Kimberly K. Obbink <kobbink@montana.edu>
Mr. Myron Nordquist <myron_nordquist@burns.senate.gov>
Dr. Thomas J. Keil <Thomas.Keil@asu.edu>
Dr. Andrey S. Narvsky <narvsky@astrive.com>
Jusri De Vries <jdevries@uiah.fi>
Dr. Tom P. Keenan <keenan@acs.ucalgary.ca>
Mr. Wilbert Le Melle <phelps@admin.con2.com>
Dr. Gilles Seguin <gilles.seguin@dfait-maeci.gc.ca>
Peter H. Lewis <lewis@nytimes.com>
Dear Kim:
=========
(1) I OCRed your excellent
write-up Proposed Projects for the Global
University
System" which you gave to me at our Strategic Mtg on Fund
Raising
at PAHO on 10/18th. I then uploaded it to our InfoDev final
report
web site at
<http://www.friends-partners.org/GLOSAS/Tampere_Conference/Final_Report/Pilot_Project_Proposals/North_America/mission_statement.html>.
As you
see there, the detailed diagram of Native American communities in
Montana
is not quite readable -- particularly the ones with dark blue
circles.
Pls re-draw this diagram with lighter color so that the
letters
in the circles can be readable. Pls send it to me ASAP.
BTW, Myron
wanted to have the write-up, too. Pls send him a copy, if
you did
not give it to him on 10/19th in D.C.
(2) As mentioned to you in
my previous msgs, Tom Keil will construct a web
site for
Heard Museum for Native Americans in Phoenix with 3D artifacts
and fly-by
of the sites where they were discovered, and zoom-in and -out
of the
museum rooms.
This may be similar to the one Andrey Narvsky showed us (during
our Tampere event) his web site for Hermitage Museum in St.
Petersburg.
Dear Andrey:
============
Many thanks for your msg (ATTACHMENT I). I enjoyed viewing
your web sites. However, I cannot locate a specific URL of
the 3D of the glittering cathedral you showed to us. Pls
let me know the URL so that I can show it to other people,
albeit it may take a while to download.
Another example may be the one of Copan Museum in Honduras -- see
<http://maya-archaeology.org/html/copanImageMenu.html>, and go to
<http://maya-archaeology.org/vrhtml2/copanLRvrP.html> to see
panorama with zoom in/out of the museum.
Tom Keil
also indicated me his strong interest to connect the Native
American
communities in Arizona with the ones in Montana.
(3) During my attendance at
the TeleLearning*NCE99 in Montreal last week, I
met with
Jusri. I think you also met him at our Tampere event.
Although
he is now at the University of Art and Design - Helsinki, he is
also a
professor at the Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, AZ.
He told
me in Montreal that there is a microwave (10 Mbps) network in
Arizona
connecting about 20 communities -- 10 of them are the Native
American
communities.
He will check about it and inform me who is in charge of it.
(4) During the Montreal conference,
I also met with Tom Keenan of the
University
of Calgary -- first time to meet with him after many years of
email
correspondences.
Tom told
me that there is a museum for Native Canadians in Calgary which
may be
connected with Heard Museum, and also their communities in
Calgary
with the ones in Montana and Arizona, with the use of digital
wireless
and satellite broadband Internet.
Dr. Gilles
Seguin of DFAIT (whom I met at the Montreal conference) also
indicated
his strong interest in this project.
(5) I would then propose you
and others that we may need to have a mini
workshop
at your Burns Telecommunications Center at Montana State
University
in Bozeman to figure out the details of this project.
Myron indicated
me his strong agreement to have such a workshop, saying
that;
(a)
the fund pledged to you by Citibank is earmarked for international
project -- as you indicated your project with the University of
Philippines/Open University -- so that the fund may also be
applicable for this U.S./Canadian project,
(b)
the construction of the federal legislation budget will start in
early next year so that we need to have the workshop as soon as
possible to figure out necessary expenses,
(c) Myron will attend the workshop in Bozeman.
