IN THIS ISSUE:

The MiCTA Spring Conference Is Rapidly Approaching

The 2006 MiCTA Spring Conference is rapidly approaching. Currently plans for the conference are in the final stages of planning and everything is almost set for May 8-10, 2005. MiCTA recently sent out a mailing detailing the conference. Included in the mailings are an itinerary, a registration form, and hotel and travel information. The mailings will be mailed out on December 9th, so you should be receiving them some time soon. If you have not yet received your MiCTA conference mailing please call Aimee Garcia at the MiCTA Service Corporation office, 1-888-870-8677, or email her at Agarcia@mictaservice.com. The conference web page can be accessed by clicking this link -also make sure to check out the video highlighting all that you can do in Kalamazoo!

New Michigan Legislation Effective November 22nd, 2005

MiCTA is pleased to announce that Public Act 235 / House Bill 5237 has been passed as of November 22 nd, 2005. This bill was not consistent with the language of previous acts, however through the collaborative effort of MiCTA members and MiCTA President John Sundstrom it has been changed and amended multiple times to give all schools, K-12 included, optimal support. Additionally, this act allows for all Michigan non-profits in the education field to interact with multiple network applications and offerings. A complete history of Public Act 235 / House Bill 537, as well as Sponsors, and the Senate Floor Fiscal Analysis is available by clicking this link.

Procurement Revolution

MiCTA and four regional education compacts cut time and cost from technology purchasing

Technology procurement tends to be a long, expensive endeavor for most government, education and nonprofit agencies. Developing and distributing detailed RFPs, evaluating responses and negotiating contracts can take months and cost thousands of dollars.

Fortunately there is a superior alternative available to nearly any organization that serves the public.

A joint effort by MiCTA — a technology resource for nonprofit organizations — and the American TeleEdCommunications Alliance (ATAlliance) has produced a member-driven, nationwide consortium dedicated to helping public and nonprofit organizations acquire the best technology products and services for the best price.

The consortium offers its members a streamlined contracting process for a wide range of voice, video and data network services that cuts the cost, complexity and risk of traditional IT contracting.

“The ATAlliance is using its collective purchasing power to provide low-priced and competitive telecommunications to member states and organizations, colleges, universities, hospitals, state and local governments, and other nonprofit organizations,” said Larry Isaak, president of the Midwestern Higher Education Compact (MHEC), a founding member of the ATAlliance.

Providing the most competitive telecommunications solutions to members is central to the efforts by the MiCTA/ATAlliance. For this reason, the MiCTA/ATAlliance contracts with vendors who meet its strict and rigorous RFP process. “IP service is the most frequently demanded service. IP services have become the clear industry standard,’’ said Mike Serbousek, vice president of Government Markets for MCI. “Everything is moving to an Internet protocol common denominator. We believe — and I think the MiCTA/ATAlliance believes — that all of the legacy services, in one stage or another, are being converted to IP technology.”

A Unified Voice

In the late 1990s, MiCTA joined with MHEC and three other regional education compacts — the New England Board of Higher Education, the Southern Regional Education Board and the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education— to form the ATAlliance. The MiCTA/ATAlliance currently manages the procurement needs of more than 20,000 member organizations nationwide. These members and any governmental or educational organization in the four compacts are eligible to participate in the cost-savings programs. Members are able to save time and money through a couple of sources. They don’t have to invent these significant RFP processes on their own. The process allows eligible organizations to eliminate the many staff hours that normally would be expended to create a traditional RFP.

In terms of the contract negotiation, MiCTA / ATAlliance has a number of very qualified professionals throughout the membership of the states who will assist in developing the requests for proposal and identifying the various elements of cost advantage by bringing together the four regional education compacts and MiCTA, we actually can, with a very unified voice, identify at what pricing level folks would be interested in these programs.”

