CONTACT

We had a good meeting last week. Lot's of enthusiasm, new faces, and a
packed agenda. Sorry I am only sending around a summary now.

The next meeting will be on June 26, at 7pm at Shutesbury Town Hall. ALL
ARE WELCOME.

1. LET THEM KNOW! We all agreed that contacting Verizon, Comcast, and
our elected representatives can make a big difference it getting
service. We are getting their attention. Specific progress with Comcast
should be discussed with individual emails, or in person. In terms of
Verizon, at our April 28 meeting, Michael Pequignot, Regional Director
for Public Affairs, committed to indentifying several "mystery boxes"
around town, and to generally facilitating a cooperative, interactive
relationship with Verizon. Although he hasn't provided any definite
information yet, he called just before last week's meeting to say he was
working on it.

At a minimum, everyone on this email list should make a couple calls and
send a few emails. Tell them:

- You want service;
- There is no cable provider or DSL providers--"You'll be the exclusive
provider."
- The Town is interested in attracting providers
- You represent a group of over 75 households, neighborhood
associations, & individuals who are town officials
- Please make a record of the overwhelming interest in high speed
internet from you and the entire town of Shutesbury, or to transfer you
to someone who can do so
- You have attached a one-page description of our efforts (attached as
word doc here) to your emails.

CONTACT INFO FOR COMCAST:
Go to https://comcast.com/localization/Default.asp and fill out the form.
Go to http://comcast.com/ContactUs/customerservice.asp and fill out the
form.
Email: eastern_press@cable.comcast.com,
chq_publicrelations@cable.comcast.com,
corporate_communications@comcast.com, and comcast recipients listed
above if you chose.
Call: 888-633-4266

CONTACT INFO FOR VERIZON:
Email: more_information@cable.comcast.com, michael.pequignot@verizon.com
Go to www.verizon.net to fill out the "Can I get DSL?" form
Go to http://biz.verizon.net/pands/dsl/availability.asp to fill out the
DSL for businesses form.
Call residential: (800) 567-6789; business: (877) 483-5793; or mystery
#: (888) 649-9500.

CONTACT INFO FOR REPRESENTATIVES:
Congressman John Olver: 202-225-5335, 413-532-7010,
State Representative Stephen Kulik: Rep.StephenKulik@hou.state.ma.us,
413-772-2727, 617-722-2210
State Senator Stanley Rosenberg, 413-484-1649, 617-722-1532,
Sen.StanRosenberg@senate.state.ma.us, srosenb@k12s.phast.umass.edu

2. Media coverage. We've done great so far. We need to reach out even
more, internally and externally. If you have any connections to
Shutesbury and Leverett's Town Newsletters, School newsletters, Co-op
newsletters, local papers, Boston Globe, and NY Times, please reach out
and help get us in the news. Post the survey
(http://deanbrook.org/broadband/survey.html), our one-pager (attached),
announcements of our next meeting (June 26 at 7pm at Shutes Town Hall),
or any kind of discussion of the group and our various efforts. Pin up
the one-pager on any bulletin board you know of!

Latest article:
http://www.masslive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1054107178307460.xml?nnhf%3E

Committee Status. Better to discuss in person, or with individual emails.

3. Other financing and grant information.
Louise offered to call the local represenmtative for the USDA money and
get back to us. It was decided that we probably didn't have enough time
(or money) to asemble a competitive business plan and proposal in tiume
for the 7/31 deadline for USDA (RUS) financing, but that perhaps we
could apply for money for a feasibility study.

4. Mark Bucciarelli has done some research into sucessful
Fiber-to-the-Home build-outs around the country. There seemed to be
general interest in the plan as an ideal but long term solution. The
group was interested in moving the research process forward, while still
being able to consider other shorter term scenarios. There are over
seventy of them up and running already (www.ftthcouncil.org). Mark
discussed Kutztown, PA and couple other towns, and distributed a
spreadsheet which will attempt to show many different FTTH deployments
at a glance, showing population, cost of buildout, cost of services, etc.

It was also discussd that the number $5 million dollars (rough estimate
of network) is scary, and that we need to start deconstructing the
number better. Here are two ways:

i. 833 customers of combined TV/phone/internet service x $100 per month
x 5 years = $5 million.

ii. An enormous amount of wealth leaves Shutesbury every month like
clockwork in the form of payment for residential satellite TV, Verizon
phone services (local and long distance), and internet services. If we
could redirect that wealth back into Shutesbury (even though a
significant portion would have to go to services contracted out), we
could build and operate a far superior system, while a lot of that
wealth would stay is residents' pockets.

