iTown Communications

Many areas of America are on the wrong side of the digital divide. The promise of communications advancements to bridge time and distance through the transmission, storage, organization and retrieval of all forms of information is intended for everyone, not just those residing in major metropolitan areas. iTown believes that the current communications industry structure and business model will not serve America's small communities well. That is why we developed a business model and a technology solution specifically for smaller communities.

Essential Infrastructure
iTown begins with the premise that advanced broadband infrastructure is essential for a 21st century community. We understand that the impacts of these networks are pervasive and transformational. The applications that advanced broadband infrastructure support are changing the way businesses operate and as a result where they or their employees locate; how consumers shop; how education is provided; how health care and public services are delivered; how we obtain our news and participate in our political process and civic affairs; and how we entertain ourselves.

The classic business model approach begins by asking, "How do we deploy broadband technology to maximize our return and shareholder value?" Recognizing the essential nature of this infrastructure, iTown in contrast asks, "How can we organize broadband infrastructure deployment and operation so it is self-supporting and can be leveraged for its transformational benefits?" When the question is asked in this manner, very different solutions can be devised. iTown has developed a public/private partnership model. It adapts that model to the needs of the participating communities so that it yields a viable method of deploying and operating an LCPN for the benefit of the community as a whole.

Serving Economic and Community Development Needs
The reason for asking the question in this way is that the real economic benefits to the community from broadband infrastructure are not in the direct revenue the network generates in transmitting bits of data, although that can be substantial. Rather, the benefits derive from the new, innovative applications that this advanced infrastructure can support.

Existing businesses will have capabilities that increase their operating efficiency and extend the markets they can reach, making them more competitive and helping to ensure they remain in the community, grow and add jobs.

The community will benefit because it will now have a critical "new economy" capability that others will not have, providing a competitive advantage in attracting new businesses. Bio-tech, e-health, e-commerce, and software development firms, to name a few, are "bandwidth hungry" enterprises that require the capabilities an LCPN delivers.

We know that many new capabilities are already being developed that require even larger amounts of bandwidth than current applications need. Major developments are underway in e-learning and telemedicine that will improve the education process and healthcare delivery methods. Small communities are already using broadband to derive benefits from e-government that improve their service quality, reduce the cost of government and help avoid property tax increases.

Working and Benefiting Together
iTown's model for deploying LCPNs frequently includes clusters of small cities, towns and unincorporated county locations. Each local jurisdiction on its own could never justify an advanced broadband network, but working in partnership with iTown the cluster can create sufficient scale to establish a financially viable LCPN. It takes cooperation, compromise and hard work, but the entire community benefits by being connected to the world's communications, information and entertainment resources.

Under iTown's model, the community certainly benefits directly from the increased choice of available services, lower prices and improved service quality. Beyond those benefits though, iTown believes the community should also benefit from the revenue stream generated from the network. That is why under iTown's model, as the financing required to deploy the network is retired, community representatives on the LCPN's board participate in deciding whether to expand the network, lower access service rates, or use the cash flow from the network for other local priorities.

Public-use Infrastructure
iTown's LCPN is an open network infrastructure. It is available for use by retail providers of Internet, voice, video, data and other advanced services. In contrast, cable and telephone companies have each built their own networks to provide proprietary services, locking out other service providers from using their network's "last mile" to reach customers.

The problem with this industry strategy is that now new investment is needed to upgrade the old network, but revenues from individual company's existing services will not support the high costs of upgrading or replacing existing networks. Incumbents are reluctant to invest heavily except in the largest, more densely populated areas. But a single network available to all service providers, carrying traffic of all service types, can work financially and competitively to the benefit of all - the service providers, business and residential customers, and local communities.

Providing Future-Ready Technology
An LCPN is designed to last. One of iTown's operating principles is that, to the maximum extent possible, we deploy long-lived network infrastructure with unrestricted bandwidth potential. This infrastructure must be able to adapt to carry increasing volumes of voice, video and data traffic. For this reason, we are biased toward the use of fiber optic technology and seek ways to extend it to its economic limits. The fiber-to-the premise (FTTP), active technology network under iTown's patent pending design employs Gigabit Ethernet and Internet Protocol. It is designed to provide 100Mbps to the home and more to business locations where needed.

But fiber is not the only broadband technology, nor always the right one. And that is why we have built substantial flexibility into our engineering design to employ wireless technology and even broadband over power line where market requirements demonstrate those technologies are more appropriate to meet existing and/or future needs.

Enabling Advanced Services
iTown's LCPN was designed to provide all of today's video, voice and Internet services and meet the needs of advanced applications now being deployed, in development or not yet even conceived. There is substantial activity in progress in the e-health arena from applications focused on education and training, to professional consultation and diagnosis, to patient monitoring and even delivery of therapy. In the e-learning area, entire curricula are being researched and developed. Standards for content, digital depositories for storing content, and teaching and evaluation protocols are being created. Collaborative learning applications and enhanced simulation applications are being developed and tested. Local governments are beginning to use e-government applications that improve their quality of service delivery and lower costs. And small businesses, the backbone of the local economies in the communities iTown is focusing on are beginning to use e-commerce applications originally adopted by large enterprises and now adapted to smaller companies to improve their efficiency and expand their markets. All these types of applications need the capabilities of an iTown LCPN.

Customer Choice and Control
iTown believes that providing consumers and businesses increased choice and control over their communications, information and entertainment services is critical to success. Customer choice and control occurs in several ways on an LCPN. First, by operating an open network, service providers now unable to gain access to customers will have the opportunity to enter the market providing more choice of services to community residents and businesses. Additionally, iTown's advanced systems will permit customers to exercise more direct control over many of their services and features via the Internet. Customer control will become more robust as the technology evolves.