IN THIS ISSUE:

* MiCTA and ATAlliance Ink New Deal With MCI

* New Contract Signed With McLeodUSA

* Kim Ellertson Takes Over as CEO of MiCTA Service Corporation

* Welcome to New Members

* MiCTA President John Sundstrom’s Testimony to the Michigan House of Representatives Regarding The Committee on Energy and Technology

* MiCTA Technology Committee Co-Chairman Eric Grandstaff Talks to the Michigan House of Representatives Regarding the Michigan Telecommunications Act

* MiCTA Exhibits at ACUTA's 2005 Fall Conference

* MiCTA Dues Increase Effective October 1, 2005

* Hurricane Cleanup of a Different Type

* Check out Monthly Specials from Brodart and Gateway

* Purdue University Unveils Boilercast

We are pleased to announce the signing of a new contract with MCI. The contract is available to all MiCTA Members across the states. The agreement is slated for 3 years with an option of 2 additional 1-year terms. MCI has multiple awards that range from Value-Added Services up through our highest rank; Endorsed. Please click this link to see a complete list of the services offered to all MiCTA Members. Also please make to check out this article outlining all of the services that MiCTA provides its members.

New Contract Signed With McLeodUSA

McLeodUSA, MiCTA and the ATAlliance have just announced the signing a new contract. The new agreement will provide MiCTA members with multiple services, including an Approved Award for CLEC Services and an Endorsed Award for Traditional Voice Services. The agreement is set for a 3-year term, but there is an option of 2 1-year term extensions that could put the contract in effect until 2010. Please call the MiCTA offices at 1-888-870-8677 for information regarding the contract or services offered by McLeodUSA to our members.

Kim Ellertson Takes Over as CEO of MiCTA Service Corporation

Recently, John Rathje, President and CEO of MiCTA Service Corporation, announced that he is leaving MSC to start a consulting business based in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan. John began working at MSC in 2000 and has served as President and CEO since 2004. Taking over the reins at MSC will be Kim Ellertson. Kim has been with MiCTA Service Corporation since 2001. Prior to MSC Kim was the Vice President for Business and Finance at Central Michigan University. While John Rathje’s engaging personality will be missed we at MiCTA Service Corporation are pleased to have the opportunity to work next to and to learn from Kim.

Welcome to New Members

County Volunteer Emergency Rescue Service
Georgia Technology Authority
Goldey-Beacom College
Nicolet Area Technical College
Northeast Michigan Council of Governments
Shadow Mountain Ministries
University of Maine
Wabash College

MiCTA President John Sundstrom’s Testimony to the Michigan House of Representatives Regarding The Committee on Energy and Technology

Michigan House of Representatives
Committee on Energy and Technology
Comments on H.B. 5237, Section 307(6)
October 5, 2005

Mr. Chariman and Members of the Committee:

Introduction and Background

I am an engineer and have worked in the computer and telecommunications industry since the 60’s.

I installed the first fiber optic based voice and data system in University of Wisconsin history (in 1985). The new system saved enough money to recover the entire investment in 4 years. My work won an award from a national college business officer’s organization.

While serving as the Director of Information Technology at Grand Valley State University, I oversaw the building of communications networks that won us citations from Yahoo for the service we provided students. I served on State Telecommunications Committees in both Governor Blanchard and Governor Engler Administrations. Some of you may recall when the Michigan Public Service Commission fined Ameritech 20 million for overcharging ratepayer back in the late 90’s. The MPSC decided to use the money to help schools get into technology advancement. Working with Ferris State, I oversaw the program development and grants administration of a portion of the fine money that was granted to west Michigan K-12 and community colleges to jump start their move into use of the internet and distance learning.

Now I am President of MiCTA ( www.micta.org), which is a consortium of thousands of schools, colleges, Universities and other non –profits. MiCTA, which is based in Mt. Pleasant bids out telecommunications services, software and other items on behalf of its members. MiCTA does not build private networks and generally advocates the purchase of telecommunications services whenever possible. The MiCTA Board is staffed by volunteer members from Michigan’s colleges and K-12.

