Bridging the Digital
Divide
Crossing
Over to a Technology Future Together
Digital Divide Committee Report
May 17, 2005
Bridging the Digital Divide: Crossing Over To a Technological Future Together
Digital Divide Committee Report
This Digital Divide committee is motivated by the vision of our community creating a future in which everyone is both able to and motivated to seize the full power of a fiber optic network. Such a network has the potential to transform the lives of citizens in ways similar to the deployment of electricity, radio, and television. In building its own fiber-optic based utility, Lafayette creates the opportunity for further unifying the people of this community and, potentially, to help bridge current divides among her citizens. A publicly owned network can lower barriers to full and equal participation by making a new and powerful communication technology available to every citizen at the lowest practical cost. In our times, the keys to participation and productivity lie in these rapidly developing technologies. We recognize that if Lafayette is to experience healthy growth and benefit fully from such new technologies, all her people will need to become equal partners in our endeavor. Lowering the barriers to such a partnership and engaging in vigorous and innovative educational efforts will help us realize our community’s full potential.
Barriers preventing entry into the world of computers and the World Wide Web include low income, fear or suspicion of technology, a lack of understanding of how useful technology can be, and absence of instruction concerning computers and the Internet. In addition, transportation to places where computers and Internet access are available to the public and knowledge that such places even exist are barriers for some. For others, the use of technology is simply not integrated into their identity and they see few models for its productive use in their communities.
Lafayette citizens most likely to be standing on the other side of the digital divide include people who have low incomes, who are elderly, less educated, or disabled, members of ethnic minorities, and any community members who have been traditionally marginalized or for any reason feel separated from the broader society.
Bridging the digital divide is an excellent opportunity to bridge other divides within our community as well. As we reach out to help community members begin to connect to the world of technology, we can increase participation throughout the community. Through our actions we can demonstrate that we have a commitment to bring all Lafayette’s people into full participation. Our efforts to bridge the digital divide will produce benefits for all citizens, but will be of most help to those who currently participate the least.
To reach those members of our community who do not currently use computers or the Internet and help them understand how these tools can be useful to them and to our entire community, we must establish ongoing resources to provide the education, motivation, and content immediately relevant to residents of Lafayette Parish. Ideally, a secure, dedicated source of funds supplemented by grants would be set aside to help support these functions, ensuring not only greatest community benefit but also high levels of subscriber ship.
Our hope and intent is to build a vibrant, connected community, by strengthening existing community organizations and by encouraging new connections, educational and cultural resources, and economic opportunities for all.
We have identified three types of barriers that prevent Lafayette’s people from advancing fully into the information age: structural barriers to entry, motivational and historical barriers to entry, and barriers to full participation. We propose to lower barriers in every category and eliminate them where we can.
Structural barriers to entry prevent people who are currently eager to participate from doing so. These barriers include availability of service, price of service, availability of hardware and software and access to introductory education.
Motivational and historical barriers to entry are factors that keep people from recognizing the potential value of technology in their lives or the lives of their family and neighbors. These issues can be addressed by building attractive, rich, easy-to-use and inexpensive ways for citizens to access local institutions or enhance their current interests using technology. Many of these barriers can be usefully addressed by ongoing outreach efforts.
Barriers to full participation are factors that prevent eager and motivated individuals from moving deeper into the world opened by technology and benefiting from its full value. Such issues can be addressed by providing full bandwidth to all, access to free and open-source operating systems and advanced software, and continuing education.
The final section, concerning assessment, deals with tracking the changes that will come about as a result of the fiber optic project and assessing whether our common goals are being met.
Some of Lafayette’s citizens are further along the bridge that spans the digital divide than others, and some of our communities have made greater progress down that road. Our intent in presenting the following recommendations is to provide a plan for bringing us all together as we move into a future in which fast broadband will be a central element for individual growth and community development. Because we differ in many ways, no single strategy or one-time solution will be enough to keep us all together. A long-term commitment will be necessary to keep us moving forward as one.
