing to build computer and communications networks that reach into communities across the Commonwealth. So far, these initiatives are coming from three different sectors: education, libraries, and government.

Universities and colleges have traditionally been some of the leaders in the use of computers and the development of networks. The importance of this educational network cannot be overlooked. Some rural towns host colleges, and the spread of computers and communication technologies in local schools means that more and more communities will be hosting an institution that uses these technologies on a regular basis. Conversely, the need to provide students with more and more technology may be difficult for smaller rural schools with a smaller student population.

There are a number of organizations significant in Massachusetts educational telecommunications. The Massachusetts Corporation for Educational Telecommunications (MCET) is a quasi-public commonwealth agency that provides telecommunications services to eighty-five percent of the school districts in Massachusetts. Their services include a satellite broadcasting system called the Mass LearnPike that delivers a series of educational programs and the possibility of two-way audio communication with the instructors (Massachusetts Corporation for Educational Telecommunications 1994, 7). It also administers the Mass Ed Online LearnNet (MEOL)[3], which provides information through the Internet (including the World Wide Web) and provides accounts to administrators, and some teachers. MCET provides another set of networks that can reach into existing local sites, connecting them to larger networks. MassNet is a public higher education network connecting the twenty-four state and community colleges and the five campuses of the University of Massachusetts to each other and to the Internet through NEARnet (the New England regional Internet backbone network). The Massachusetts Education Computer Network (MECN), part of the Massachusetts Higher Education Coordinating Council, operates MassNet. MassNet also provides access and gateway services to the Internet for the MCET's LearnNet, some K- 12 networks, and two interlibrary networks, NOBLE and C/W MARS, among others (Massachusetts Education Computer Network 1995).

An important development in the implementation of Mass Ed Online is the Massachusetts Information Infrastructure 'Points of Presence' Demonstration Project. Funded through a grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce's Telecommunications Information Infrastructure Assistance Program (TIIAP) and a collaboration between the Massachusetts Department of Education, MCET, MECN, and the Massachusetts Executive Education, this project is in the process of setting up 20 demonstration sites around the state having a local network server. The program is designed to encourage local collaboration between different organizations involved in education, including the public schools, the public library, a public institution of higher learning, and school committees. Although the funds of the grant are only to be used for the support of educational telecomputing, the equipment are meant to be the basis for a broader base of users should the community desire (Massachusetts Information Infrastructure 'Points of Presence' Demonstration Project 1995, 1-2).

The Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners is the state agency responsible for the maintenance and improvement of library services in Massachusetts. This agency may be the agent that is first responsible for bringing many rural towns on-line, and providing a point of public access. It is the goal of the Board to interconnect every library in the state--public, school, college, and private through the Internet, or through dial-up access to the Internet. The immediate goal is to provide a state-wide electronic library card catalogue and a universal system of interlibrary loan (Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners 1993, 12). The Board of Library Commissioners is also a cooperating agency for the Massachusetts Information Infrastructure 'Points of Presence' Demonstration Project (Massachusetts Information Infrastructure 'Points of Presence' Demonstration Project 1995, 1). However, additional goals are even more ambitious. The Board sees libraries across Massachusetts becoming local public-access points for electronic information, much like traditional libraries have been local public-access points for printed information. Moreover, the Board has as a goal that local librarians should be versed in how to use these local information and telecommunication capabilities, thus providing a local resource person (Maier 1995).

MAGNet stands for the Massachusetts Access to Government Network. It is a state-government sponsored network currently in the planning stages by the Office of Management Information Systems. How extensively it will develop is still a matter of debate, but draft plans contain some approximate outlines of its possible structure. MAGNet has the potential to serve as the network interconnecting or partially replacing the computer networks used by many different state agencies and state governmental organizations. In addition, it could be the network for business and municipalities which depend on the state for information. It could become the "internet" for Massachusetts, and indeed would provide access to the larger Internet (Massachusetts Office of Management Information Systems 1994, 29). MAGNet could possibly even go so far as to become the backbone network for residences in the state (Bradford 1995). Figure 1 shows an early product of the MAGNet effort, a World Wide Web site which illustrates the wide range of information such a system could carry.