COMMENTS ON H.B. 5237, the MTA OF 2005:

1. The striking of the 1995 and 2000 versions of Section 307(6) and the substitution of the wording “After July 1, 2006, an institution shall not sell any excess capacity for purposes other than as allowed under this section” appears to abruptly shut off service of many community cooperative projects. The reason why this will happen is found in the narrow definition in paragraph 3 of section 307, which defines for what purposes educational instructions may sell telecommunications services to just education purposes, as opposed to allowing the temporary selling off of excess capacity for cost recovery as allowed under the current law

2. Broadband development in the state –especially in rural areas not served by cable or telephone companies--could be held up at a time when Michigan is already behind other states and countries around the world. If an educational institution happens to own a little excess capacity that they currently are not using, why is it wrong to allow the use of the capacity for a few years to an private company or local unit of government to help them out, and help the school at the same time. For example Ottawa County’s interactive video court system, which links courts in Hudsonville to the County jail in Grand Haven via some of Grand Haven school’s fiber would not have happened if this new proposed prohibition had been in the law. I am sure the committee will hear of other examples of low cost community networking would have been stopped if this provision had been written in previous version of this law.

3. As I reflect on the development of the Internet, almost all of the ideas and inventions came out of universities in their quest to link schools, research agencies and for profit companies together for advancing research and learning. Early work in pioneering the Internet came out of work at the University of Michigan, Cal-Berkley, Merit Network and the Department of Defense. Long after Michigan’s Universities were using the Internet for research and collaboration did commercial telecommunications providers come along and declare they were in the broadband Internet business.

4. In summary, you definitely should not send this bill forward with this harmful provision to schools in it. It has the potential to disrupt service in communities throughout the state and increase costs for those current users who will have to scramble to build or buy a replacement. Worse, it will likely stop contemplated projects. The best thing to do is to restore the provisions of Section 307 to current law, which already contains clear safeguards against any unfair competition with the private sector. This provision has served the citizens of the State well. Please leave it intact.

MiCTA Technology Committee Co-Chairman Eric Grandstaff Talks to the Michigan House of Representatives Regarding the Michigan Telecommunications Act

Testimony for Michigan Telecommunications Act
Michigan House of Representatives
Committee on Energy and Technology

Eric M. Grandstaff

Representing: MiCTA and North Central Michigan College

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee:

I am here representing the K-12 and Community College members of a large national organization known as MiCTA, formerly the Michigan Collegiate Telecommunications Association. We now have over 20,000 members in 49 states across the country.

MiCTA, a non-profit company, provides several technology service solutions from our private sector vendors, wherein we aggregate discounted telecommunications services pricing for our university, community college, K-12, governmental, medical, church, and other non-profit members. Our private sector vendors have included both local exchange carriers, International exchange carriers (such as Sprint and Qwest), and broadband providers (again such as Merit-MichNet, Sprint, Qwest, and others). Without exaggeration, we have saved our Michigan and national members--and, hence, their taxpayers--millions of tax dollars in technology services.

Our purpose here today is to ask for the retention of language in the MTA, which if deleted, has severe consequences for the students our members in Michigan serve. We are talking about the intentional deletion of Section 307 (6) in the legislation being offered by Rep. Nofs. The deletion of 307 (6) also has severe budget implications for the State of Michigan education budget, and, too, will mean that state educational mandates will go unfulfilled.

As Chairman Nofs pointed out in a June 2005 guest editorial in the Battle Creek Enquirer, Michigan now finds itself last in the Nation in economic development. We would agree wholeheartedly with him that the state needs to provide incentives to create a competitive environment in the telecommunications industry.

Where we in MiCTA differ with him, is, again, in the deletion of Section 307 (6) language of the legislation now being offered by Rep. Nofs and his 17 co-sponsors. As your colleagues in the Michigan Senate saw fit to do, the MTA was sent out of Committee with Section 307 left intact.