5. Aron Goldman attended a Franklin Hampshire Connect Steering Committee
meeting in Greenfield. The Shutesbury-Leverett Broadband Group was
welcomed into the group. The County-level group is right where we are
in terms of research, knowledge and expertise. The group has slightly
more interest in wireless solutions than we do, which may be explained
by the fact that their members are a bit more likely to be reachable by
wireless signals.

6. Aron Goldman met with the head of Hidden Tec (hidden-tec.net), Amy
Zuckerman. They have 400 members. I would like to discuss areas for
collaboration, and announce their next event: June 16, 5-8 pm in Three
Rivers. An author of a book on rural technology, Joel Kotkin, and a
researcher with federal funding, Delore Zimmerman, will be there and
interested in learning more about regional needs. See the web site for
more info. Also, apparently you don't need to be a tech professional to
be part ot it, you just need to use tech to accomplish your work.

7. Thanks to Stephen Bannasch, we have a great online survey
(http://deanbrook.org/broadband/survey.html), and we are getting more and
more media coverage:

8. Political report. Michael Dechiara hosted a meeting with State
Representitive Stephen Kulik
(www.state.ma.us/legis/member/s_k1.htm). Myself, Steve Bannasch, and
Michael had a great meeting with Rep. Kulik. on Friday Rep. Kulik was
very interested, enthusiastic, facile with many of the issues, had a lot
of great ideas. He will be following up with us on several of his ideas.
In any case, his support is very much there, and we are lucky to have
him on board.

9. Suggested reading: (Today's NY Times)

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/09/technology/09PETE.html?pagewanted=print&position=

NY Times, June 9, 2003
The Man Pushing America to Get on the Internet Faster
By MATT RICHTEL

SANTA CLARA, Calif., June 3 — The United States, where the Internet was
invented, now falls behind Japan, Korea and Canada in deploying
high-speed Internet access in homes and businesses. But advocates for
quicker transfer of e-mail, Web site content and music files, take note:
Peter K. Pitsch is on the case.

Mr. Pitsch is a self-described staunch free-market Republican who once
served as chief of staff for the chairman of the Federal Communications
Commission. Today, he is the top lobbyist for the Intel Corporation and
a coalition of the technology companies in their efforts to press the
government for a national policy as crucial to general economic growth —
one that would accelerate the spread of broadband, or high-speed,
Internet access.

Of course, the technology industry has a particular interest in this
issue, aside from wanting to see increased American productivity.

It sees much of its future growth connected to the deployment of
high-speed access, and the entertainment, music and software that will
be able to reach consumers on upgraded networks.

The topic of a national broadband policy will be central to discussions
held at the annual conference and trade show of the National Cable and
Telecommunications Association in Chicago, which ends June 11, with
participants including executives like Bill Gates of Microsoft, Richard
D. Parsons of AOL Time Warner and Mel Karmazin of Viacom.

The industry coalition had a recent success in persuading the F.C.C. to
modify its rules so that telecommunications companies will not be forced
to lease their high-speed access lines to competitors. But it continues
to face a difficult battle to get Congress to grant tax credits to
companies building next-generation Internet access networks.

For telecommunications companies, making the investment in broadband
access is not without risk. The costs for building high-speed networks
are enormous, whether through wires on the ground or through wireless
networks. Moreover, the companies must market the concept to consumers
who are already paying monthly fees for home telephone, cellphone and
cable television service and may not want to pay yet more for high-speed
access. To mitigate the risk, the industry has turned to the government
for help, and Mr. Pitsch has led the charge.

"He is the godfather of telecom policy among technology companies in
Washington," said Bruce P. Mehlman, the assistant secretary for
technology policy in the Commerce Department, and a former lobbyist for
Cisco Systems Inc.

People who know Mr. Pitsch say he is point man in the lobbying push
because of his Washington background, personality and energy. But his
ability to lead can also be credited to Intel's neutral role in this
competitive field. Whereas cable, telephone and wireless companies are
competing against one another to deploy high-speed access, Intel has no
stake in which particular technologies will thrive. Thus it appears to
have more credibility with federal regulators.

But that does not mean broadband growth is less important to Intel's
future. For Intel, more high-speed access means more consumer demand for
fast computers and that means greater demand for the microprocessors
that Intel makes.

"One of the fundamental drivers for faster and faster microprocessors
will be high-quality, affordable broadband," Mr. Pitsch said during a
recent interview at Intel's headquarters in Santa Clara.

The bottom line, he said, is that Intel thinks high-speed Internet users
will make up its future customer base. "The effect on us is indirect.
But its huge," he said.

Today, about one-third of American households with Internet access have
high-speed service — an increase of 50 percent over a year ago,
according to a report issued last month by the Pew Internet and American
Life Project, a nonprofit research group. But the report also found that
the rate of adoption of broadband was unlikely to remain as high as it
has been because many people are content with the slower telephone
dial-up connections to the Internet.