The MiCTA/ATAlliance expertly crafts RFPs and negotiates with suppliers on members’ behalf. Member organizations simply choose the products or services they need from the consortium’s master services contracts with various vendors. Potential vendors undergo rigorous evaluation, and only the very best are allowed to sell through the program.

“We have very well defined evaluation criteria which we apply to all of the program providers who respond to an RFP,” said John Sundstrom, vice president of the ATAlliance. “The vendors that make it through that evaluation process really are ones that we are comfortable presenting to our membership, who we’ll say, ‘These folks will provide this level of service and above.’”

Contract vendors receive “Approved” or “Endorsed” status, based on the recommendation of a member-led evaluation team. “Endorsed means the best value based on price, quality and service as identified during the RFP process,” Sundstrom said. “Approved means that particular providers are a very good value based on quality, service and price — but for one reason or another, they simply did not meet the highest value as identified by the evaluation team.”

MCI underwent the evaluation process and earned the consortium’s highest ranking for several of its products and services.

“We have proposed an extensive list of services to MiCTA,” said MCI’s Serbousek. “It’s a much more extensive portfolio than we have had in the past. So far, MCI has been endorsed for paging services, GPS services, facsimile services, competitive local exchange carrier services, and probably most importantly, the IP services category. All of those were endorsed awards to MCI.”

Learning Tools

The MiCTA/ATAlliance also helps financially strapped school districts take advantage of federal E-Rate funds for technology upgrades. Managed by an arm of the U.S. Department of Education, E-Rate was created to defray the expense of bringing telecommunications and Internet connectivity into the classroom. Schools in economically depressed areas can receive as much as 90 percent funding for these initiatives. The federal government identified a formal process each school must go through in order to qualify for E-Rate dollars. MiCTA / ATAlliance is the only organization that has been certified nationally with our bid process to assist in that process.

MiCTA/ATAlliance worked with E-Rate officials to review the competitive RFP procedure schools go through. Now, any school system that buys from MiCTA/ATAlliance contracts will not have to launch a separate competitive bid process, which significantly streamlines the task of securing E-Rate approval.

Reducing the E-Rate paperwork alone has been a fantastic value for K-12 schools.

Proud Telecommunications Provider

MCI is proud to be associated with and endorsed by the MiCTA/ ATAlliance, an organization dedicated to helping public and nonprofit organizations acquire top-of-the-line technology quickly and cost-effectively.

Working with the MiCTA/ATAlliance, MCI delivers critical technology to consortium members, who also gain the peace of mind that comes with purchasing from an endorsed vendor.

“We believe our relationship with the MiCTA/ATAlliance creates an excellent value proposition between MiCTA/ATAlliance membership and MCI,” said Serbousek. “We have been endorsed for an array of services under the MiCTA/ATAlliance contract. That sets us up as being a good value for users out there. Customers can order from us with confidence.”

Interested organizations can review the process and results on the MiCTA Web site at http://www.micta.org./

Welcome To New Members

Anoka-Ramsey Community College

Black Veterans for Social Justice

City of Fort Wayne

City of Farmington Hills

City of Littleton

Highfields Inc.

Make Sure to Check Out Monthly Vendor Specials!

Please click this link for pricing details or call Carlos Montanez at 203.615.7416