Some sponsors of this bill have deleted section 307 (6) because they think that schools might compete unfairly with large mega-corporations by selling excess capacities of their telecommunication infrastructure.

Let us be clear about Section 307: Deleting this message will hurt Michigan education. No legislator who is a friend to education would ever pass such legislation. Let us retain 307 as is.

To hear that Michigan public educational institutions, by being allowed to sell a small portion of their excess network capacities are depriving those multi-billion dollar carriers of revenue is ludicrous. It's akin to saying that local high schools shouldn't be allowed to hold Friday night football games because they deprive the NFL of revenue.

Both SBC and Verizon are among America's most successful Fortune 500 companies; again, with billions of dollars in profits. Public statements that paint these two large local exchange carriers as poor victims of small school districts’ conniving are simply absurd.

To illustrate: SBC is awash in cash, and, if allowed by the FCC and the SEC, could end up buying its former mother--"Ma Bell", better known as AT & T--a move incomprehensible just a couple of years ago. Similarly, Verizon is currently courting long distance carrier MCI as it prepares to add this International Carrier to its list of telecomm acquisitions.

Are these titans of American telecommunications, standard bearers of local exchange and intra-LATA long distance being edged out for pittance revenues by local school districts?!

Sounds like a bad plot for a "Movie of the Week".

All kidding aside: The point here is that these companies are not losing even minute amounts of money from Michigan schools selling excess capacities. It is interesting; however, that SBC finds it convenient to shrink from providing local exchange service to Michigan's Upper Peninsula when it finds it cannot derive what it would term significant revenue.

What little revenue IS being taken in by school districts, on the other hand, is going to defray the costs of operating such networks. Further, it would appear that language in the bill would ALSO prohibit the exchange of network peer sharing as this may constitute a "sale" of services. So, for example, if my community college, North Central, wanted to join to be a partner with my local Char-Em Intermediate School district on an existing network to provide Internet instructional services such as an Interactive video dual enrollment class, the ISD's exchange of such services may be construed--under this proposed Act before you--as an illegal sale of excess capacity.

Further, for the development of "community networks" now being deployed in other states by consortia involving schools, hospitals, local government, and the private sector, this legislation would leave only a single entity--a monopoly--as the only vendor from whom to purchase such services.

I ask you, is THIS a competitive environment? Is this the innovative legislation that will get Michigan's telecommunications sector moving again?

You want to hear about innovation? Let me elucidate:

Historically, school districts and community colleges HAD to build their own networks because the costs to have a local exchange carrier build that network was astronomically prohibitive and would have placed an on-going, ad perpetuum burden on local taxpayers. By paying off short-term bonds to finance such networks, districts became not only technologically-RESPONSIVE to students, but tax-RESPONSIBLE to their district.

These networks have had an unprecedented positive impact on students, parents, and the communities they serve. Homework assignments can be seen by parents by simply logging in to a district server--by the way, this is much to the chagrin of students who used to keep their parents in the dark until report card time.

Students with disabilities and those without them can take online courses from home. Unheard of on-line information resources provided by school libraries are being accessed by students both in school and at home vis a vis these networks.

And, as I mentioned Interactive video earlier, this technology allows the teaching of curricula such as foreign language, advanced math and science, and other courses to students across several districts. The big winners are small districts and their students; districts that might not be able to afford those German, calculi, or advanced physics instructors.

Certainly, you could argue that these services could be facilitated by a network leased on time from a local exchange carrier. Certainly you could, but the costs of ownership would be five to ten times as high.

So, to construct such a network in the future, do you want local districts to send the local exchange carriers' increased bills for schools to the House of Representatives here in Lansing? How does another BILLION dollars in public school costs sound in these times of budget crises? How will schools otherwise fulfill the mandates sought by lawmakers, the Governor, and the State and Federal Departments of Education? We can't go back to the Stone Age. Be proud that your schools used good old fashion American innovation to solve problems and obstacles and come up with this unique way to better education in our State.

