1. No bad :)

Posted at 8:29PM on Jul 4th 2006 by Josiah

2. MAINE IS NOT FAR BEHIND! And it is not so small.

"Our Maine Business"
To all potential visitors: We have "TONS" of information on these pages for you to read on our site. Please scroll all the way down to see the articles and news about "YOUR" future!
The people of Maine have waited long enough.
This "mission" statement was taken directly from the Maine Rural Broadband Initiative website. http://www.ruralbroadbandinitiative.org/mission/
"I copied their mission statement word for word! I cannot vocalize just how much this mission statement impacted me when I read it. That said, while this is not "our" mission statement, it is the fuel behind "WHY" we are in Maine and why we are going forward with an agressive strategy for rural Maine. It might as well be "ours". LS

The United States is in danger of losing its technological edge in the world marketplace, partly because of the painfully slow development of high-speed data networks and the infrastructure that supports them. According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the U.S. recently ranked sixteenth among the nations of the world in broadband penetration, behind Korea, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, Canada, Taiwan, Israel, Belgium, Finland, Japan, Norway, and Sweden, in that order.

The objective of the Maine-based Rural Broadband Initiative is to substantially expand the availability of affordable high-speed Internet access in rural areas. We believe that conventional market forces have been at work long enough to impel the mainline providers to accomplish this task, but they have not delivered. The reason most often cited is the lack of sufficient profit motive to expand in less densely populated areas. Federal and state officials have begun to sense the urgency of the situation, which is why President Bush has promised broadband for all Americans by 2007, and while more than half the nation’s governors (including our own Governor Baldacci) have made similar promises.

In spite of the attention paid to this issue recently, the growth of high-speed Internet appears to have ground to a halt at the water’s edge. In the name of short-term profitability, industry-leading providers have not brought service to the most of the lesser-populated areas of the nation despite promises to the contrary. They have done this while lobbying successfully against laws authorizing or protecting municipal networks, which are one of the effective grassroots responses to the broadband crisis. Thankfully, in Maine the existence of such networks are expressly authorized by the Legislature.

Meanwhile, the Federal Communications Commission issues rosy report after rosy report declaring that 90% of households that want broadband, have broadband—conveniently ignoring the hundreds of thousands of rural residents and business who want but cannot get high-speed data connectivity at any reasonable price. Meanwhile, the practical definition of “broadband” (which we would venture is Internet access fast and reliable enough to take advantage of both current and future web-based applications now and two years from the present), keeps vaulting ahead. A typical home user of a digital subscriber line (DSL) might be getting speeds of 2.75Mbps downstream and 768kbps upstream today and think it's fairly fast. But tomorrow, that same person will be left in the dust.


About Us and Them
The Rural Broadband Initiative was founded in 2003 by a committee of half a dozen citizens from the area of southern Frankln County, Maine.

At present, the Executive Director, Sam Elowitch, is serving on Maine’s statewide Broadband Access Infrastructure Board (BAIB) as an appointee of Governor John Balacci. Sam is also serving as Chair of the Subcommittee on Technology and Means of Delivery.

"We" at Alarius-Net are but a vehicle, of several that have been co-existing here in Maine for quite some time. The hard working ISPs and WISPs already in Maine share a common vision. We just happen to be inline with what the Governer and the State are focused on, while also focusing on residential and commercial implementations. Rural Broadband and Municipal deployments.

Posted at 4:33PM on Aug 18th 2006 by Lazaro A. Sanchez

3. Maine has been waiting too long! We have a plan! We have a common vision!



Maine LD 1440: An Act To Encourage High-speed Internet Access in rural Maine
Testimony by Rep. Hannah Pingree, sponsor of the bill

April 5, 2005


As I told this committee a little more than a month ago in the Appropriations Committee, I live in a community – and as thousands of Maine citizens do – with no current viable high speed Internet access options. Our lack of market share has caused these providers to make what many would probably consider a reasonable business decision to not offer service at this point.

As this committee knows well, the Internet has become a key part of the modern day work world. Our new economy – with the addition of the Internet – has allowed people to work from anytime from almost anywhere. While high speed Internet access can be a tool to help reinvigorate small communities and help local businesses go global; the lack of high-speed internet in many of Maine’s rural communities only serves to further the speed the decline of these communities and sharpen the distinctions between living and working in different areas of our state.

Many Maine communities and individuals are in this same situation as the communities I live in and the communities represent. As you know, the maps provided to you by the PUC and Maine utilities about current areas covered by high-speed services don’t tell the whole story. For the 10 small communities I represent, PUC coverage maps and statistics conclude that several of these communities are “covered” while I know from communications with constituents and utilities that in some of these communities towns less than 50% of the homes actually can purchase high speed access, so the very low current “take” rates often mentioned don’t tell the whole story. In addition, 2004 FCC data concluding that only 9% of Maine zip codes don’t have a high speed provider is also misleading, because in many of those zip codes – several of which I represent (Mount Desert, Vinalhaven, and Deer Isle) – there are significant portions of consumers who currently cannot buy access.

As the public utilities commission told this committee in a letter dated December 30, 2004, “In general, it is fair to say that market forces are already achieving significant improvement (broadband availability in Maine has, for example, risen substantially just in the past year); but it also seems clear that, for the many rural areas of Maine, market forces alone may be insufficient to achieve full availability and coverage in the near term. We believe, as the Committee does, that “expanding reliable, affordable access to high-speed internet and other advanced communications/information technologies in rural or underserved areas of the state is, as a general matter, an appropriate State goal consistent with State telecommunications policy embodied in Title 35-A, section 7101.”

