K20InitiativeResponse07-14-2011TaskForceReport

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Internet2 K20 Initiative Advisory Committee Comments on the June 17, 2011 interim draft

Report of the U.S. UCAN CAI Task Force on Economic Models

June 30, 2011

Introduction

As the Internet2 community begins to deliberate the recommendations put forth in the interim draft

report by the U.S. UCAN CAI Task Force on Economic Models, we believe theres value in reflecting onour shared history of engaging Community Anchor Institutions (CAIs).

In the years following the creation of the Internet2 consortium, leaders in the academic research and

technology community saw an opportunity with Internet2 to engage the broader education community in

the development of the next-generation Internet. The Internet2 consortium launched the Internet2 K20Initiative in 2001 to extend network access to public libraries, K-12 schools, baccalaureate colleges and

universities, community colleges, and a host of cultural and scientific organizations such as performingarts centers, museums, science centers, zoos, and aquaria. The Sponsored Education Group Participant(SEGP) program was the approach developed to connect CAIs to Internet2.

Rather than being born out of an eagerness to reform or transform K-12 education, public libraries, orany other community anchor sector, Internet2s decision to connect and engage the broad formal and

informal education community was aligned with its advanced technology missions. By putting tomorrow's

technologies into the hands of as many innovators and educational sectors as possible, the Internet2

consortium sought to both accelerate the cycle of technology evolution, transfer, and diffusion andprovide CAIs with an opportunity to shape and utilize the content, services, and applications of the next-

generation Internet.

This approach has been remarkably successful. Today, over 66,000 CAIs across 40 states are connected

to the national Internet2 backbone network, via state and regional R&E networks, under the popularSEGP program, which has grown well beyond initial expectations. Through consistent engagement of CAIpractitioners at the grass-roots level, the Internet2 K20 Initiative has created diverse communities of

trust whose participants are bound by a common interest and commitment to, advanced networking,

content, services, and applications. This has been accomplished without over-promising, over-extending,or losing focus on the primary goals of Internet2 membership community. The Internet2 K20 Initiative

continues to be a win for Internet2, SEGP networks, and the millions of Americans served by the

connected community anchor institutions.

We appreciate the Task Force's acknowledgement of the successes of the K20 Initiative when itrecommends (RECOMMENDATION III-5) that the "strengths of SEGP should be incorporated into the

national U.S. UCAN program . . . extending SEGP successes to the broader community of CAIs for which

U.S. UCAN is being established." The "strengths of SEGP," which include connecting large numbers of

willing CAIs to high-performance networking, fostering community, facilitating collaborative work, andconvening a broad constituency of users, offer a strong foundation on which to build a successful U.S.

UCAN program. We believe using the existing Internet2 SEGP/K20 and Health Sciences Initiatives as abase and expanding that work over time would allow the U.S. UCAN program to operate initially with a

lower overhead than envisioned by the Task Force, obviating the need for an increase in fees until

additional CAI's connect in numbers sufficient to support growth of the organization.


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Our nation is counting on the R&E networking community to provide community anchors with theadvanced broadband infrastructure needed to fundamentally improve education, government services,

health care, and public safety, and unleash waves of innovation, discovery, and opportunity for all

Americans in the 21st century. It is in this spirit the K20 Initiative offers the following response to theTask Forces June 17, 2011 interim draft report:

RECOMMENDATION III-3: A U.S. UCAN Council should be established, on which CAIs have atleast equal representation with U.S. UCAN network services providers, including statenets,regional nets, the U.S. UCAN national program office and the Internet2 national 100 gigabit

backbone infrastructure. An initial Council should be chosen from among willing andknowledgeable volunteers and chaired by the Director of the U.S. UCAN national program

office. A high priority for the Council should be development of a statement of program goals

and milestones for U.S. UCAN.

With respect to creating a U.S. UCAN Council, the foundation already exists for six of the eight sectors;

K12 education, 2-year and 4-year colleges and universities, public libraries, museums, and health care.

There is no need to start from scratch. The K20 Initiative Advisory Committee, composed of leaders from

the anchor tenant and state and regional networking community, has successfully developed strategicgoals, identified and completed projects, modeled innovations in advanced applications and collaborated

with others to achieve benefits to the community. The Health Sciences Initiative has had similar success

in supporting and facilitating activities involving advanced networking applications for clinical practice andhealth awareness and outreach in the U.S. research and education community.

