Outline of Research:
- Hard to find articles about Institutional Networks
- Articles about Cable Franchises
Meta Research:
Articles about Institutional Networks
Cox
Communications Cable Franchise Agreement (11/20/2001) Cox will also provide 50%
discounts for INET services to two Santa Barbara City College facilities, including the
County Employee University site. Cox agrees to enter into five-year Customer Service
Agreements with the County's General Services Department to provide very high speed data
services to 17 County sites at a 75% discount, with the ability to change and add
locations, and expand bandwidth as needed. Challenges were encountered in crafting an
agreement that would simultaneously (1) meet the County's need to upgrade the capacity and
reliability of its south county local area network (aka, institutional network, or INET)
and link its south and north county INETs, ...
Pittsburg Cable Agreement
(?) This is the list of the 23 sites that will comprise the ringed (redundant) ATM
fiber network; this list may be subject to change upon mutual agreement of the City and
Franchisee.
Institutional
Networks: What are they, how do they work, and how do they relate to PEG access?
(10/28/2000) An INET can provide interconnection for multiple facilities, integrated
data, video, and voice services, higher capacities at lower cost than leased services,
typically over 100 Mbps; potentially up to 9.6 Gbps (equivalent in capacity to 1,700 to
170,000 lines). Inet models include: coaxial cable network, hybrid fiber coax (HFC)
networks [City of Santa Rosa, CA], End-to-end services [City of Pittsburgh, PA], dark
fiber [New York City or City of Laredo, TX], or a mixture of approaches.
Commission
Adopts Sixth Annual Report on Competition in Video Markets (1/14/2000) Ameritech as
a cable overbuilder and BellSouth as an overbuilder and MMDS operator. Ameritech has
acquired 111 cable franchises, potentially passing more than 1.7 million homes. Ninety of
these cable franchises are operational, in whole or in part, and they serve at least
250,000 subscribers. BellSouth has acquired cable franchises in 18 areas, with the
potential to pass 1.2 million homes, and is launching digital MMDS service in a number of
areas.
Uses for I-Nets (9/16/1999)
Uses for
I-Nets: high-speed data transmission, Internet access (replacing existing phone and data
lines), video arraignment, public access to community information, live training for
police and fire personnel at remote stations using interactive video, internal telephone
communications.
Institutional Network Begins to
Fulfill Promise (?) As early as the franchises of the 1970’s, cable companies
were offering the construction of two-way cable networks, separate from the subscriber
network, to serve the public institutions in their communities. These Institutional
Networks, or I-Nets, were key components of the package of community benefits that cable
companies offered to cities in return for using their public rights-of-way to sell cable
television.NSCC is a consortium of 10 cities in northern Ramsey County established through
a joint powers agreement. The I-Net connects every city building, fire station, library,
and school (both public and private, primary, secondary and post-secondary) in the ten
cities, for a total of almost 100 drops. The 400 Megahertz (MHz) system has 38 channels
down-stream and 16 channels upstream. The original network was primarily coaxial cable
with some fiber optics; the current network is primarily fiber, with some coaxial
connections.
Connecting to Compete in
the New Economy (?) Build Institutional Networks for Public Works, Schools &
Libraries, Churches & other CBOs, Emergency Services, Parks & Rec, Public Safety,
Community & Senior Centers, City, and County Halls. Uses include: Telephony, PEG
Television, Intranet, Web Sites.
What Key
Franchise Issues Arise in Negotiations with Overbuilders? (?) An over-builder needs
20 subscribers per mile of plant construction to pay off the capital investment of the new
network. Cable franchises often require the operator to provide channels, facilities,
equipment and other support for public, educational and government ("PEG") use
of the cable system. An institutional network, or INET, is a part of a cable system
devoted primarily to serving governmental and non-residential cable system users. The
Cable Act allows a local government to require a cable operator to build an INET, and to
dedicate capacity on that INET for educational and governmental use.
Current Strategies for Cable
Franchising: An Opportunity to Enhance the Public Communications Infrastructure (?) A
community has enormous opportunities to enhance its public communications infrastructure
and to advance the quality of life in the community through the cable television franchise
renewal process.Communities commonly require operators to provide institutional networks
to link schools, libraries and governments for video, voice and data communications. These
are powerful tools to bring to your community. With the "information age" it's a
small percentage of the cost of building a separate information system.
Open Video Systems (?) Since
the FCC interprets its rules such that local franchising authorities are not required to
have cable operators build institutional networks, it will not require OVS operators to
build institutional networks. It further states that where a local franchising authority
has taken it upon itself to require the cable operator to build an institutional network,
the OVS operator cannot be required to build one since it is not subject to franchise
requirements.
Telecommunications bill
passes (?) Institutional Networks — Makes it clear that local governments may,
as part of a cable television franchise, require institutional networks. These are
telecommunications networks used to connect local government facilities and a host of
other local telecommunications services, such as the provision of traffic signalization
and various transportation-related services.
Articles about Cable Franchises
Some Unasked Questions about the Bell Atlantic-TCI Merger(?) TCI has more
than 500 franchises around the country. cable systems normally are valued on the basis of
the price per subscriber, with the national average currently running $ 2,000 and
downwards. Taking into account the assumption of debt, BA's price per subscriber is around
$3,300--by far the highest in industry history. TCI naturally brings to the party not only
marquee value but also vertical integration into programming; whether it is worth such a
premium, however, is less than clear.
Wiring the
Constitution for Cable (?) 5,000 or 6,000 municipal franchises currently
cablecasting in America. ...cable television was a "natural monopoly,"...
Municipalities were prohibited from collecting any more than 3 to 5 percent in gross cable
revenues as a franchise fee;
Readers who use this information for investment purposes do so
at their own risk! Opinions expressed are just that and not based on
insider information or information otherwise obtained illegally.
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