I applaud the Governor’s mention of this initiative to “Connect Maine” in his state of the state. His stated goal was for 90% of Maine’s communities to having high speed access by 2010. I support this effort and hope we can undertake this effort immediately and potentially even more aggressively than Governor Baldacci laid out. I believe that this legislature should assist the Governor’s laudable goal by beginning this infrastructure and planning process immediately – and this bill offers tools to do that. Tools recommended by the PUC.



In addition as this committee likely knows, many states are undertaking this effort and Maine is already far behind. North Carolina was one of the first states to lead the charge, with the Legislature approving a “Rural Internet Access Authority” in August 2000, with the goal of providing statewide high-speed access by 2003. Not surprisingly, North Carolina leads the charge as one of the most wired states today.

Several other states have followed suite, including Vermont with the more recent, “Vermont Broadband Council” established in 2003 which has been tasked with an almost identical goal to the one Baldacci announced in his speech. In Louisiana another “Broadband Advisory Council” was created in 2004 to develop a statewide implementation plan and incentives, especially with the goal of serving underserved and rural areas. In some states fees are being proposed for the expansion of access to rural areas. Minnesota recently implemented a $1 surcharge on telecommunication bills for a grant program for underserved and rural areas. In Idaho they implemented an income tax credit for qualifying broadband equipment.

While this committee did not overwhelmingly recommend my proposal for the state use of bond funds for the expansion of high speed access, like the provision of phone service in rural areas, it is unlikely that Maine will ever be entirely served without some monetary incentives, infrastructure grants, or some kind of mandated coverage.

While I originally formed this bill as a “concept draft”, I am offering to you today somewhat the same concept, in a more advanced amendment which might be more workable, for which I still welcome your changes and expertise, but I think will provide a better document from which to work. The amendment does a few things, which have been undertaken by other states, and which the members of the PUC largely recommended to this Legislature in that same December 30, 2004 letter.

Included in this amendment are:

The creation of a “Maine Broadband Advisory Council” to serve as an active working group to better plan and coordinate access development with a specific mission to provide service and coverage to Maine’s underserved areas. This group would include public, state, and private members from state government, business, and utilities and would be tasked with reporting to the legislature yearly on January 15th, and would have the ability to recommend legislation through the PUC. The group would be tasked, with staff support from the PUC, with making recommendations on the creation and guidelines for state grant funds for access expansion, potential funding sources (including an internet access surcharge), potential tax and other incentive programs to encourage expansion, and for overseeing better coordination and tracking of current coverage areas and technologies used. An expansion of the Public Utilities Commission authority to regulate line-sharing and line-sharing agreements for the expansion of broadband access. An order for the PUC to undertake rulemaking to adopt policies that standardize and expedite rights-of-way permitting and limit the fees imposed for ROW access. PUC recommendations, the difficulty in obtaining such rights of way is sometimes identified as a barrier to broadband deployment.

From Governor Baldacci’s January 25, 2005 State of the State Address

“TONIGHT I AM ANNOUNCING “CONNECT MAINE,” A BROAD AND AGGRESSIVE TELECOMMUNICATIONS STRATEGY FOR THIS STATE. CONNECT MAINE WILL GIVE NEARLY EVERY MAINER THE OPPORTUNITY TO PLUG INTO THE GLOBAL ECONOMY FROM THEIR COMMUNITY. IT WILL ENSURE THAT:

90% OF MAINE COMMUNITIES HAVE BROADBAND ACCESS BY 2010; 100% OF MAINE COMMUNITIES HAVE QUALITY WIRELESS SERVICE BY 2008; AND MAINE’S EDUCATION SYSTEM HAS THE TECHNOLOGY INFRASTRUCTURE THAT LEADS THE NATION. THE CONNECT MAINE STRATEGY WILL BE DEVISED WITH INPUT FROM PUBLIC AND PRIVATE AGENCIES OVER THE NEXT FEW MONTHS. THESE GOALS WILL BECOME REALITY WITH HARD WORK AND VISION.”

An Excerpt from a Speech by President Bush, June 24, 2004, High Tech Improving Economy, Health Care, and Education http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/06/20040624-7.html

“…Today, I want to talk about the need, as well, to make sure that leading technology is available all across the country. Sometimes the problem we face here in America is that technology is available in maybe just the big cities. And you get out to rural Wyoming or rural Texas, and people try to figure out what you're talking about when it comes to new technologies. What we're interested in is to make sure broadband technology is available in every corner of America by the year 2007. I mean, all over the nation is what we're interested in.

Broadband, or what they call high-speed Internet, is critical in making our high-speed economy even more productive. That's what people have got to understand. You see, some people say, what do you mean when you say, broadband? Well, broadband is the capacity to move information a lot quicker and to move more information a lot quicker. As a matter of fact, broadband is four to 100 times faster than dial-up access. So in other words, if you -- if you have your -- if you're on a -- just a dial-up phone for your computer, imagine information getting to you a hundred times quicker. That means more information can move quicker.

And that's important in order to make sure the economy and our citizens are more productive. Broadband saves costs throughout the economy. In other words, it makes the economy more efficient. Imagine how efficient businesses will be when they're that far away from their customer. That's what broadband technology will enable us to do.

And we're seeing the spread of broadband throughout the country. Access has gone from 7 million subscriber lines in 2000, to 28 million last year. That's rapid growth. Yet, on a per capita basis, America ranks 10th amongst the industrialized world. That's not good enough. We don't like to be ranked 10th in anything. The goal is to be ranked 1st when it comes to per capita use of broadband technology. It's in our nation's interest. It's good for our economy. ”

Posted at 4:34PM on Aug 18th 2006 by Lazaro A. Sanchez