This means
that the workshop need to be held in this winter -- at
probably
below 40 degrees Fahrenheit!! Well, that is quite all right
with me,
since I accustomed with it while I was shovelling coal for my
research
work at the same spot of your BTC almost 40 years ago!!
(6) When you decide to have the workshop, pls let me know.
As your
write-up say, Montana would be an ideal test-bed" location for
our proposed
delivery technologies.
ATTACHMENT II mentions Bozeman" and claims difficulty of using
satellite approach with return/uploading via Plain Old Telephone
Service (POTS). However, our two-way broadband Internet approach
would eliminate such a fear.
I felt ashamed to read this article which picked our beloved
Bozeman" and its surrounding areas as the example of HAVE-NOT" town!!
Looking forward to receiving your response soon,
Best, Tak
****************************************
ATTACHMENT I
From: "Andrey Narvsky" <narvsky@astrive.com>
To: <utsumi@columbia.edu>
Subject: links in Russia
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 10:46:36
+0400
Dear Tak,
my corporative Web site is www.lanck.ru
(in Russian mostly) and
www.astrive.com (this one is in
English, but it presents the software
development projects, not content
projects).
You may see bilingual sites about
St.Petersburg museums, developed by us
http://www-win.kunstkamera.lanck.ru/english/
http://www.tzar.ru/
Best regards,
Andrey
****************************************
ATTACHMENT II
Excerpt from
http://search.nytimes.com/search/daily/bin/fastweb?getdoc+site+site+80291+10+wAAA+Bozeman
November 11, 1999
Picking the Right Data Superhighway
---------------
High-Bandwidth Web Access Is a Surfer's
Dream, but Each Route Has Its Speed Bumps
By PETER H. LEWIS
AUSTIN, Tex. -- The key to happiness in
the Internet age is bandwidth. Bandwidth,
bandwidth, bandwidth. Fat pipes, capable of
sucking down Web pages, music files, video
clips, e-mail and other forms of digital
information and entertainment from the
Internet in the blink of an eye. A data
spigot that is always open, without busy
signals and without the kinds of delays and
service interruptions that drive most
computer users mad.
Bandwidth -- a measure of the flow of
information, in bits, that moves over a given
distance in a period of time -- is the most
important factor in the development of new
types of services on the Internet, more so
than increases in personal computer
processing power or new types of Internet
communications devices.
Until recently, high-bandwidth connections to
the Internet were available mainly to
businesses and certain lucky people willing
and able to pay hundreds or even thousands of
dollars a month for so-called broadband
Internet access. But with the development of
cable modems, digital subscriber line
(D.S.L.) modems and satellite data services,
several million Americans now have access to
high-speed, broadband data services.
You can tell who they are by the smug looks
on their faces. I know, because I see the
face of a bandwidth glutton in the mirror
each morning. I am rich in bandwidth,
wallowing in a broadband trough.
In recent months I have had the luxury of
using not just one broadband connection in my
home office but three: a cable modem, a
D.S.L. modem and a satellite modem. I've been
testing them to see which one to keep, a
decision that sooner or later a lot of Net
surfers are going to make.
Now, only a small
------------------
percentage of Americans Related Article
live in the right
Most Are Stuck in
geographic or service area the Slow Lane
to get any one of these (November 11,
services, and even fewer 1999)
-- perhaps 1 percent, ------------------
according to market
reseachers -- have a choice of two. But by
the grace of whatever digital deities watch
over the Internet, my house in Austin is in a
rare sweet spot, where cable, D.S.L. and
satellite coverage overlap. I also had
I.S.D.N. (integrated services digital
network, which essentially combines the
capacity of two phone lines), but I had it
ripped from my house when its cost and
complexity far outstripped the modest speed
improvements it offered over regular dial-up
phone service.
