More fun internet facts about Wisconsin educational internet connectivity.

The average broadband home user has an internet connection in the 1 Mega bit per second (Mbps) to 5 Mbps range.  The average WiscNet customer [that relies on a private telecom] has a 20 Mbps connection to WiscNet.  Below is a list of customers with 20Mbps of internet service. -4- of our two years UWs only have 20Mbps of service.  These entire institutions are sharing an internet pipe that is only 4 to 20 times larger than a single family home.  Some of them have hundreds if not thousands of users.

[excuse the crazy shorthand.  You're smart and will figure it out]

aurorauniv - enrollment - 4000+!
brillionsd - enrollment - 300
easternshoreslib
elkhornsd
facesspringssd
glendaleriverhillssd
jeffersonsd
lakemillssd
lakeshoreslib
lakeshoretc-wilm
mapledalesd
marianuniv
markesansd
mukwonagosd
poynettesd
raymondsd
sheboyganco
sheboyganfallssd
stonebanksd
uwcfonddulac - enrollment - 700+
uwcmanitowoc - enrollment - 600+
uwcsheboygan - enrollment - 800+
uwcwashingtonco - enrollment - 1100+
waterfordgradedsd

uwc enrollment data from:
http://media.journalinteractive.com/images/UWCOLLEGES.jpg

There are those that reach Wiscnet with community owned fiber optic cabling.  They connect to WiscNet at either 1,000 Mbps or 10,000 Mbps.  Their price is fixed either way.  The more you use, the lower your per unit costs.  These higher internet speeds are more appropriate when educating hundreds or thousands of tomorrow's citizens, enabling our schools to take advantage of real time distance education and other high tech learning activities.

For the real geeks, here are some more usage graphs for some of the above mentioned WiscNet members.  All of this data is publicly accessible.

1) Aurora University increased their internet pipe from 10 Mbps to 20 Mbps in Feb 2010.  The connection immediately filled, and has been stuck at 20 Mbps since.  They could easily use more internet bandwidth.

http://www.eng.wiscnet.net/stats/cgi-bin/genstatspage.pl?width=750&height=200&rrdfunc=MAX&rrdfile=%2Fvar%2Fflows%2Frrds%2FifOctets%2Fr-uwmilwaukee-isp.wiscnet.net_xe-1-2-0-1462_ifOctets.rrd&time=2+years+ago&start_time=06%2F26%2F2006++5%3A04%3A07+PM&end_time=now&lower_limit=&upper_limit=

2) BrillionSD, enrollment of ~300.  Easily filling their 20 Mbps of service.

http://www.eng.wiscnet.net/stats/cgi-bin/genstatspage.pl?width=750&height=200&rrdfunc=MAX&rrdfile=%2Fvar%2Fflows%2Frrds%2FifOctets%2Fr-uwmilwaukee-isp.wiscnet.net_xe-1-2-0-577_ifOctets.rrd&time=2+years+ago&start_time=06%2F26%2F2009++5%3A06%3A16+PM&end_time=now&lower_limit=&upper_limit=100M

3) Four UWCs, with an average enrollment of 800 each, again, need way more than 20 Mbps of service.

http://www.eng.wiscnet.net/stats/cgi-bin/genstatspage.pl?width=750&height=200&rrdfunc=MAX&rrdlist=20240&time=2+years+ago&start_time=06%2F25%2F2011++5%3A08%3A09+PM&end_time=now&lower_limit&upper_limit

You might think these are opinions, but as someone working in the field, these, simply, are facts.

Making money out of nothing at all.

Cool, an ICANN money grab and a sell out of the internet namespace to make things more confusing.  We all use search engines anyway.  Aren't domain names irrelevant?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/17/us-internet-names-idUSTRE75G49W20110617

From the article:

"It will cost $185,000 to apply, and individuals or organizations will have to show a legitimate claim to the name they are buying. ICANN is taking on hundreds of consultants to whom it will outsource the job of adjudicating claims."

"We're advising people to buy their brands, park them and redirect visitors to their existing site, at the very least," says Hnarakis, whose more than 3,500 customers include Volvo, Lego and GlaxoSmithKline.

So, this -ONE- guy, represents $647 MILLION dollars of revenue to ICANN?

How many brand names are there in the world?  This is so, so, so, so stupid, unless you like making money out of nothing at all.

Legislated out of a job..?

It looks like someone finally figured out that one of the ISPs for the State of Wisconsin is a public sector ISP, and someone isn't too happy about it.