MiCTA Members Save Over $600 Off Retail Price on Gateway.com

E-4500S

System Quote

Part Number: 1008522
Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional Edition (SP2)
Operating System Software Backup Media: Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional (SP2) Backup CD
Application Software Backup Media:Nero 6 Suite Backup Media (requires CD-RW drive),Power DVD Backup Media (requires DVD-ROM or DVD-RW drive)
Drivers Backup Media: E-4500 Drivers and Application Backup Media
AntiVirus Software: Norton Internet Security 90 day introductory offer
Manageability Software: Gateway System Manager
Processor: Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 630 with HT Technology (3GHz, 800MHz FSB, 2MB L2 cache)
Chipset: Intel® 945G Chipset with DDR 2 Support
Trusted Platform Module: Embedded security chip for user authentication and data protection (version 1.2 ready)
Memory:1GB DDR2 Dual Channel 533MHz SDRAM (2-DIMMs)
Controller Card: Integrated Ultra ATA100 and Serial ATA II/300 controllers
Hard Drive:80GB Serial ATA150 7200rpm hard drive w/ 2MB cache
Floppy Drive: 3.5" 1.44MB diskette drive
Optical Drive:48x/32x/48x CD-RW/DVD combo drive
Case: 3-bay Micro-BTX Case w/ front audio ports and 275-watt power supply
Expansion Slots: 1 PCI-E x 16 (available for graphics card option), 1 PCI-E x 1, and 2 low-profile PCI slots
External Ports: (6) USB 2.0 (2 in front and 4 in back), (1) Serial, (1) Parallel, (2) PS/2, (1) RJ-45 Integrated LAN, (1) VGA, (1) Microphone, front audio ports
Certification: Energy Star Compliant
Monitor:FPD1765 17" Black LCD Flat Panel Display (17" viewable)
Recycling Fee: My order is not shipping to California - no recycling fee required
Video: Integrated Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950 with up to 224MB shared memory
Keyboard: Gateway 104+ Keyboard (PS/2)
Mouse: Gateway 2-Button USB Optical Wheel Mouse and mouse pad
Sound System: Integrated Sound Blaster compatible audio
Speakers:Gateway 2.0 (2-piece) Speaker Solution
Network Adapter: Integrated Broadcom 10/100/1000 Twisted Pair Ethernet
Extended Service Plan Including Limited Warranty:Desktop Total Protection Plan -- 4 year part/labor/NBD on-site/4 year technical support w/ 4 year GPA
Additional Software: Adobe® Acrobat Reader® 6.0, McAfee AntiSpyware 30 day introductory offer and Google Toolbar
Standard Training: Microsoft® Office Learn with Gateway

System Quantity: 1
Discounted Price (including S&H): US $1,200.00
Delivered Price (including S&H): US $1,200.00

Gateway M460E

System Quote

Part Number: 1008351
Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional Edition (SP2)
Operating System Software Backup Media: Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional (SP2) Backup CD
Application Software Backup Media:Nero 6 Suite Backup Media (requires CD-RW drive),Power DVD Backup Media (requires DVD-ROM or DVD-RW drive)
Drivers Backup Media: M460 Drivers and Applications CD
Application Software: Microsoft® Works 8.0
AntiVirus Software: Norton AntiVirus 90 day introductory offer
Processor: Intel® Celeron® M Processor 360 (1.40GHz, 400MHz FSB, 1MB L2 cache)
Memory:512MB 400MHz DDR2 SDRAM (2-256MB modules)
Hard Drive: 40GB 4200rpm Ultra ATA hard drive
Floppy Drive: 4-in-1 media card reader (Memory Stick®, MemoryStick Pro®, MultiMediaCard™, Secure Digital™,)
Optical Drive:Modular 24x/10x/24x CD-RW / 8x DVD combo
Expansion Slots: One type II PC card slot
External Ports: (4) USB 2.0, VGA, TV Out, S-Video, IEEE 1394 (FireWire)
Recycling Fee: My order is not shipping to California - no recycling fee required
Screen: 15.0" XGA TFT Active Matrix (1024 x 768 max. resolution)
Video: Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900
Keyboard and Mouse: Full-Size Keyboard and EZ Pad® Pointing Device
Multimedia Package: Integrated sound and stereo speakers, headphone/speaker jack, and mic jacks
Speakers: External speakers not selected
Battery:Primary 8-cell Lithium ion battery with AC pack and 1 yr. limited battery warranty
Additional Battery: Modular 6-Cell Lithium ion battery and 1 yr. limited battery warranty
Modem: Integrated V.90 56K Modem
Network Adapter: Integrated Broadcom® 10/100/1000 Ethernet Adapter
Integrated Wireless Networking Adapter: Integrated 802.11b/g wireless networking card
Extended Service Plan Including Limited Warranty:Notebook Total Protection Plan -- 3 year part/labor/NBD on-site/3 year technical support w/ 3 year ADP
Mobile Theft Protection:3 Yr. Mobile Theft Protection software solution (requires 3 Yr. or greater warranty)
Additional Software: Adobe® Acrobat Reader® 6.0
Carrying Case: Gateway Carrying Case