My files are downloaded in a snap. Web pages
pop onto my screen. I do not think twice
about downloading video clips or MP3 music
files. Multiplayer network games and home
videoconferences suddenly become practical.
But the thing that changes everything is the
fact that the Internet is always on, whenever
I want it.
My biggest nightmare is that I will wake up
someday and have to connect to the Internet
using -- the horror, the horror -- an
old-fashioned dial-up 56K modem on a dial-up
telephone line.
Here is an example: Earlier this year, the
movie trailer for "Star Wars: Episode I --
The Phantom Menace" was made available for
downloading from the Internet, but it was a
25-megabyte file. The fastest conventional
modems available today, at 56K, can download
nearly 56,000 bits per second. There are 8
bits in a byte, and, because of way binary
numbers are counted, 1,048,576 bytes, or
8,388,608 bits, in a megabyte and roughly 200
million bits in a 25-megabyte file. In the
time it takes to do the calculation of how
long it would take a regular modem to
download the file, it would already be done
via a cable or D.S.L. modem.
Alas, I cannot put all three broadband
services on my expense account indefinitely,
so I have to choose. Following is a
discussion of the three broadband options,
and what went into my decision.
Cable
The black coaxial cable that carries cable
television signals to tens of millions of
households can also handle high-bandwidth
data connections. Analysts expect cable to
become the dominant method for high-speed
Internet connections at home, in part because
cable already passes by the majority of
houses in the country. But older cable
systems were designed to be only one-way,
sending video to the home, so cable providers
have to upgrade their systems to give them
the two-way capabilities needed for Internet
access.
-------------------------- The top speed of a
A cable modem provides cable modem, at
fast access to the least
in theory,
Internet, until all the is about 30
neighbors hook up, too. million bits per
-------------------------- second (30 mbps),
but a more
realistic expectation is around 1 mbps. It
can be a bit faster, but considering that
most of us connect a cable modem to a 10-mbps
Ethernet card, 30 mbps is a pipe dream.
Uploading is somewhat slower, but that is
usually not a problem for most home users.
More important is that cable downloading can
be even slower, depending on how many of your
neighbors are also using the neighborhood
cable pipe at the same time. It is a shared
service.
If you have the local cable line all to
yourself, you can easily top 1 mbps. But if
all of your neighbors have cable modems,
things can slow down so much that you might
actually yearn to have your dial-up modem
back. If one of your cable-using neighbors
starts running a Web server out of the home,
you can imagine neighbors marching with
torches and pitchforks. The two leading cable
data services, Time Warner's Roadrunner and
AT&T Cable's @Home, forbid residential
customers to run Web server computers on the
network.
Remember, however, that the practical speed
of any broadband network, no matter what its
theoretical speed, is limited by the slowest
link on the network. If you link to a popular
site that is congested, or to an obscure site
that may be attached to the Internet through
the equivalent of a hand-cranked computer,
your multimegabit broadband connection will
slow down accordingly.
My monthly cable data fee is $44.95 because I
also subscribe to the cable company's
standard (as opposed to basic) television
services. If I were not already a cable
television customer, I would have to become
one to get the data services, taking my
monthly cost to a minimum of about $65 a
month. With my extra television channels, I'm
now paying Time Warner $85 a month, which
includes the rental of the cable modem.
Adding e-mail addresses for family members
costs $5 a month each. If I want to have a
home page on the Web, it is $5 extra per
month.
There was a setup and installation charge of
$130, but periodic promotional deals cut that
price in half. It took several frustrating
exchanges with the local company before
technicians finally came to my house. Over
all, the installation process was about what
I had come to expect from my cable company: a
logistical nightmare.
Besides the Jekyll and Hyde speed issues that
affect cable modems, a big drawback is that
cable customers have no choice of Internet
service providers. America Online and other
popular I.S.P.'s are challenging the cable
companies in court to open cable services to
competition, but for now, it's either
Roadrunner or @Home. Time Warner is my local
cable company, and Roadrunner is the only
choice I have for cable I.S.P. service.