In each of the three sections concerning barriers, we present the core principles we have developed during our investigation that, when applied, will help us narrow the digital divide in our community. Each principle is followed by some examples of specific strategies for implementation. It is important to recognize that the recommendations presented in this report are strategies and principles, not specific implementation tasks. It is the feeling of the committee that addressing these strategies and principles provides for the best fundamental foundation to addressing the digital divide, regardless of the specific implementation approach utilized.
Also, note that while large portions of this document focus on the Lafayette Utilities System (LUS) as the retail service provider over the proposed network, we anticipate that LUS will not be the only participant. These principles should apply equally to the city-parish government’s involvement and to any third-party private concern that might take up the city’s offer to provide retail services using the community’s fiber-optic network. Principles well established in our community’s discussion of this plan, such as universal service, provision of a low-priced, accessible tier, and support for community initiatives, should be a part of any franchise contract the city might grant. This will help ensure that the digital divide will decrease in Lafayette.
1) Universal service: Equal access is the first and most essential element in bridging the digital divide. LUS and the city-parish government must carry through on their firm commitment to make high-speed access available to everyone in its footprint as part of the initial build-outs. Without service available to everyone, much of what this reports recommends simply will not be possible. LUS’ pledge to provide service to all in our community stands in marked contrast to other providers. The common “red-lining” practices used by many private companies, in which neighborhoods are written off as “uneconomic,” cannot be tolerated if our community is to move forward together.
A) One of the initial fiber implementation areas must have a substantial under-served population, as is currently intended -- for marketing reasons, to build faith in the project among under-served communities, and to provide a test bed for implementing and adjusting the digital divide plan.
B) Subsequent build out of the LUS system should, for similar reasons, continue to include neighborhoods that are currently under-served until all those areas have direct access to these advanced communications resources.
2) Reduced prices: LUS must carry through on its commitment to reduce prices. The simple economic barrier to entry is significant for many people who live in under-served areas or are living on fixed or reduced incomes. We anticipate that reduced prices will not only benefit LUS customers directly but also, through increased competition, will result in other providers lowering their prices as well, further serving the goal of reducing the digital divide.
A) LUS should keep its commitment to reduce prices from the current bundled rates by approximately 20%, as compared to incumbent prices at the time the LUS Feasibility Study Report was issued in October,. This 20% price reduction will have the effect of significantly reducing the price of- Internet access and subscribers will pay basically no more for a package of Internet, cable and telephone than they pay currently for cable and telephone.
B) LUS should, where possible, continue to pursue an aggressive policy of providing the lowest possible prices for Internet access. Not only will this save its customer-owners money, it will also lower a major structural barrier to entry for many people in our community.
3) Provide more services: LUS’ promise to provide additional advanced services at each price point (compared to the traditional providers) should continue into the future. Services like these are typically relatively expensive extras that add functions to the basic services. By offering some of these at virtually no extra cost, LUS will reduce the portion of the differences between people’s telecom capabilities that is due to cost alone. Although this report focuses primarily on Internet connectivity, we believe that the movement of telecommunications services to Internet protocols and the Internet will provide large possibilities for customers of LUS’ system in the relatively near future. Maintaining a policy of providing more functionality than private providers will at any given price would express LUS’ continuing commitment to reducing the divide in telecommunications services between its customer-owners.
A) Offer higher speeds, a longer list of phone options, and better programming services to clients, as currently planned.
B) Continue to offer a larger list of services at each level than is commonly available in the industry as new, Internet-based services become viable. Examples might include such features as the capacity to download voice mailboxes to disk, program video services remotely, provide on-line storage for video and other purposes defined by the user, and the ability to store data online so that it can be accessed from public terminals or other devices. As price savings and the utility of such services become apparent, LUS should consider adding them to their menu of little, or no, extra-cost choices.
