John,
Thanks for your time on the phone this afternoon about this issue.
I've given some consideration to what you've written below...
My first thought is that it's going to force me to tighten up the work
that's already been presented on the tcn web site at
www.tcn.bowenvale.co.nz.
Some of the questions raised are already answered, however some of them
aren't.
Weather we make the deadline or not, this will be a very useful process
to get some more structure into the project which will in turn promote
its success!
So here goes...
First up, I think it's important for me to outline some comments and
views before you as a community member give your vote on support. You
need to know what you're supporting.
John Carter wrote:
Whilst Government's "Local Loop Unbundling" promises a rosy and
innovative future without the dead hand of Telecom at the helm....
COMMENT: Have a close look at what's happened in the AU market, how
long it took and the benefits delivered to Australians and then ask
yourself it this is what you really want in NZ.
It is not here yet, and nothing is yet available and nobody even has any
vapourware products based on it yet.
COMMENT: Developing vapourware products on it at this point is almost
impossible as we don't even have a clear understanding of what 'it is'.
I've been doing some research into the use of ULL and LSS and realised
that it just a waste of time until we actually know what rules we're
going to have to follow, and there are going to be rules!
Personally I haven't seen anything as innovative and promising happening
in the NZ Telecommunications arena as Don Gould's Community Wireless
projects.
COMMENT: That's because there isn't anything like what I'm proposing
being done in NZ at present. However, as members of the community I ask
you to prove John wrong on this point by doing some research. It would
be valuable for us here in Chc to know if there is something being done.
Are you all clear on what it is I am proposing and why it is different
from projects like Yobbo?
Partly to give Don a well deserved pat on the back,
COMMENT: Thanks for that John, I would like to express that I get more
done that is of value to everyone when I feel that it's worth while. I
know I am not alone in the IT community and I know I don't give
enough thanks to people from time to time.
partly to boost the
media profile of the whole concept,
COMMENT: This is the real issue. Thanking me is not and should not be
the focus of this exercise.
Our focus should be on getting this concept some media and industry
profile.
Some of you might argue that this concept isn't good for existing
players. This concept is very very very important for existing players
to stand up and take notice of for a number of reasons that will become
apparent as you read on. If, on having read this document and you don't
see why, then please say so.
I would like to nominate Don for this
award.
But I need your help...
Firstly some Questions....
1) Does the community feel Don deserves this, or is there
somebody in the same arena that is more deserving?
My only question would be if the orginisation can be nominated? There
is a bunch of us who have been working on this in the background for
some time now.
2) The deadline is short, do we risk doing the matter an injustice by
rushing the nomination through in the next few days, or should we queue
this one for next year?
If we don't win this year, can we do it again next year?
Secondly, here is my first cut at filling in the nomination form. Where
I have got it wrong please correct, where I have missed something please
decrease my ignorance.
This is a first rapid brain dump draft done in haste with the eye on the
deadline. I gone for "Release Early and Often" rather than "Careful
Craftmanship" on this one!
Lines marked with a '>' are TUANZ text. Unmarked lines are my own.
I propose we use the "TUANZ Initiative of the Year" Award category,
other categories are available....
https://www.tuanz.org.nz/content/5a5e0624-a330-44b4-9e9f-74669efafb59.html
For a product, service or application facilitated or enabled by, the
innovative use of technology in New Zealand, or by a New Zealand company
overseas. Entries will be rated for the following:
30 points * Ground breaking nature of the innovation
30 points * level to which achievement is demonstrated
20 points * the importance and/or scale of the initiative
20 points * future impact of the initiative
Total - 100 points
The following TUANZ boilerplate suggests that they have an expectation
that this is self-submitted. However if the community nominates Don it
may have more weight. The question is can we get to the point within the
very short space of time to have a group such as Canterbury Linux group
to official nominate him, or must we do this just personally.
PLEASE COMPLETE THE ENTRY FORM BELOW:
Name Please enter your name
Don Gould
Job title
What's yer title Don? Chief Community Wireless Nagger?
No. I can see someone changing the a to an i very quickly ;)
Project Coordinator would do I think.
Company
Do you have an umbrella organization for what you are doing?
Yes. See: http://www.tcn.bowenvale.co.nz/content/view/9/6/
"Think Community Networks is a legal entity set up by Don and Joanna
Gould to facilitate the development of the project goals. We have
registered the entity for GST, opened a bank account and pay tax on any
profit the entity makes. The entity is a legal partnership."
Full contact details can be found here:
http://www.tcn.bowenvale.co.nz/content/view/28/25/
Email
Don Gould <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Phone
???? - Don, could you fill in the ????
Phone: +64 - 3 348 7235
Mobile: +64 - 21 114 0699
Skype: ThinkDesignPrint
Mail and delivery: 2/59 Peverel Street, Riccarton, Christchurch, New
Zealand.