Replicator:Not Selected
System Quantity: 1
Discounted Price (including S&H): US $1,350.00
Delivered Price (including S&H): US $1,350.00

Brodart announces ournew 2006Library Supplies & Furnishings Catalog. As a MiCTA Member you receive a 20% discount on almost every product!

Everything about this year’s catalog is bigger and better - over 42,000 products, including over 1,500 brand-new products!

We completely redesigned our Book Jacket Cover section to help our customers make more informed purchasing decisions. We added more pages and bigger images to the signage section to better illustrate the advantages of Brodart Sign Shop products. Our new Ovation Collection has joined the Brodart family of library furniture. We showcased our expanded line of Brodart-manufactured acrylics, added more children’s school and library furniture and re-vamped the archival section to give it a more professional, user-friendly look.

If you have not received your copy by the end of December, just go online at www.shopbrodart.com and click on the rolling text!

For more information on products and services for MICTA members from Brodart:

Call: 1-800-233-8467 ext. 4338

Click: www.shopbrodart.com/pricing/micta/

Fax: 1-800-578-1064

E-Mail: supplies.quotes@brodart.com

MiCTA Exhibits at ACUTA's 2006 Winter Seminar

MiCTA would like to announce that they will be exhibiting at the 2006 ACUTA Winter Seminar. MiCTA is one of four companies to receive Gold Status. Gold Status is a classification given to organizations demonstrating the highest level of sponsorship and customer service. The conference will be held at the Renaissance Esmeralda Resort in Palm Springs , CA from January 8 – 11. More information is available by calling the MiCTA office at (888) 870-8677. Make sure to stop by booth 107 and say hello to Gary Green.

D.C. Update

Whitney Johnson - Northern Michigan University (Retired) - wjohnson@nmu.edu

The following articles are all part of the D C Update, which is a part of the ACUTA eNews. The ACUTA eNews is available in its entirety by clicking this link.

Justice Dept. Okays Big Phone Mergers

According to Telecommunications Reports (TR 9/15/05), FCC Chairman Martin asked his staff to draft an order approving the mergers of SBC-AT&T and Verizon-MCI back in September. Chairman Martin's goal was to ensure that the transaction could be approved in October. On October 27 the Justice Department approved the pair of "mega-mergers" in the phone industry, reports MarketWatch (http://www.marketwatch.com).

According to Verizon Chief Executive Ivan Seidenberg, the MCI deal might not be finished until January, at which time the MCI name will disappear. SBC plans to complete its deal before the end of the year and assume the AT&T name. MarketWatch says both SBC and Verizon "plan to offer a one-stop shopping destination for an array of services to consumers and businesses alike - ”local calling, long-distance, Internet access, wireless, and data.

"They are even building new multi-billion dollar fiber networks over which to deliver TV service in an effort to thwart cable companies from taking their customers. Under the Justice Department's edict, SBC and Verizon have to divest fiber connections, known as special access lines, to several hundred commercial buildings in 19 cities. The department filed suit to block the mergers, but said the deals would be allowed if the companies accepted the terms. Both SBC and Verizon said they will comply."

According to MarketWatch (10/31/05), the FCC approved both the SBC/AT&T and Verizon/MCI mergers on Monday, October 31. Says MarketWatch, "After much wrangling, the commissioners agreed to demand that SBC and Verizon offer high-speed Internet access on a standalone basis” a service known as naked DSL. SBC and Verizon also agreed to temporarily freeze certain wholesale rates and to adhere to a 'network neutrality' principle under which they would not discriminate against any company that uses their networks to deliver service."

