Glasgow's Info-Highway Project

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Summary:
Our project was meant to improve the way the City's electric utility sells electricity, provide a competitive cable television and telephone marketplace, and institute a city- wide computer "network of networks". These goals have been accomplished through the construction of 120 miles of bidirectional broadband plant which touches each home and business within the City. As a result, the people of Glasgow enjoy information age services today that the rest of the country is only beginning to anticipate at some yet-to-be-defined time in the future.

Demonstration of the Utility and Capability of the NII:
Our project effectively demonstrates the "highway" capabilities of the NII. The highway metaphor is appropriate since our system functions in much the same way as the city streets. Many different services are available to the people of Glasgow through our system at the same time. One lane of our "highway" carries telemetry and commands that the electric utility uses to operate its distribution and transmission system. Other lanes carry meter readings from electric and other utility meters and commands to control capacitor banks and outdoor lighting installations. Some of the highway is used to provide a competitive cable television service and a competitive telephone system. As a result, Glasgow is one of only a handful of cities which offers cable television service from more than one provider. Glasgow is probably the only city in the nation which offers dial tone from more than one source. Still other lanes are used to institute a city-wide metropolitan area network.

The city-wide network connects all of the K-12 classrooms, City agencies, utilities, and a growing number of homes and businesses. That means that children in an elementary school classroom can exchange E-Mail with the Mayor or the Superintendent of schools or a classmate with equal aplomb. It also means that parents can utilize the software, which they have purchased with their tax dollars or the schools, at night when before it was not being used at all. It also means that the lines of communication and involvement between parents, teachers, and school administrators (as well as the business community) have been opened up as they have never been before. Also, since all of the utilities and city and county agencies are on-line, most of the information which the public has bought and paid for is now available from any computer terminal in town which is attached to the network, twenty four hours a day. Amazingly, this information now comes to you instead of you having to go to city hall or the court house to get it.

A system like Glasgow's, flexible enough to accommodate whatever technology comes along or whatever services the people wish to receive, must be the distribution system which will be the electronic equivalent to today's local streets, driveways, and sidewalks. A National Information Infrastructure will be the equivalent of the Interstate Highway system which will provide the capability to leave the local systems like Glasgow's and move information all about the nation and the world.

Example of Practical Usage of the NII:
This project's practicality is demonstrated in its very existence. It is not a pilot or demonstration but rather a real, ongoing, growing and economically successful project. Its ability to better manage the distribution of electric power has saved the people of Glasgow over $175,000 per year for over five years.

The competition in the cable television marketplace, which this project enables, saves the people of Glasgow over $1.2 million per year through reduced rates. The value of the drastically improved service and the amount of local programming available to the local citizens also has great value albeit difficult to quantify. In reality, these two functions alone amortize the cost of constructing the system. However, there are benefits that are not directly based in economics. The cable service is also used to educate. Local broadcasts of government meetings and classroom activities go far beyond the norm for any cable operator. In fact, the system is used for interactive distance learning and one elementary school uses fifth graders to produce a weekly newsmagazine program which is broadcast live to everyone in town. Another channel is utilized by a high school marketing class. It is called the ADvantage Network and all of the programming and advertising sales are produced by the class and their programs are distributed right from the high school classroom. As a result, 50% of the potential cable television customers subscribe to our system. The telephone service offered by the project also puts GTE on its toes and has already convinced them to put in a new digital switch and offer services it does not offer in other markets as small as Glasgow.

Probably the most dramatic results of our project are only beginning to be realized in the provision of connections to the city-wide computer network. In the beginning it was only used to create a virtual education network to replace a system of many standalone networks with no connectivity to each other. We then took what we had learned in tying the schools together and helped create a Geographic Information System (GIS) tying PC workstations in city and county government agencies as well as local utilities to share mapping and databases with each other and the school network. Now the system includes a tie to all local traffic signals for synchronization and monitoring as well as the local realtors MLS information and soon the local law library.

The project is a powerful example of how anxious the public is to utilize the NII when it is made available. It shows how important it is to get started now. It also demonstrates how important it will be to not only make the capabilities available but also to create standard "cookbook" solutions and educate home and business owners on how to utilize the technology.

Encourages and Motivates Use of the NII:
Over 350 other cities, 30 private companies, and scores of reporters and researchers have come to Glasgow to study our project. They come because it is real. It is delivering services which are cost effective to an ever increasing number of customers. It is founded in reality instead of conjecture. This project then encourages others to replicate it. In fact several cities are in the process of doing just that. When others see 34 people in a rural community of 14,000 people are able to accomplish many of the services only mentioned as a dream by the prognosticators of the NII they rightly assume that they can do it, too.

One of the big secrets to the success of our project has been our willingness to offer a total solution to our customers. We are convincing businesses that did not even own a PC to put in several PC's and a network and a file server. Why? Because we have been willing to design their networks, install them, recommend and install the software, provide connection to other networks, and support them on site as well as by telephone anytime they have a problem. This is not a new idea. It's called "customer service" and it is the only real obstacle that stands between the average consumer today and the consumer which is taking full advantage of the NII.

It is easy to see how the growth of the computer networking portion of our project will grow. Initially we support the installation of a stand-alone network in one of our customers businesses. We teach them how to use the network and especially how to use email within that business location. Next we connect them to the city-wide network and educate them in the use of email between themselves and other businesses and individuals within Glasgow. We also teach them how to use the same network to access information on the school's file servers and the GIS file server. As the NII evolves and our network is tied to the Internet, our customers will use the same skills we have taught them about accessing information and using email locally to fully exploit the capabilities they will have to perform those communications with anyone in the world.

Thus, the innovation in our project rests not solely in the technology of providing high speed communications directly to the home, it also is innovative in its "democratization" of this technology. This project aims to make the information, presently utilized by a precious few in major metropolitan areas at a very high cost, available to all at a cost roughly equal to the cost of providing the service. In other words, it takes the "highway" metaphor seriously.

Advice:
Projects such as Glasgow's are much more deeply founded in politics than technology. A community must have a group of dedicated opinion leaders willing to communicate the vision of how everyone's lives can be enhanced through the creation of competition in former monopoly markets and the provision of information-age services today rather than tomorrow. This core group must be capable of communicating the relative simplicity of utilizing this technology if it is provided by local people willing to furnish complete solutions and ongoing support for those willing to take a chance on the information superhighway.

Barriers:
Even though projects like this one are most likely to be replicated in communities unlikely to be slated for installation of broadband networks by the telephone companies or cable companies anytime this century, those companies will likely protest if a community elects to construct a project similar to Glasgow's. However, this is actually a healthy situation. It is very likely that just such competitive pressures will be necessary to spark interest by the private sector in beginning to actually construct such systems instead of continuing to posture about how these systems will be constructed sometime in the future.

Contact Information:
William J. Ray
Glasgow Electric Plant Board
Superintendent
P. O. Box 1809
Glasgow, Kentucky 42142-1809
email: wray@glasgow-ky.com
Phone: (270) 651-8341
FAX: (270) 651-7572

Primary Activity: Utilities

Verification Method:
Our project would be best verified via a site visit. So far, representatives of over 350 cities have already visited.