Figure 1. The MAGNet site on the World Wide Web.

It is it likely that MAGNet would not physically bring the network to every locality. One likely scenario is that MAGNet would provide a system of regional nodes that could collect access from a number of local gateways serving one or more LANs. It would be the responsibility of local groups to arrange for one or more gateways to connect with the regional node of MAGNet (Bradford 1995).

Network Providers

Telephone Service

In 1990, Massachusetts led the nation in percentage of households with basic telephone service, in part because there are relatively few rural areas that are hard to reach (Auerbach 1994). However, phone service is no longer a homogenous product, but is a variety of hardware and services. There are different modes of communication, including voice, data, and video. The full extent of services and service possibilities is unknown to the average telephone user. A comprehensive inventory of services associated with the telephone network would be valuable for only a limited period of time because of the rapid rate of evolution of these services. Instead, this discussion focuses on underlying issues of the telephone network architecture.

NYNEX, as the local telephone service provider for almost all of Massachusetts, is an important organization for anyone who wants to deal with telecommunications in rural Massachusetts. When talking about the availability of telephone and related services in rural Massachusetts, there are two important scales to consider. The first scale is that of the exchange. Many exchanges cover more than one town, especially in the less densely populated parts of the state. Each exchange is served by a local switch, which is most often somewhere within the historical population center of the exchange, and is the most expensive part of the local infrastructure. It is the hardware and software of the switch that determines to a great extent the kinds of services that can be offered locally (Zukowski 1995). While the presence of central switches is significant, there are some intermediate strategies that can be used to overcome the lack of a nearby central switch. One is the use of a fiber optic cable[4] to run between the switch and a local collector (Zukowski 1995). However, a critical mass of lines in a local area is still necessary to justify this strategy.

Another factor which may affect the services available to any particular customer in rural (or any other part of) Massachusetts is the length of the loop connecting the customer and the switch. Longer loops may require periodic "boosts" in order to maintain strength. While this does not significantly affect common levels of service, it can affect the ability of a telephone service provider to offer some network services or higher-speed data transmissions to particular customers, given current technology. Not all rural customers have long loops, only those who live some distance away from the historical population center where the local switch is located. (Though in larger rural exchanges, a greater proportion of the territory is at a distance from the central switch.) However, as higher speed data transmission becomes more important to larger numbers of rural businesses and even households, the cost of providing infrastructure that can serve the dispersed parts of the rural population may mean that these users cannot as readily receive some services, given current technology. The most modern telecommunications services may be available in many of the communities of rural Massachusetts, but the issue of cost indicates that the greatest number of telecommunications options will often be available in historically central locations within rural Massachusetts.

Internet Providers

Internet access is a service about which many are increasingly concerned . Through dial-up connections it is possible to access the Internet from anywhere in Massachusetts, at least through major commercial providers such as America Online, Compuserve, Prodigy, or Delphi (though the transmission speeds of dial-up connections depend on the local telephone infrastructure). However, dialing up a distant Internet provider has two disadvantages. First, it may be difficult to place locally-generated content on a distant provider. Second, such a connection can incur long-distance charges.

An option becoming available in more and more communities is the local Internet service provider. This can be a local company, or a local institution which runs a local computer connected directly to the Internet and offers access to individuals or businesses in the region. One indicator of the level of Internet service in a region is the number of World Wide Web (WWW) resources available. Figure 2 shows a map of such resources. Although not all of the sites shown offer Internet access to the public, their locations give an indication of which parts of Massachusetts generally have greater levels of Internet access. The Amherst and Boston areas are most heavily served, and other clusters exist in the lower Pioneer Valley and around Worcester. The more rural parts of Massachusetts have few WWW resources. Many rural communities do not host institutions with the technological resources to operate a local Internet service. It is also natural to expect local commercial Internet providers to locate local servers first in more densely settled areas, where more customers can reach them with a local call.

Figure 2. Massachusetts Map of World Wide Web Resources.