Vision and understanding of what is of value to the telecommunications
user
Clear statement of the intended outcome of the initiative
- Innovation in delivering this vision
- Future development path of the initiative
- How it sets a new standard for others to follow
Max 300 words 30 points * level to which achievement is demonstrated
"moving from centralized networks built by carriers to decentralized
services based on smart transmitters and receivers."
COMMENT: This is a good point, but also not quit what s about, thou I
am going to embrace those words as well...
See: http://www.tcn.bowenvale.co.nz/content/view/29/26/
This explains why... next I guess I need to explain 'what'.
Don, I could puts some words here, but that might be putting too many
words into your mouth. Do you have an "Elevator Speech" on the subject?
ie. 300 words on the vision of Community Wireless Networks?
Judges will be looking for empirical evidence (eg surveys, studies,
customer statistics). Non-empirical evidence will not be considered.
These reports may be emailed to [EMAIL PROTECTED] PDF format.
Anybody has any material we could use here?
The extent of the market currently benefiting from the initiative must
be stated.
The judges will be looking for evidence that this is an operational
reality and not a proposed future or partially completed initiative.
Max 300 words
20 points * the importance and/or scale of the initiative
Judges will be looking to understand how this changes the face of and
the impact on telecommunications in NZ.
Part of me says, "Delay this until next year when perhaps we can show
greater uptake." Part of me says "This is an opportunity to get community
attention on the promise of Community Networks."
Don, you probably have the best knowledge of what the uptake is at the
moment.
COMMENT: With in days of getting technology proven we had more users
willing to deploy it than we had equipment to deploy.
Interest from the community has grown quickly as members have been able
to see and understand running systems.
Judges will be looking for answers to the following questions:
How does this change the face of telecommunications in NZ?
Community Networks have the potential to change telecommunications
services in the same way as the WWW itself changed the face of
information providers and hence the information content.
The WWW changed content production from a small collection of extremely
large monolithic corporations to a very large number of small, but
extremely diverse content producers.
CN holds the potential to transform the transmission, caching,
availability and nature of data services in the same way.
CN will open up the domestic and commerical market place to other
national and international providers to be able to deliver content to
every New Zealander's door.
CN will allow users to subscribe to more than one provider at the same
time to gain the benefits of more than one service.
CN will cause competition between providers, driving inovation and
delivery of better, faster, and orginal services.
CN will make network access far more reliable in the market place. New
Zealanders will no longer be impacted on by single points of failure as
network nodes can be meshed to provide redundancy and fail over.
What proportion of the telecommunications market is benefiting from
this initiative?
Currently 0%, but like Open Source Software, it will have an avalanche
effect. The more nodes in the community, the more attractive it becomes.
Which sectors of the telecommunications market are benefiting from
this initiative?
Max 300 words 20 points * future impact of the initiative
Every single user in the telecommunications market will benefit from
this initiative including existing providers. Grab a yellow pages and
we'll explain how each industry group will benefit.
Turn on your TV at mid night every day of the week and you see TV ads
about 10,000 children dieing due to lack of food.
We don't have that problem in New Zealand, however there are more than
10,000 people in Christchurch alone who can't get access to proper
broadband services and the existing telecommunications structure can't
even reach them.
The prime candidates for benefiting from this innovation are
communities...
* Local "Neighbourhood" communities.
* Rural hamlets.
* Business and industry clusters.
* Special Interest Communities.
* Regional Development - It has the potential to grow into a citywide
infrastructure element aimed at encouraging regional growth in hi-tech.
Judges will be looking for answers to the following questions:
Is this an initiative that others will follow either out of necessity
to retain or grow market share or because it is a better way forward?
Community Networks represents true innovation in that it is not
something that consumes existing market share, rather, like the WWW,
represents new opportunities in the areas of
* Hardware supply
* Service and Support
* Long haul / bulk data transport.
How will it contribute to the governments Digital Strategy goal of
"top quartile in the OECD"
Max 300 words
* By lowering barriers to entry,
* By removing centralized utilities as a "central point of failure"
(just ask Auckland Electricity Users what having a Central Point of
Failure means to them) :-)
Just ask anyone who was using their ISP's DNS server the last time it
failed.
* By changing where the dividing line between the Digital Haves and Have
Nots
if being drawn from
- where extremely large well fed Telcos can find good
profits,
- to where there is a need and will.
======================================================
General Notes to self on first draft....
- Too many gaps.
- Too much unsubstantiated waffle.
- No meaty description of what Don is actually doing.
Working on that.
John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639
Tait Electronics Fax : (64)(3) 359 4632
PO Box 1645 Christchurch Email : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
New Zealand
Carter's Clarification of Murphy's Law.
"Things only ever go right so that they may go more spectacularly wrong
later."
From this principle, all of life and physics may be deduced.
_______________________________________________
GNUz mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://lists.ourshack.com/mailman/listinfo/gnuz
Ok guys, this is the first rough draft.
We've got 3 days.
Cheers Don
--
Don Gould
www.thinkdesignprint.co.nz - www.tcn.bowenvale.co.nz -
www.bowenvale.co.nz - SkypeMe: ThinkDesignPrint
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