There are times when public sector projects are conceived for the good of the people as a whole: The Tennessee Valley Authority did what electrical companies did not have the vision to do in the 1930's and '40's. The Federal Interstate System of Highways started during the Eisenhower Administration funded the infrastructure for the pathways that cars built by Michigan companies travel upon.

And, universities (especially including the University of Michigan and Merit Network in Ann Arbor) and the U.S. Defense Department, along with the National Science Foundation developed this little thing you may have heard of called, "The Internet". Until its discovery by the private sector in the mid-1990's, Michigan colleges, universities, and schools connected themselves together as part of the Internet; there was no call or need for a carrier to run the fledgling "Internet".

Now we're working on an item called "I2--Internet 2" and our private sector and public sector partners include the State of Michigan, the Federal Government, Microsoft, Sprint, Qwest, Oracle, and many others. Talk about private sector investment, I2 is a feather in Michigan's cap and it is headquartered right in Ann Arbor.

School networks, such as the Calhoun Intermediate School Districts wide area network will be able to have cost-affordable broadband Internet access in its member districts. Representative Nofs and I attended Battle Creek Central High School (Class of 1971--Bearcats Go!), a district served by Calhoun ISD. Those districts can now share costs for access to resources and curriculum, costs that are substantially lower because a local exchange carrier ISN'T running the network.

By the way--it's important NOT to narrow the scope of competitive telecommunications to the two large local exchange carriers. There are MANY other private sector telecommunications and IT companies that are growing and WILL continue to grow and provide jobs within Michigan. Don't forget their sizeable contribution. They include:

• Fiber Optic cable network construction companies. These are the companies hired by local school districts and college and universities to construct and, often, maintain these networks. The majority of work by these companies, granted, is providing services and maintenance to corporate networks. There are dozens of these companies here in Michigan. Don't forget to count them as businesses who profit from public sector networking projects. Without such support from public sector projects, these companies might not even be around; SBC and Verizon would do their own networking construction.

• Rural local exchange carriers. Here's where, in my opinion, the REAL competition is taking place in Michigan. In addition to the huge telecommunications discounts I receive from my college's MiCTA Sprint long distance contracts, and from our Internet service discounts from Merit-MichNet, I saved (no Geico commercial here) my college 40% on local telephone service from a company called United Telcomm of Michigan (now known as UTMI.net). UTMI is a competitive local exchange carrier which owns its own switching hardware and actually provides low-cost local exchange, long distance, DSL, T-1-and-up broadband services. Scott Baldwin, President of UTMI understands what it's like going up against monopoly interests, but it hasn't, because of his hard work, deterred him from developing a solidly competitive business plan that's become a successful business. Many school districts will be moving to local exchange carriers such as UTMI, because we know we have an obligation to our taxpayers to save money wherever we can. Costs SHOULD be going down in telecommunications services, yet services from the two largest carriers in Michigan are the highest. You have to ask yourselves: "Why is that?"

When I began working in higher education, services that you attempted to buy from a carrier--services such as local network lines, special data services, heck, even FAX lines, were difficult for those carriers to provide. Special customized services were unheard of. Everything had to be on that "carrier's shelves". You couldn't even run your own telephone switch or PBX because the local exchange carrier had to do it for you. If it wasn't “on the shelf”, they couldn't innovate to design such a service.

Fortunately, as both the private and public sectors have found, providing phone and other telecommunications isn't "Rocket Science" and schools and colleges, facing pressures from the State to reduce costs and fulfill mandates beginning in the 1980's figured out that costs could, in fact, be quite low if they ran those services themselves.

This is why in the mid- to late-1980's, and continuing through the 1990's, MiCTA began to negotiate on behalf of Michigan schools to have carriers bid (if SBC or Verizon would not negotiate to deliver services, then perhaps Sprint, AT & T, or Qwest would) to deliver low-cost services to our educational institutions. This is also when school districts and colleges developed networks that carriers couldn't deliver for a fair cost. To pay for the maintenance of these networks, schools were allow, through the Michigan Telecommunications Act, the right to sell excess capacities. This wasn't intended to compete with Telco carriers because CLEAR limitations were set on what schools could sell. Schools simply sell a limited portion of their excess capacities for the purposes of:

• Providing low-cost network services to schools, colleges and universities, and public libraries;

• In many cases, selling capacity to local exchange carriers to get from one geographical area to another. Understand, local carriers were able to compete and provide services because of this provision to sell excess capacity.