Reaction from around the country as the mergers were developing was mixed, with concerns expressed about what is really in the public interest and what would be the potential benefits and drawbacks for residential customers.

A merger between Sprint-Nextel was completed on August 12, 2005.

It will be very interesting to see what effect these mergers may end up having on ACUTA member institutions.

Hurricanes, Earthquakes, and Mudslides

In the last month there has been considerable press coverage, even in the technology trade publications, about the hurricanes and other natural disasters. Almost all of them indicate that we, as a locality or a state or a nation, were mostly unprepared to handle the aftermath of these catastrophes. It certainly demonstrates clearly that every college and business entity must have a disaster plan in place that all employees can follow whenever an emergency develops. The telecom group should have a plan that will meet their needs, and the college should have one to meet the needs of the whole organization.

Disaster planning has been a frequent topic in the ACUTA eNews and the Journal and at ACUTA events. But how many of us have created - and maintained - such a plan and are ready for a real disaster? Do you and your staff know where the plan is kept? Does everyone know their responsibilities? I highly recommend that creating such a plan be put very high on the priority list, and that it be done as soon as possible for telecom and for the campus as a whole. In recent months we have seen the important role that communications technology plays in disasters. We must be ready to step up to the plate when the ball comes our way. (TR 9/15/05, 10/1/05; Telecom Manager's Voice Report [VR] 9/19/05)

Fines

America on Line (AOL) has been fined $1.25 million by the state of New York for service cancellation hurdles. The AG's office received more than 300 complaints over the past few years from AOL customers indicating that the company had ignored requests to discontinue their service and continued to bill the customers.

AOL will now be using a third-party company to verify whether customers want to continue service. AOL also agreed to refund up to four month's worth of service to all New York consumers who claim harm based on improper cancellation procedures.

Research into the problem found that the "company had an elaborate system of rewarding employees who claimed to have dissuaded subscribers from canceling their Internet service. Customer service personnel received bonuses worth tens of thousands of dollars if they could save' half of the people who called to cancel service." As a result, many employees did not honor customer requests to get off the AOL system. (TR 9/15/05)

A Couple of Interesting Senate Bills

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has approved a bill (S1725) that would authorize about $400 million for fiscal year 2006 (that would grow to $1 billion by 2010) in grants to first responders to improve communications interoperability. This was just one of a number of bills that cover Hurricane Katrina related items on Sept. 22.

Other legislation that is in the works would require the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to assess the technical feasibility of creating a backup emergency system for first responders. (TR 10/1/05)

"As part of a $100 billion for fiscal year 2006 Department of Agriculture, rural development, Food and Drug Administration, and related agencies appropriations bill, the Senate has voted $695 million to fund various rural telecom loan programs. The Senate version of the bill (HR2744), which passed on a 97-2 vote, also would appropriate $550 million for broadband telecom loans and $35 million for grants to support telemedicine and distance-learning services in rural areas, with $10 million of the latter amount set aside for converting analog broadcast operations of rural noncommercial educational TV stations to digital operations.

"The House passed the appropriations bill in June with rural telecom loans funded at $694 million, broadband loans at $463.9 million, and telemedicine and distance-learning service at $50 million. The measure moves next to conference negotiations to reconcile the two versions." (TR 10/1/05)

The amount of our money planned for spending sure seems to be more than may be needed to have a balanced budget.

Donate Cell Phones

Organizations across the country are joining together in the Great Cell Phone Drive to support community programs in your area.

Donate cell phones through American Cell Phone Drive today.  You can help your community’s efforts by donating used cell phones.

Please go to www.americancellphonedrive.org/ to find a location where you can donate your used cell phones.