Another concern is data security. Because it
is a shared network, any of your devious
neighbors with the technical expertise to run
a network sniffer can intercept data packets
from your computer. That is highly unlikely,
but it is a risk.
Try this: Lie to your neighbors, telling them
that hackers came in over your cable modem
and wiped out your bank accounts. Mention
that you have heard that D.S.L. service is
more secure. Then you will have the cable
network all to yourself.
D.S.L.
D.S.L., which stands for digital subscriber
line, enables high-speed Internet connections
to houses and small businesses over the same
copper telephone lines that handle voice and
fax calls. It does not interfere with voice
traffic on the line, however, so one person
can make or receive calls while another is
using the same line to connect to the
Internet. A big advantage, therefore, is that
D.S.L. does not require the installation of a
second phone line or cable service.
-------------------------- Its big drawback
D.S.L. does not require a is that the
second phone line or service degrades
cable, but the service quickly as a
degrades quickly with function of
distance.
distance, so
-------------------------- customers are
limited to a
geographic radius of about 3 miles from a
telephone company's central office
(technically, about 17,500 feet). The phone
company first checks to see if your nearest
central office offers digital service, then
checks to see if you live close enough to it
and finally checks the actual line to see if
it can handle D.S.L. bandwidth. If everything
checks out, the phone company will send out a
crew to install a splitter, which splits
voice and data traffic on the line. A
splitterless form of the service is also in
the works.
There are many kinds of D.S.L. The most
common for residential service is the
asynchronous kind, A.D.S.L., or A.D.S.L Lite,
which offers slightly lower data speeds. On
an A.D.S.L. line, information is uploaded to
the Internet at one speed, typically 128
kilobits per second, but downloaded at much
higher speeds, typically 384 kilobits per
second (kbps) to 1.544 megabits per second
(mbps).
The downloading speed is most important for
most people, so it is fair to say that
downloading with D.S.L. is anywhere from 7 to
25 times as fast as with the fastest dial-up
analog modems.
Unlike cable modem users, who share a line,
each D.S.L. subscriber has a dedicated line
to the central office. Therefore, the speed
is more constant and predictable.
The top speed of a D.S.L. modem is basically
determined by how much money you are willing
to spend and how close you live to the
central telephone office. I live 200 yards
from a central office, and my basic D.S.L.
service regularly achieves more than the
minimum speed of 384 kbps downstream and
often hovers near the 1.5 mbps maximum; it is
128 kbps upstream.
It costs about $70 a month, which includes
the telephone company line charge of $39 a
month, the fee of the Internet service
provider, three e-mail addresses and other
services for which the cable company charges
extra.
I also paid $212 for a cable modem and a
network adapter card. I leased the modem
instead of buying one outright because I
wanted to make sure it worked with the D.S.L.
equipment at the phone company.
My monthly fee is high compared with other
D.S.L. offerings around the country. In
general, you can expect to pay $30 to $50 a
month for basic service.
While D.S.L. cannot compete with cable in
terms of speed during the day, when most of
my neighbors are at their offices and I have
the cable line mostly to myself, it is
routinely faster than cable in the evenings,
when my neighbors are sharing my cable pipe.
I can increase my guaranteed D.S.L.
performance to a minimum of 384 kbps upstream
and 1.544 mbps downstream by paying $170 or
more a month.
The performance at this level is almost
comparable with the speeds of T-1 lines,
which many companies use to operate Web-based
businesses. T-1 service typically costs
$1,000 a month or more. Other forms of D.S.L.
service can promise speeds up to 50 mbps, but
at monthly prices that would probably exceed
your mortgage payment.
As with cable, my D.S.L. connection is always
on.
Satellite
Satellite data service has so much promise,
especially for people in areas not served by
D.S.L. or cable. But satellite also has many
challenges.