• To pay for the costs of maintaining the network.

When Representative Nofs and I were kids, our parents were both teachers and worked for the same employer--the Battle Creek Public Schools. Mike--formalities aside--and I had a pretty good time growing up because our school district provided the best for our education. We had libraries that weren't considered competition for the local "Read-Mor" Bookstore; we had school camp at Clear Lake that wasn't considered competition for the for-profit camps; and, Mike, do you remember our school farms? I wonder if local farmers ever viewed our potatoes and carrots that we grew as threatening to their right to make a living.

We have a big problem in our Telco industry in Michigan. But, networks run by schools are not the problem. Innovations from the private and public sector are needed. Much development of this industry--particularly in networking--was developed by the public sector. Much innovation is occurring at the start-up entrepreneurial local exchange level. Don't punish the innovators and achievers in this industry; help us all to work together to spur this industry on in Michigan.

Again, please retain Section 307 as it is in the current law. Thank you for this opportunity and the Committee's time.

Mike, all of us from the BCCHS Class of '71 are proud of your achievement. Keep doing a good job.

Respectfully submitted,

Eric M. Grandstaff
North Central Michigan College

MiCTA Exhibits at ACUTA's 2005 Fall Conference

MiCTA would like to announce that they will be exhibiting at the 2005 ACUTA Fall Conference. The conference will be held at the Marriott City Center in Denver, CO from October 30th through November 2nd. More information is available by calling the MiCTA office at (888) 870-8677. Make sure to stop by booth 204 and say hello to Gary Green.

MiCTA Dues Increase Effective October 1st

The MiCTA dues increase will be effective as of October 1, 2005. This pertains to all new member contracts as well as contract renewals. The new rates are $100.00 for all institutions with less than 300 FTE, and $200 for institutions with more than 300 FTE. Both rates apply to one-year contracts.

Hurricane Cleanup of a Different Type

As cleanup continues in the wake of the hurricanes it seems like there is more work to be done every day. We all know how big of a process it can be to salvage what’s left of homes and other buildings but what many of us fail to realize is the task at hand when attempting to recover data and technology resources. A recent article on MSNBC.com by technology correspondent Bob Sullivan details how businesses can have computer hard drives rebuilt in order to save permanent business records, customer databases, contracts, and other important documents.

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When placing your order, please attach this quote to your purchase order.
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Purdue University Assists Students Who Are Unable to Attend Class

Recently, one of our members was featured in an eSchoolNews.com article. Purdue University has embarked on a new program that assists students who are unable to attend their classroom lecture. Boilercast, as it’s known on campus, is a service that allows students to download lectures for an entire class period, and then play them using a computer, a CD, or mp3 device. In addition to Podcasting, Purdue University offers Webcasting services for students. The service is made easy due to existing in-class audio technology for large classrooms. Large lecture halls have microphone systems already in place; the pre-existing amplification system records the speech and sends it to a central control office where it is converted to mp3 format. From that office the lectures are put out onto the Purdue website. The article is courtesy of eSchoolNews.com, and can be read by clicking here.

Just For Fun

Meliora, the motto of the University of Rochester, is Latin for
A) Always Better
B) Done Right
C) Work Hard
D) Perseverance

In Greek Mythology Zeus has _____ daughters who all presided over the arts.
A) 14
B) 9
C) 3
D) 7

The Secret Service Code for Jimmy Carter is _________?
A) Cardinal
B) Pope
C) Father
D) Deacon
E) Bishop

In the Hindi language-the word “khaki” translates to _____?
A) Desert
B) Dirt
C) Dusty
D) Brown

PREVIOUS MICTA ALERTS

• September 2005

• August 2005

• July 2005

Alert Index