The talent and experience in these groups, as well as the K20 Initiatives successful track record ofcollaboration and community building, can be leveraged and applied to shaping an initial U.S. UCANCouncil. The K20 organizational model is easily expandable to include all sectors interested in

participating in a U.S. UCAN program. The strength of the model lies inherently in an established cultureof valuing differences, supporting multiple stakeholder priorities, and respecting diverse communities of

interest. These essential attributes are needed to successfully integrate the sectors less familiar with

organizing around the common vision of advanced networks.

Building upon the K20 Advisory Committee structure and membership, an initial U.S. UCAN Council couldbe launched immediately (supported by existing Internet2 staffing resources) while being instructed to

take a measured and well-considered approach to their endeavor over the course of the entire U.S. UCAN

BTOP period. The Council would be charged with providing strategic direction and goal setting,identifying and piloting potential above-the-net services, and helping to iterate proposed program fee

models. We believe it is critical to use the entire U.S. UCAN BTOP grant period to conduct this additional

consultation and strategic planning with the various CAI sectors prior to launching the U.S. UCANprogram office as currently envisioned by the Task Force.

We offer the following additional thoughts on how such an initial U.S. UCAN Council might be structured:

At-Large Council composed of members representing all 8 sectors and of other vested parties

(such as representatives from associations and R&E networks).

Executive Committee designated to help organize, facilitate and complete the work of the At-Large Council.

Community-of-Interest working groups derived from the At-Large Council. This is where sectorscould come together to discuss common issues, identify opportunities and strategies to recruit

their peers, and create subcommittees around specific topics/issues. Lastly, cross-sector subcommittees of the At-large Council could be formed as needed around a

common issue or question and dissolved when the work is completed.


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RECOMMENDATION V-3: As described in the successful proposal to NTIA, U.S. UCAN should

ensure that CAIs can connect with each other nationwide, rather than just locally, with

respect to advanced broadband applications, including telepresence, distance education,telemedicine, and job training

In 2007 the Internet2 K20 Initiative created Muse (http://k20.internet2.edu), an online community where

innovators from Internet2 member institutions, K-12 schools, colleges and universities, public libraries,and museumsfrom around the world can discover and connect with each other and the wide range ofthe applications, resources, and services enabled by high-performance R&E networks.

The development of a social networking resource was a natural progression for our community, which

has long sought more efficient ways to share experiences, ideas, resources, projects, and collaborationsacross global geographic boundaries. Whether or not Muse, or a next iteration, is something public

safety, health care, and local government would find value in will require further consultation. Muse can

be evolved to meet any new sector-specific functional requirements and immediately help to facilitatemuch needed cross-sector dialogue around how U.S. UCAN can support and add value to their missions.

RECOMMENDATION V-4: A deliberate data collection and analysis effort is needed todocument the depth and breadth of CAI use of services, to feed impact studies, to enable

measurement of the goals of the National Broadband Plan, to serve as a status and

prospects clearinghouse, and to provide data and feedback to U.S. UCAN itself in calibratingits efforts to meet the needs of CAIs. This effort is appropriate for a national entity with

national membership such as U.S. UCAN because it enables consistent and standardized datacollection across the country. In addition, U.S. UCAN is well positioned to undertake this taskbecause it will be a trusted, independent agent in collecting and analyzing data, rather than

self-interested.

Working as a trusted partner with state and regional R&E networks in the collection and analysis of CAI

connectivity data, the Internet2 K20 Initiative has developed a depth of expertise the U.S. UCAN programcan leverage to reach the goals set forth in Recommendation V-4.

We recommend a U.S. UCAN program, working with key stakeholders and partners, build the capacity tocollect the following data for every CAI in the United States.

organization name

physical address, including latitude/longitude

federally and state recognized unique identifier1

organization type

Internet Service Provider name (including bothcommercial and R&E network providers)

advertised bandwidth (upload/download in

Mbps)

actual bandwidth (upload/download in Mbps)

latency

jitter

packet loss

Internet2 enabled - yes/no

circuit capacity (total available layer 2 transportcapacities (e.g. 40Mbps, 100Mbps, etc)

circuit type (DSL, cable, satellite, fiber, etc.)

1The inclusion of a federally recognized unique identifier is absolutely critical in order to allow seamless integration with important

nationally curated CAI data sets such as the NCESs Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), K-12 Common Core

of Data (CCD), and the Institute of Museum and Library Service Public Library survey. This will extend the ability of the U.S. UCAN

community and its partners to analyze and interpret CAI broadband data.