Last Friday, Sen. Harsdorf [River Falls] and Rep. Strachota [West Bend] proposed motions 23 through 26 in the following UW system related legislation document which will likely end in me [and several coworkers] being unemployed or underemployed.

http://wispolitics.com/1006/110603UW_omnibus.pdf

Since 1989, WiscNet, a non profit arm of UW-Madison, has had the privilege of being the only research and education orientated ISP in the state of Wisconsin. As an employee of UW-Madison since 2000, I have contractually spent over 75% of my professional career working for WiscNet.

We are a non profit ISP who has [at least] two functions:

1) We deliver "all you can eat" internet instead of deriving profit by rationing access to the internet and the new 21st century content providers such as Google. Over the last five years, through aggressive negotiations, planning, smart investments, and a willingness to exchange traffic for free with large content providers such as Google, we have been able to offer a true unlimited internet service plan for a fixed rate.

2) More importantly, we hold the exclusive right in Wisconsin to connect non profit entities, mostly education, libraries, government and hospitals, to Internet2, NLR, and other research orientated IP networks.  WiscNet currently maintains over 20+ Gbps of potential research connectivity for the 26 UW campuses and all other WiscNet members. This connectivity allows UW Madison and other UW's to participate in leading edge research in Biotech, Physics, and other areas. Without it, simply, we will no longer be a premiere research institution.

Despite 22 years of cooperative existence with private companies throughout the state [over 90% of our members use private services to reach us], we are now being legislated out of existence. The legislation was added covertly to the budget bill,  in the same section that ends the concept of the "New Badger Parternship".  In fact, the legislation actually -PUNISHES- UW by reducing their funding by $1.4mil for participating in WiscNet [see motion 26].  This is in addition to retaining massive cuts and also invoking a mandatory tuition cap.

So not only does UW have to dissolve WiscNet, we are having our funds that we use to purchase internet service taken away and being legislated out of participating in research that requires high bandwidth access to the internet to save what appears to be $1.4 million dollars a year.  Sorry, but what the hell people?  The UW can't get internet service from a $50 cable modem.

What is the origin of this legislation? Is it directly from the Governor? Or has AT&T [and perhaps other telco monopolies] finally found a very receptive ear to crushing those that challenge their business plan of rationing access?

As a non profit that values education, promoting novel uses of the internet, and educating others about networking, WiscNet is a neutral third party between members and the private companies that many of them rely on to connect to WiscNet.  We are one of few networks to offer an EXTENSIVE amount of world facing statistics and documentation that offer transparency to the way we run our network and to help educate WiscNet members about the inner workings of the internet.

The UW system will be forced to have it's bandwidth needs met by private commodity internet providers such as AT&T.  Not only have they been unwilling to meet our needs cost effectively for the past 10 years, which has led us recently to ramp up efforts to obtain higher and higher speed research connectivity, they cannot and will not meet the UW's needs as they are ineligible to connect to Internet2 and other nationwide research internet exchanges.

As can be seen in the cellular [and now home] industry, traditional telco monopolies have a vested interest to -NOT- allow unlimited access to major content providers such as Google, Netflix, and others, as it eats into their revenue streams.

WiscNet does not offer service to business or home users. Our potential client scope is miniscule and we pose no long term serious threat to traditional ISPs such as AT&T, Charter, Centurytel, Time Warner, etc.

Again, if this bill passes, UW Madison and UW system as a whole will basically drop off the face of the earth as a premiere research institution, as we will effectively be cut off of the internet for research purposes. Our researchers will stop receiving grants and the revenue that the UW system generates for the state of Wisconsin will quickly flow to other states or countries that actually value education.

Ironically, the State of Wisconsin currently uses WiscNet and AT&T to reach the internet. They have been WiscNet partners since basically the beginning.

If you live in Wisconsin and are sympathetic to the idea of strong internet connectivity for

education, I urge you to contact your representatives and tell them to oppose these measures.

Don't do it because of the loss of my job and my coworkers jobs; do it because the lack of

research internet connectivity for public education will be disastrous for our economy.

* Who are my legislators? Website http://legis.wisconsin.gov/w3asp/waml/waml.aspx

* Senate leadership listed here http://legis.wisconsin.gov/senhome.htm Look for names and

contact info on representative’s home pages.

* Assembly leadership listed here http://legis.wisconsin.gov/asmhome.htm Look for names and

contact info on representative’s home pages.