4) Make donated or low-cost computers available to those who qualify. Free education in use of computers and the Internet should be available to all residents, but those wishing to qualify for low and no-cost computers should be asked to “ get invested!” In order to qualify for one of these computers it will be necessary to demonstrate the following:
1) Economic need. Potential recipients will be required to pass a standard means test already in use by the Community Development office or some other local nonprofit standard used to qualify for support services.
2) Interest. Potential recipients will attend an informational meeting where the specifics of the program are explained.
3) Willingness to learn. Applicants will successfully complete designated coursework in computer and Internet use.
4) Willingness to give back to the community. Applicants will agree to refer another community member into the program, speak at community meetings to about their experiences/, or serve as teaching assistants in future classes.
5) Offer nominally priced “basic” Internet bandwidth: Equalizing access to basic Internet functions by providing nominal cost Internet connections to all subscribers would eliminate substantial economic barriers to entry, as 38.9% of non-Internet users nationally cite cost as a prime reason for not being connected. "Basic" always-on Internet, although low in bandwidth, would be adequate for email and slow but usable web browsing. Providing nominal-cost or even no-cost basic Internet access would increase the percentage of our community using Internet services and directly reduce the digital divide.
Adopting this principle would also move Lafayette substantially closer to a crucial “take-off” point in becoming a fully digitally enabled community. It would act as a motivator to involve people in entry-level uses of the network and prepare them for the more sophisticated levels of usage that our community will move toward. With more people using Internet services, we can sooner reach the point where beneficial "threshold" effects will take hold. As more people join the network, the likelihood that inexperienced users will be able to easily find someone to help them progress will increase. Solutions to common problems and access to new skills will more easily spread through a denser network of users.
A) In many communities, wireless access has been proven the most cost-effective means of providing what we here call “basic” (usable but slow) bandwidth to low-income users. Such wireless access should be considered in Lafayette.
B) Any public/private partnership or franchise to develop a wireless system using the LUS fiber-optic network should adhere to this principle of nominal-cost bottom tier of service, the pattern familiar from cable franchises.
C) Similarly, the principles of universal service and support of local open access facilities, which are a feature of earlier generations of telecommunications franchises, have proven crucial to ensuring equitable access and should be sustained in our next generation system.
D) The system bandwidth configuration should be deployed so as to take full advantage of future technology enhancements as they become available -- for example allowing uniformly high bandwidth between citizens within the community.
E) The definition of “basic” should be periodically reassessed as technologies change and new applications become entry points..
6) Establish a recycled PC program: Donated PC’s and other equipment could be collected and refurbished, then redistributed to qualified users and educational facilities.
Strategies - Set up a partnering agreement with Goodwill Industries, or with any other entity that agrees to become a drop-off point for used equipment.
- Develop an advertising campaign to facilitate the collection of PC’s, through the news media, i.e. Morning Show, Evening News, and with mail-outs to all local businesses in Acadiana, asking for used PC donations, which will be tax deductible. Request PC components and complete working PC’s.
- Request that operating systems software and media be donated with PC’s, to address licensing issues. Additionally, request Microsoft Windows 98, Windows 2000, and Windows XP software donations.
- Work with organizations, such as Goodwill, who can pick up donated computers and deliver them to a designated refurbishing location. Goodwill makes weekly trips to each of their locations and can give donors receipts to be used for income tax credits.
- Find a warehouse facility to store the donated PC’s. Habitat for Humanity, for instance, is acquiring a donated warehouse facility to store building material for future projects and also to set up a building material thrift store. The building in question has enough space to act as a warehouse and sorting facility for collected PC’s. There may be other facilities that could also be used for such storage.
7) Establish a refurbishing facility: The refurbishing facility will test PC and networking components and inventory the usable components. Components will be separated into keyboards, mouse, monitors, network cards, dial-up modems, data switches, and routers.
A) Enlist high school and technical college technology classes to check components, on a volunteer basis or for class credits.