The Web is an interactive medium, while
satellite is intrinsically a one-way medium
(most of us do not routinely communicate with
satellites). To send mouse clicks and typed
commands to the Internet, you have to have an
open phone line in addition to the satellite
feed.
Satellite service requires the installation
of a receiver dish antenna, which is about
the size of a garbage can lid and costs $200
to $400. The dish has to have a clear line of
sight to the satellite, which in the New York
City area is typically in the southwestern
sky.
The installation and alignment of the dish is
not for technological sissies, and I highly
recommend paying the extra $200 to $300 for
professional installation. Once installed,
moreover, the data signal can be knocked out
of whack by high winds or bad weather.
-------------------------- I signed up for
Satellite service has Hughes DirecPC
much promise for
satellite data
downloading data, but it services as part
also presents many of a
package with
challenges.
Compaq Computer.
-------------------------- Compaq, like many
other PC makers,
is trying to make it as easy as possible for
its customers to be ready for broadband
access. Besides the dish and installation
cost, monthly satellite data service costs
$30 to $130 a month, depending on how many
hours you spend on line.
The $30 plan is good for a measly 25 hours a
month. The $130 plan allows up to 200 hours a
month (versus unlimited time with cable or
D.S.L. service).
Satellite data services may someday be
ubiquitous and reach speeds of 45 mbps, but
for now the maximum speed is a relatively
pokey 400 kbps.
More users can mean slower speeds and,
occasionally, busy signals when you're trying
to connect with the local satellite I.S.P.
So far, so bad. The guys who wired my
satellite system were apparently receiving
their orders directly from deep space.
Despite my request that they mount the dish
on the side of the house and not drill holes
in my roof, I now have a dish bolted through
my roof.
Satellite is a swell choice for people who
cannot get cable or D.S.L. service,
especially people who live in remote areas.
But a satellite broadband connection requires
a phone line, and that can be a major problem
if you live in Whitefish, Mont., and the
nearest satellite I.S.P. is a long-distance
call away in Bozeman.
Decisions
If you spend only a few minutes on line every
day, switching to a broadband modem may not
make much financial sense. But if you find
yourself spending more time connected to the
Internet each day and becoming more impatient
with busy signals and the time spent waiting
for pages to load, a broadband connection may
be the solution.
Satellite was scratched off my list first. If
I lived in an area where satellite was my
only choice, I could live with it. But since
I have a choice, satellite isn't it.
I'm still going to use an analog modem
because it is impossible to take my cable
modem and D.S.L. modem with me on trips.
The choice, then, comes down to two
contenders, cable and D.S.L. Either is vastly
more satisfactory than a regular modem, and
if I had no choice and had to take one or the
other, I would still consider myself very
fortunate, no matter which one I had. The
speed is nice, but more than that, I have
come to rely on the always-on connection.
There are no busy signals, no delays in
getting online, no screeching, beep-boop
modem sounds and no interruptions if I stay
idle longer than the service provider thinks
is necessary.
-------------------------- Despite cable's
Bringing broadband theoretical
speed
exhilaration to the advantage,
the
plodding masses.
actual
-------------------------- performances of
cable and D.S.L.
are comparable. Therefore, the determinants
come down to price and, to a lesser extent,
to security, the choice of I.S.P. and
reliability.
If I had to choose -- and economics dictate
that I must -- I would keep D.S.L.
Performance is steady and reliable. From the
start, the phone company has been easier to
deal with than my cable company, although
both could improve their customer service
skills.
Naturally, many people have drawn exactly the
opposite conclusion. They found their local
phone company impossible to deal with and had
no trouble with cable. It all depends on the
skills and temperament of the local service
providers. The best tactic, as always, is to
ask neighbors and friends who have local
broadband access about their experiences.
---------------------------------------------
Peter H. Lewis at lewis@nytimes.com welcomes
your comments and suggestions.
