[1st-mile-nm] Governor Announces 'Broadband Ohio' Initiative

[Richard Lowenberg]

As the federal government stalls on any comprehensive broadband policies
or initiatives, we are seeing more states taking the lead on meeting their
economic, education, healthcare, governance and rural broadband needs.
What about New Mexico?
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Governor Announces 'Broadband Ohio' Initiative
Creates Ohio Broadband Council to Coordinate Network Efforts

COLUMBUS, Ohio - July 27, 2007 -Governor Ted Strickland today issued an
executive order announcing the Broadband Ohio initiative to extend the
reach of Ohio's broadband resources, further Ohio's leadership in network
innovation and improve technology access for all citizens throughout the
state.

Ohio's economic future relies on our ability to compete in a high-speed,
high-tech global marketplace, Strickland said. The Ohio Broadband Council
will partner with the public and private sectors to help make sure that
every Ohioan has viable access to affordable, high-speed Internet service,
regardless of where they live, work or learn.

The Broadband Ohio executive order pairs higher education's OSCnet
(formerly the Third Frontier Network) with the Next Generation Network
(NextGen Network), a new state and local government network being
developed by acquiring available bandwidth from OSCnet.
The order also creates the Ohio Broadband Council to serve as the
coordinating body for Broadband Ohio and to provide oversight of the
initiative from a policy, procedure, process and development standpoint.
The Ohio Broadband Council will be co-chaired by Ohio's chief information
officer and the executive director of the Ohio Supercomputer Center.

The NextGen Network has been created to consolidate and improve broadband
service delivery to state and local government, underserved populations,
county and city network rings, economic development, public safety, courts
and public/private initiatives. Ohio's Office of Information Technology
will manage the NextGen Network.

The Ohio Supercomputer Center will continue to manage OSCnet, providing
connectivity and computing resources to K-12 education, colleges and
universities, hospitals, public broadcasting stations and local, state and
federal research centers. Neither OSCnet nor NextGen Network will provide
retail broadband connectivity, but, rather, improve the business case for
telecommunications firms to further expand their services to unserved and
underserved regions of the state.

The Ohio Supercomputer Center has pioneered the development of OSCnet -
the nation's leading statewide fiber-optic communications network, said
Stanley C. Ahalt, executive director of the center. The technical design
of OSCnet allows for the addition of the NextGen Network and sufficient
capacity to serve all the future bandwidth needs of all of its current
clients. The resulting integrated statewide network infrastructure will be
unmatched in service to the state and considered a model for the rest of
the nation.

OSCnet, launched in November 2004, focuses on innovation, research,
education and economic competitiveness, according to Ahalt. The Ohio
Supercomputer Center staff and OSCnet clients will continue to develop and
deploy new technology that focuses on the retention, enhancement and
attraction of high-quality jobs to Ohio.

A renewed focus on service to industry and job creation has resulted in
OSC initiatives such as Blue Collar Computing and the Ralph Regula School
of Computational Science. Blue Collar Computing is a nationally recognized
endeavor to supply high-performance computing to small- and medium-sized
industries that do not have the time, capital or expertise to invest in
supercomputing resources. The Ralph Regula School is a collaborative
project of the center and several colleges and universities to instruct
students in advanced computer modeling and simulation, which industries
use to solve complex business, technical and academic research problems.

Leveraging the 1,850 miles of optical fiber OSCnet infrastructure, the
dual network backbone is powered by optical switches that provide almost
limitless bandwidth over a single pair of fibers. Improved service and
significant cost avoidance will quickly be realized as the state
transitions from current more-expensive leasing arrangements.

Additional information about the Ohio Broadband Council and Broadband Ohio
can be found on the web at http://www.ohiobroadbandcouncil.org
or by calling 1-888-672-6382.

OSCnet Technical Notes: OSCnet, launched in November 2004 as the Third
Frontier Network, is a statewide, superscale, fiber-optic
telecommunications network. Using different frequencies of light
(lambdas), the 1,850-mile OSCnet backbone can support 32 independent
optical networks up to OC-192 (Sonet) transport to 10-gigabit Ethernet
speeds. OSCnet utilizes the IP network protocol, but also can implement
other protocols, such as SANS and native HDTV. The network uses Dense Wave
Division Multiplexing with ITU Grid frequencies, as well as ITU G.709
transport protocol specification. At its launch, OSCnet was the largest
implementation of Cisco 15454 transponder service in the world.

Ohio Supercomputer Center: Celebrating 20 years of service, the Ohio
Supercomputer Center (OSC) is a catalytic partner of Ohio universities and
industries that provides a reliable high performance computing and high
performance networking infrastructure for a diverse statewide/regional
community including education, academic research, industry, and state
government. Funded by the Ohio Board of Regents, OSC promotes and
stimulates computational research and education in order to act as a key
enabler for the state's aspirations in advanced technology, information
systems, and advanced industries. For additional information, visit
http://www.osc.edu