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Achieving success in this important endeavor will require a U.S. UCAN program to work in closecoordination with a range of stakeholders including, but not limited to, Internet2 staff and working

groups focused on network performance measurement, state and regional R&E networks, commercial

Internet providers, federal and state agencies2, academic researchers, CAI professional organizations,and CAIs themselves to develop data collection methodologies and analytical tools that reflect the

interests, concerns, and needs of all involved. The level of effort required to provide the best work

product should be properly factored into the staffing budget projections for any future U.S. UCANprogram office.

Lastly, we urge the Task Force and U.S. UCAN to regard CAI broadband data collection efforts not only asa means of providing the consistent and standardized data needed to conduct the quantitative analysis

described in Recommendation V-4, but also as an opportunity to engage and inform CAI practitioners

around the multiple benefits of advanced broadband connectivity. For example, a thoughtfully designedand virally marketed open source, standards compliant, user initiated broadband speed test purpose built

to serve CAIs could provide CAI practitioners and decision makers with real data about the currentcapacity of their network connection. One way this data could be presented is in terms of the advanced

applications currently enabled (or not) in their classrooms, libraries, museums, or hospitals. In short, CAIbroadband data collection efforts can be designed to maximize the yield of valuable data, raise CAIawareness around the many exciting mission aligned uses of high performance broadband, and promote

the value and benefits of R&E networking services3.

RECOMMENDATION VII-3: The task force has developed and presented three possible

models for U.S. UCAN cost recovery, of which it recommends Model B as the best balance

between cushioning the impact of the creation of U.S. UCAN, and preparing for a CAI

broadband future.

The U.S. UCAN Task Force Recommendation VII-3 proposes changes to the existing SEGP cost model to

support the additional cost of establishing a U.S. UCAN national program office with an initial annualbudget of $2.65M and 2% annual growth thereafter. The Task Force identified a funding gap of 34%

since current SEGP fees generate $1.98M.

The ways in which SEGP costs are covered vary significantly from state-to-state, and funding the increasein annual fees for U.S. UCAN would also likely vary from state-to-state. However, there are cases theInternet2 K20 Advisory Committee have identified where the increased cost would have to be passed on

to the existing CAI sites served by SEGPs. The group has further identified cases where doing so during

a time when budgets are already severely constrained for these institutions would be catastrophic. Quitesimply, many CAIs have no extra funds to support this effort. In the current fiscal climate, some SEGP's

have already stated that they will discontinue participation in the SEGP/U.S. UCAN program if fees

increase. Since they have budgeted for the existing SEGP costs, they will continue to participate if thelevel of financial commitment remains the same.

2For example, part of the NTIAs State Broadband Initiative's (SBI) http://www2.ntia.doc.gov/SBDDcharge is to collect Community

Anchor Institution data from all 50 states participating in the program. The K20 Initiative has been working closely with the NTIAs

SBI program staff to further leverage our collective efforts.3Please see the following mock up of a user initiated broadband speed test purpose built for community anchor organizations.

http://bit.ly/kBv0Xn


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Scaling back the budget for U.S. UCAN Year 1 to the $1.98M per year currently collected in SEGP fees,

would allow Internet2, the vertical CAI organizations, and the state and regional R&E networks to grow

the membership to support increases in the budget over time while not losing membership, andrevenues, in the process.

Closing Remarks

The Internet2 K20 Initiative applauds the members of the Task Force for grappling with and proposing

initial solutions to a wide range of complex issues involved in standing up a U.S. UCAN program. Wecontinue to strongly support the notion of a Unified Community Anchor Network program where the

advanced application needs and national networking requirements of community anchor institutions are

understood, coordinated and fulfilled. In contrast, moving too quickly to launch a costly new programwithout broad community support, and whose mission and services are still perceived as amorphous by

the great majority of those it aims to serve, will unnecessarily complicate the path ahead.

It is our view that there is great value in taking the full U.S. UCAN BTOP grant cycle to identify anddevelop the initial set of above-the-network services identified by CAIs and build a strong communityconsensus around a sustainable and equitable fee model before fully funding and launching the U.S.

UCAN program as currently envisioned by the Task Force. This would also provide time for continuedoutreach, education, and consultation with leaders from the anchor tenant community to build additionaltrust, mutual understanding around their needs, and, plans for how we can best serve them.

We wish to thank the Task Force for providing the opportunity to comment on the interim report and look

forward to participating in a constructive community dialogue in the weeks and months ahead.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the Internet2 K20 Advisory Committee by:

Carol Willis

Texas Education Telecommunications Network (TETN)

Chair, Internet2 K20 Initiative Advisory Committee

Kim Owen

North Dakota State University

Co-Chair, Internet2 K20 Initiative Advisory Committee

K20InitiativeResponse07-14-2011TaskForceReport

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