Whether the current rate of adoption is fast enough depends on whom you ask.

The F.C.C., which is charged by Congress with reporting periodically on
the status of technology adoption, concluded in its most recent report,
in February 2002, that high-speed Internet adoption was on pace. "Over
all, we find that advanced telecommunications is being deployed to all
Americans in a reasonable and timely manner," the report said, adding
that subscriber levels had increased "significantly."

As of the end of 2002, the cable industry had invested some $70 billion
in upgrading its networks to provide advanced digital service, including
high-speed Internet access. And it is expected to invest an additional
$10 billion this year, said Robert Sachs, the chief executive of the
National Cable and Telecommunications Association, an industry trade group.

The technology industry is not alone in pushing for faster broadband
adoption. Charles H. Ferguson, a Brookings Institution scholar, is
working on a book about what he calls the United States broadband
problem. He said that he thought American industry's slowness in
deploying broadband access would hamper productivity and even national
security.

"The broadband story is a general disaster," Mr. Ferguson said.
Broadband access to homes is still too limited, he added, "but the
business broadband picture is just as important, and even more disastrous."

Mr. Pitsch hopes to correct that situation. As chief of staff from 1987
to 1989 to Dennis R. Patrick, the chairman of the F.C.C., he provided
counsel on a host of regulatory issues and was frequently a target of
lobbyists himself.

Though he is now Intel's director of communications policy, Mr. Pitsch,
51, is still very much a Washington denizen. He lives in Great Falls in
Northern Virginia with his wife, and in sartorial matters and demeanor,
he is all inside the Beltway, down to his polished loafers and leather
suspenders. Even on a recent trip to Intel headquarters, he did not give
in to Silicon Valley's casual style. "My compromise was that I took off
the tie," he joked.

When Mr. Pitsch started working for Intel in 1998, the company already
had deemed high-speed Internet access to be pivotal to its growth.

In February 2002, Intel helped form the High Tech Broadband Coalition,
an alliance of six technology and telecommunications industry trade
groups whose dozens of members were already lobbying on their own. Grant
Seiffert, vice president for external affairs and global policy at the
Telecommunications Industry Association, a trade group that includes
Intel and is part of the High Tech Broadband Coalition, said Mr. Pitsch
and Intel pushed for the coalition and played a leadership role.

"He's high energy and he doesn't waste a lot of time," Mr. Seiffert
said. He added that Mr. Pitsch's drive may at times be off-putting.
"Sometimes he's a little aggressive for some people, but you have to
respect what he does."

The coalition scored what is widely considered a major victory in
February when the F.C.C. decided that telecommunications companies that
build high-speed access lines are not obliged to lease those lines to
competitors. The broadband coalition had argued for such a position,
asserting it would spur investment.

Indeed, when the F.C.C. announced its decision, Commissioner Kevin J.
Martin of the F.C.C. stated, "We endorse and adopt in total the High
Tech Broadband Coalitions for the deregulation of fiber to the home and
any fiber used with the new packet technology."

F.C.C. officials say Mr. Pitsch's lobbying is effective because he knows
the technical issues very well, and because Intel's position is neutral
as to which telecommunications companies or technologies win out. The
coalition is also pushing the F.C.C. on issues like freeing up more
radio frequencies for use in wireless Internet access.

But the coalition has been less successful in gaining passage of
legislation in Congress. Bills have been introduced in the House and
Senate that would provide tax relief for companies creating the
broadband infrastructure. The House measure, for example, would create a
10 percent tax credit for building high-speed access in low-income and
rural areas.

Other versions of the legislation would offer 20 percent tax relief to
companies that build advanced networks that are even faster than the
current broadband networks.

Even by Mr. Pitsch's assessment, the bills have a tough road ahead since
many industries are seeking tax relief, and President Bush has already
earmarked much of his tax cuts for other interests.

While Mr. Pitsch lobbies lawmakers, some have questioned whether his
free-market philosophy is consistent with giving tax relief to huge
companies.

He says tax relief will spur investment and lead to higher productivity
and job growth. But even his friends on Capitol Hill say it is a tricky
line to walk.

"A rural tax credit would not be consistent with a true free-market
ideology unless you determine there has been a market failure in those
areas," said Mr. Mehlman, from the Commerce Department.

But Mr. Mehlman said it was too soon to say whether there was a market
failure.

In any case, broadband is rolling out as fast, or faster, than any
technology has ever been rolled out, he said. And Peter Pitsch plans to
keep it rolling along.

--
Aron P. Goldman
Policy Development
73 Weatherwood Road
Amherst, Massachusetts 01002
Tel: 413 549 1193 Fax: 413 549 1194
Email: goldman@policydevelopment.org
Website: www.policydevelopment.org