September 2010

Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information and NTIA Administrator Lawrence E. Strickling announced two American Recovery and Reinvestment Act investments to help bridge the technological divide, boost economic growth, create jobs, and improve education in Hawaii. The investments, totaling $35.9 million in grants, will fund expanded public computer centers and high-speed Internet infrastructure in areas throughout the state, connecting community institutions to broadband service and laying the groundwork to bring new or improved broadband to thousands of consumers and businesses.

The University of Hawaii System will receive a $34 million grant to expand and enhance Internet infrastructure in the state by funding construction of 454 miles of new fiber and incorporating 1,070 miles of existing fiber into the current statewide network. The project will enhance broadband access for approximately 380 community anchor institutions- including public universities, community colleges, and libraries - to facilitate uses such as distance learning. In addition, local Internet service providers will be able to utilize the project's open network to bring new or improved broadband service to as many as 400,000 households and 99,000 businesses.

The University of Hawaii System will also receive a $1.9 million grant to fund nearly 700 new broadband-connected computer workstations for public use at more than 60 facilities, including libraries and community colleges, on the state's six major islands. Residents have encountered long wait times at many of these centers due to increased demand for broadband access, and the grant will enable the centers to accommodate approximately 10,000 additional weekly users and provide computer training. The Hawaii State Public Library System, the Hawaii State Department of Education, and the State of Hawaii Executive Branch are partners in this project, which will include the installation of accessible broadband workstations at Hawaii's Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped.

Public safety agencies lack the ability to communicate with each other and with callers to the emergency 911 system, experts said.

R. David Paulison, former administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said during the past 50 years the nation has created a communications system that makes interoperability between public safety agencies impossible. In the past, parts of the communications spectrum have been given to public safety agencies piecemeal. As a result, during an emergency such as a natural disaster or terrorist attack they have an almost zero chance to communicate, he said. "They as might as well have brought a brick with them," said Paulison, who founded the Public Safety Alliance. During the recovery effort after the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York City, he said he used handwritten notes to communicate with first responders from other agencies working on the other side of the rubble.

In addition, the nation's emergency telephone system is inadequate, said Brian Fontes, chief executive of the National Emergency Number Association, which studies 911 policy, technology, operations and education issues. The network relies solely on voice, "the dinosaur of communication," he said. "911 is the forgotten stepchild to the emergency world. When you dial 911, you are hitting a brick wall. It's as if you are running through molasses."

Public interest groups including Free Press and Public Knowledge have called on AT&T to retract a letter to the FCC that said the Internet standards-setting body IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) had "fully contemplated" paid prioritization, with the groups saying IETF disputed that assertion. But Russ Housely, chairman of the IETF, says that is not the case, though he said he personally thinks AT&T has "jumbled some things together."

The call for a retraction came after Housely told the National Journal that the AT&T letter was misleading. But Housely says he was speaking for himself, not IETF. "I want to be clear that I was speaking as an individual when I spoke to reporters last Friday," he told the magazine in an e-mail. "The [public interest group] press release says: 'The IETF, however, disputes AT&T's claims.' The IETF has not taken any consensus position on this matter," he said, adding in a follow-up e-mail: "[T]he IETF produces technical specification for the Internet. The IETF does not make statements about prices for network services." Housely says the "jumble" comes from the meaning of "paid prioritization. "[I]t is clear to me that the term "paid prioritization" does not have the same meaning to all readers," he said. "If you read the AT&T letter with one definition in your head, then you get one overall message, and if you read the letter with the other in your head, then you get a different overall message. I tried to make this point."

Housely said AT&T in its letter makes "many correct points" -- he did not specify which they were -- but that it also "jumbles some things together." "[I]n my opinion, a reader will get a distorted impression from the parts of the letter where things get jumbled," he said. The problem, Housely says, is that the IETF specification at issue is not about "prioritization," but about quality of service.