---------------------------------------------
****************************************
List of Distribution
Kimberly K. Obbink
Director
Burns Telecommunications Center
128 EPS Building,
Montana State University
Bozeman, MT 59717-3860
USA
Tel: +1-406-994 6550
Fax: +1-406-994 7856
kobbink@montana.edu
http://btc.montana.edu
Mr. Myron Nordquist
Legislative Counsel
U.S. Senator Conrad Burns' Office
187 Dirksen Senate Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-2603
202-224-6808
Fax: 202-224-8594
Cell: 301-646-8153
myron_nordquist@burns.senate.gov
http://www.senate.gov/~burns/
804-924-7573 -- at the U. of VA.
Fax: 804-982-2622 -- at the U.
of VA.
Dr. Thomas J. Keil
Dean, College of Arts and Sciences
Arizona State University West
4701 W. Thunderbird Rd.
Glendale, AZ 85306-4908
602-543-6033
602-543-6150 (assistant)
Fax: 602-543-6032
Thomas.Keil@asu.edu
tkeil@asu.edu
Dr. Andrey S. Narvsky
Head of the Department of Multimedia
and Distance Education
of St.Petersburg State Marine Technical
University
General Director of Lanck Software
Ltd.
3 Lotsmanskaya street
St.Petersburg, 190008
Russia
ph +7-812-325-8146
fax +7-812-157-2455
narvsky@astrive.com
asn@lanck.ru
http://www-win.kunstkamera.lanck.ru/english/
http://www.tzar.ru/
(The above two sites are bilingual
about St.Petersburg museums, developed by
Andrey's group.)
Jusri De Vries, MFA, IDEC, EAIE
Coordinator, Distance Learning
Chairman, Distance Education Network
European Association for International
Education
Department of Art Education
University of Art and Design -
Helsinki
Hameentie 135 C
FIN-00560 Helsinki
Finland
Tel: +358 9 7563 0531
Fax: +358 9 7563 0250
Mob: +358 40 533 4204
jdevries@uiah.fi
http://www.uiah.fi/~jdevries
http://www.eaie.nl/activities/ps/DEN/
Dr. Tom P. Keenan, I.S.P.
Professor and Dean
Faculty of Continuing Education
University of Calgary
2500 University Dr. NW
Calgary, AB T2N 1N4
CANADA
(403) 220-5429
FAX: (403) BUG-EXIT = 284-3948
keenan@acs.ucalgary.ca
Mr. Wilbert Le Melle
President
Phelps-Stokes Fund
74 Trinity Place, Suite 1303
New York, NY 10006
212-619-8100
Fax: 212-619-5108
phelps@admin.con2.com
www.psfdc.org
Dr. Gilles Seguin
Senior Education Marketing Strategist
Education Marketing Unit (ACET)
Department of Foreign Affairs and
International Trade (DFAIT)
125 Sussex Drive
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0G2
(613) 992-6289
FAX (613) 995-3238
gilles.seguin@dfait-maeci.gc.ca
http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/culture/educationmarketing/menu-e.htm
**********************************************************************
* Takeshi Utsumi, Ph.D., P.E.,
Chairman, GLOSAS/USA
*
* (GLObal Systems Analysis and
Simulation Association in the U.S.A.) *
* Laureate of Lord Perry Award
for Excellence in Distance Education *
* Founder of CAADE
*
* (Consortium for Affordable and
Accessible Distance Education) *
* President Emeritus and V.P. for
Technology and Coordination of *
* Global University
System (GUS)
*
* 43-23 Colden Street, Flushing,
NY 11355-3998, U.S.A.
*
* Tel: 718-939-0928; Fax: 718-939-0656
(day time only--prefer email) *
* Email: utsumi@columbia.edu;
Tax Exempt ID: 11-2999676
*
* http://www.friends-partners.org/GLOSAS/
*
**********************************************************************
Return to: Global University System Late 1999 Correspondence
Web page by Steve McCarty,
World Association for Online Education
President