Agreement to put Massachusetts in Internet's high-speed lane
Boston Globe - 1/24/2000
By Peter J. Howe

Without fanfare, state officials have signed a pact with an upstart Waltham telecommunications provider to bring ''broadband'' Internet access to every school building, town hall, and police and fire department in Massachusetts.

If as many school districts and local officials sign up as seem to be interested, the deal could play a huge role in making Massachusetts within a year the first state with nearly border-to-border access to high-speed, ''always on'' Net connections.

Thousands of businesses and other organizations in remote and rural parts of the state could also benefit. Instead of waiting years for fast Net access, they would be able to piggyback on the upgrades being made to serve schools and local governments that sign up for the service.

The Massachusetts Corporation for Educational Telecommunications, a Cambridge-based state agency that transmits educational programs to schools by satellite, last week signed a deal with Digital Broadband Communications Inc. of Waltham, a new telecom provider heavily backed by Cisco Systems Inc., a major computer networking company based in California.

Terms of the three-year Massachusetts Community Network contract require Digital Broadband to offer 1.5 million-bit-per-second Net connections, either by Digital Subscriber Lines or dedicated ''T1'' lines, to the public buildings in communities that express interest. There are 1,850 school buildings and 4,000 municipal buildings in the state.

The cost for the service is expected to be under $500 a month across the state, according to corporation executive director Ray A. Campbell III. That compares to prices for T1 access as high as $1,500 or $2,000 in some parts of Cape Cod and Berkshire County, and many school districts could get federal subsidies that would drop the net monthly cost to $150 or less.

''This has the potential to be really, really big,'' Campbell said. ''Massachusetts will be the first state to have ubiquitous broadband coverage. This will be as fundamental as building the road system in the state. Massachusetts is going to get something pretty unbelievable.''

More than 200 superintendents among the state's roughly 360 school districts have expressed at least some desire for the service, said Mary Lee King of the educational corporation.

While many municipal governments are no strangers to using the Net, Campbell said the project could save local governments as much as $150 million over five years by banding them together in the equivalent of an access-buying cooperative, while offering the huge convenience of being on one high-speed network.

''I think there's going to be an immediate tidal wave of interest from municipalities,'' said Tom Iacobucci, an Amesbury city councilor and state Education Department official involved in the network. ''MCN is coming out at the perfect time.''
Officials also expect that once a critical mass of local governments sign up for the service, perhaps a quarter or a third, the benefits and opportunities will become so clear that most other cities and towns will follow suit.

Digital Broadband was selected from among 22 competing firms under a process that had two main requirements: The access must be offered in all 351 cities and towns, and at the same price.

The corporation has been awarded $9 million in state funds to start the project, which officials informally estimate could ultimately represent a public-private investment of up to $100 million if all the targeted facilities are hooked up.

They are committed to making it self-funding from user revenues. ''This will absolutely require no ongoing subsidy from the state,'' Campbell said.

Digital Broadband plans to use a statewide fiber-optic ''backbone'' developed by the University of Massachusetts for the community network.

Building-by-building broadband access would mostly be offered through DSL, which involves adding electronics to Bell Atlantic switching stations to expand the capacity of standard copper telephone wires now serving buildings.

DSL is limited to buildings within three miles of a phone company central office, and even then sometimes cannot be offered because of anomalies in the phone network.

Digital Broadband would serve schools and municipal buildings outside DSL range with leased T1 lines or other broadband services, according to company co-founder and senior vice president Stephen Catanzano.

Virtually all of the state's schools now have at least some form of access to the Internet, according to the state Education Department, but many have slow dial-up modems. About half of the state's classrooms have Net connections.

More than 480 Bay State schools with 200,000 students and 51 public libraries get free RoadRunner broadband access from MediaOne, the state's dominant cable provider, but MediaOne serves only 175 of the state's 351 cities and towns, leaving vast areas without access to cable modems.

MediaOne spokesman Rick Jenkinson said the free service is ''a commitment we intend to keep for the foreseeable future'' as a way of ''giving back to our host communities.'' Some MCET officials, however, doubt MediaOne will offer the free access forever and also contend DSL service may be more reliable and flexible than cable modems, which share fast access among multiple users.

Beyond making high-speed continuous Net access far more available to schools and local governments, the Massachusetts Community Network project could serve as a catalyst driving DSL availability into many parts of the state - such as Cape Cod and rural parts of Southeastern, Central and Western Massachusetts - where Bell Atlantic and private providers have been slow to move.

Digital Broadband, founded 10 months ago with backing from BankBoston, Boston University, venture capitalists, and $85 million of Cisco funding, has quietly readied more than 70 of the state's 200 Bell central offices - mostly within Interstate 495 - for DSL service. It is aiming to become a major statewide telecommunications provider offering local and long distance telephone service and Net access. It plans to later expand across the Northeast.

Under terms of the contract, Digital Broadband will be required to upgrade the Bell Atlantic central office serving a school or town building within 150 days of local officials requesting the service. Then DSL service would have to be turned on within 10 days after Bell Atlantic certifies the line to the building can handle DSL, Campbell said.