Cable TV

Cable television networks provide a major alternative to the telephone network. In contrast to the telephone network, they already supply a high-bandwidth connection capable of supporting video. Cable TV systems also offer an alternate way of creating computer networks. On-line services and cable companies have been field-testing cable modems that run over 50 times as fast as a common 9,600 bps (bits per second) telephone modem (Macaraeg 1994, 30). The advantage of cable TV is that a single channel provides a much wider bandwidth than a conventional phone line. Cable line offer the potential for transmission speed of millions of bits per second (Scully 1993, 40). Some communities that are heavily involved in developing community networks are using cable TV networks. In Massachusetts, Lexington is an example (Wetzel 1994). However, telephone systems are ubiquitous in rural Massachusetts, and cable TV systems are not. Forty rural towns, mostly in western Massachusetts have no cable TV service. Figure 3 identifies these towns.

Figure 3. Towns in Massachusetts without cable TV service as of April 1995. Based on a list from the Massachusetts Cable Television Commission.

In the future, the difference between cable TV and telephone may diminish. NYNEX is already in the cable TV business, operating cable franchises in the United Kingdom (Krantz 1994, 34). NYNEX is now beginning to move into cable TV in the U. S. This effort includes negotiating with the City of Somerville to provide "video dialtone" in the city, providing voice, video, and data capabilities over one hybrid fiber optic/coaxial cable system (Trane 1995).

The complete lack of cable TV service in some rural Massachusetts communities while the City of Somerville goes forward with the next level of service illustrates the telecommunications penalty that many rural communities face. At the same time, the convergence of cable TV and telephone, by eliminating the need to run two networks through rural communities, offers hope for a higher level of service. Those rural communities without the high-bandwidth potential for cable TV may find that a community technology center makes sense as a place to gain access to computer and video networks not available throughout the community. Those with the ability to distribute computer services throughout the community may find that their needs are different. However, the cable TV system is only a distribution network. The ability to use a television connected to it is one thing. The ability to afford and use computer and video communications equipment may be another.

Implications

For rural areas, the fact that the state is becoming involved in building computer networks out to communities is significant and encouraging. This means that computer internetworking will be coming within reach of much of rural Massachusetts. However, there is an important role for rural communities to play. State efforts will bring computer internetworks within reach of rural communities, but they will not bring internetworking services all the way to people and organizations in rural Massachusetts. For example, MAGNet and the Massachusetts Information Infrastructure 'Points of Presence' Demonstration Project would likely bring internetworking service no farther than regional nodes; communities and groups within them would be responsible for connecting to the nodes. Efforts in education and library sectors will go a long way toward bringing an internetworking presence to every community in the state, but without community planning, this presence could be confined to these sectors. In short, state efforts provide an opportunity for rural communities in Massachusetts, but they also require a significant community response.

Issues of infrastructure access also require a response from local communities. It is likely that the telephone line network operated by NYNEX, or some eventual successor, will provide the most important means of interconnection between networks in rural Massachusetts and elsewhere, as it does now. Of course, this network is also the most important provider of telephone services, basic and non-basic. The services that this network can provide in rural Massachusetts are evolving, especially those which can be affected by the hardware and software of the local switch. However, the economic constraints mean difficulties in providing the higher levels of service over long loops. This means that many rural communities should include in their planning the realization that it is easier to provide higher-end telecommunications service to some parts of their community than others. There are two basic ways of dealing with this constraint: to make more money available for the upgrading or shortening of loops, or to create ways of serving the higher-end telecommunications needs of users in areas with short loops. Meanwhile, the absence of local cable TV and Internet service in many rural Massachusetts towns illustrate the gaps in its information infrastructure.

In short, the skeleton of the networking structures that might support the community technology center is already developing near many parts of rural Massachusetts. Issues of physical infrastructure mean that in many rural communities central locations currently have a higher level of telephone-line service. State initiatives call for many rural communities to determine how they will reach out and make a connection to new computer networks. Some basic tools are available to rural communities, and it is up to them to determine how best to leverage these tools for a fuller benefit.

Previous section

To: Next section

To: Table of Contents

To: Reference list

To: CRM Home Page

To: UMass Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning

Last updated July 22, 1995
by Christopher J. Campbell

E-mail comments to CRM at:

ruralma@larp.umass.edu

Please e-mail us if you establish links to this page or any of our other pages. This will allow us to keep you informed (to the best of our ability) of changes.