Tech Talk  
Kevin Tanzillo - Dux PR

WMM Adds Touch of Class to Wireless Networking

When it comes to WLANs, the egalitarian approach just isn't working. Don't go drawing any political or social inferences, but the truth is, all bits are not created equal, and trying to pretend they are will only bring upheaval to your wireless net.

So it seems we need class divisions in order to function most efficiently, to keep all the bits from behaving like their team just won the NCAA championship.

Back when wireless LANs' only real concern was moving data traffic, e-mail, and the like, this whole question of class and privilege was a non-issue. But as you add voice, streaming video, streaming audio, and gaming traffic to the mix, the plot thickens. The volume of this type of traffic is growing quickly, with no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

That changing face of WLAN traffic summons up the need for quality-of-service (QoS) mechanisms to make sure that the applications that are harmed most by transmission delays get priority over those that are essentially delay-proof.

Data traffic, bless its heart, is very forgiving about delays. It's no big deal if there's a one-second hesitation in sending a file to the printer, or even in delivering the next page of text from a website to a user's screen. But if someone is using the wireless network for voice and they experience a full-second delay, that's bad. The same is true if a video freezes on-screen or if there's a gap in a song.

Someone needs to decide what kinds of traffic are more important in a network, and a new QoS specification called WMM (for Wi-Fi Multimedia), is enabling that prioritization. What is even better about WMM - which is part of a standard expected to be approved this year - is that the administrator of each network can be the one to decide how best to allocate the network traffic.  

Basically, in a network without WMM, every type of traffic is subject to the same rules of operation. The network allows a certain window during which transmission is allowed. If two types of traffic try to move at exactly the same moment, they essentially bump heads and then have to back up and try again. As we mentioned, this isn't a big deal for data applications, but it is for other types of transmissions, those that are highly sensitive to delay.

WMM establishes different fixed and random wait-to-transmit times for four prioritization categories: voice, video, "best effort," and "background." The objective is to provide the most favorable network access opportunities for those applications that don't tolerate delays well. Technically speaking, the WMM timing plan sets up a fixed waiting period, measured in microseconds, known as the Arbitrary Inter-Frame Space Number, or AIFSN, along with a random waiting period, the Contention Window. For voice traffic and video traffic, the AIFSN is set at two timeslots. For best-effort data traffic, it is three timeslots, and for lower-priority background traffic, it is seven slots.

The Contention Window is a flexible period of up to three timeslots for voice, up to seven for video, and up to 15 for best effort and background.

One of the big drivers for WMM as far as higher education institutions are concerned is the ability to support wireless VoIP, which you can bet you'll be seeing more of. An additional benefit is that WMM aids in prioritized traffic management, where the IT administrator can assign different priority levels to different users, based perhaps on their roles or the type and importance of traffic they are generating.

Class distinctions clearly have a useful role. With WMM, the goal of minimizing network delays can be achieved, paving the way for further evolution in the types of traffic traveling over the network .

Kevin Tanzillo writes for DUX Public Relations. He has been kind enough to share his work with MiCTA and ACUTA eNews. If there are specific topics you would like to see covered in the next Tech Talk, please let him know via e-mail at kevin@duxpr.com.

Just For Fun

Queen's College was the original name for what university?
A) Rutgers
B) Temple
C) George Washington
D) St. John's

President Cavin Coolidge had a pet raccoon named ___________
A) Billy
B) Sam
C) Rebecca
D) Amanda

Barbara Millicent Rogers is the full name of whom?
A) Barbara Walters
B) The popular little girl's doll "Barbie"
C) Barbara Stanwyck
D) Barbara Striesand

"Roleo" is a ____________
A) The original name of Hershey's ROLO brand candy
B) The term for a log rolling tournament
C) A race in which contestants roll down a hill
D) Nickname of Roland Powers, all-time leader in points and assists in NCAA Division II basketball.

Please visit the members' home page for answers to "Just For Fun"

PREVIOUS MICTA ALERTS

• November 2005

• October 2005

• September 2005

Alert Index