B) Strip unusable components for recycling. Some components have monetary value for their valuable metals. A purchaser of these metals can be contracted with the proceeds going back into the program to be spent as the committee recommends.
C) Assemble some of these components into complete workable PC’s, including software. The software will be donated software with the media and licensing or free downloadable software.
D) Send working PC’s to educational entities that train end users in their use.
E) Send remaining components to educational entities that will be set up to conduct training on PC assembly, repair, and software.
F) With both types of training facilities, end users will get to keep PC’s once they complete the course.
8) Establish a new PC program: Due to the ever- lower prices of today’s PC’s, some citizens may want to purchase their own PC’s before attending classes established by this program.
A) Work with local PC retailers who will offer Digital Divide Specials for minimally equipped PC’s for those with the means to do so. This will help the local economy, and the end user may return to purchase upgrades and service in the future.
B) Make recommendations to end users and PC retailers concerning the types of software appropriate for the educational needs of the end user.
C) Develop a financial assistance plan. The committee can work with local financial institutions to develop leasing and/or rent-to-own options.
9) Continuing commitment to full partnership with the community: LUS and the Lafayette City-Parish Government should affirm its continuing commitment to providing financial, material, bandwidth and technological support to an ongoing digital divide effort. Neither LUS nor the city-parish government can solve the problems that have led to a digital divide in our city, and we can expect that this issue will be with us into the future. No one-shot program can produce the lasting effect of propelling Lafayette citizens into a common digital future. A continuing commitment of resources must be made to sustain the progress we make together.
10) Awareness is step one. A separate and specific marketing and informational campaign should be developed to reach and engage those who currently stand on the other side of the digital divide. This campaign should encourage participation by putting a friendly, inviting, accessible face on fiber to the home, in human terms to which most people can easily relate.
A) Put into wide and active circulation an informal and upbeat name and identity for the network of programs and activities geared toward bridging the divide.
B) Concentrate the publicity in low-income areas of the city.
11) Utilize existing networks of influence and leadership to reach people. Getting community members and leaders to embrace this program would be an efficient way to influence larger numbers of people. Additionally, the participation of group members can help build locally relevant Internet content and strengthen important community groups such as churches, clubs, service organizations and neighborhood watches.
A) Solicit help from pastors and other church and community leaders in the effort.
B) Offer training sessions for people who do administrative and publicity activities for their groups.
C) Provide assistance to groups that are already serving the populations that we are trying to reach, such as Lafayette’s senior centers, where we might provide additional resources to computer classes already in existence and learn from staff who already have experience working with the senior population.
12) Find out what people want, and provide it. When people understand that they can pursue their interests using technology, they will be more likely to do so. A series of information-gathering events should be held to find out what interests people have that could be served by computers and Internet access. This information can then be used in publicity campaigns, in designing courses, in recruiting for classes, and in choosing links for a community Internet portal.
A) Request help from church and community leaders in low-income and minority areas in setting up interviews and meetings in which we ask people what they would like to be able to do with computers.
13) Develop a very strong, community-oriented Internet service provider (ISP): We emphatically recommend that a very local, community-oriented ISP be developed to provide advanced services. . We envision a site where our citizens can go to find information about Lafayette’s needs and concerns. This portal would connect users with events and resources that are just around the corner, and also enable users to supply their own information about such events and resources for others to use. In addition, the ISP would provide advanced services such as email, space for personal and organizational homepages, and web-based programs that lower software barriers to full participation. Web-based programs would include programs that are widely available now (for home page production and calendaring) as well as net-based programs for word processing and simple spreadsheets. Documents could be saved to users’ computers or stored online and accessed from any other computer. This would assure a baseline degree of access to the types of functions that are necessary to basic participation in modern networks.
A) Facilitate the development of local content by providing web-based calendar programs to publish notices about community events such as church fairs and neighborhood meetings
B) Use open source, extensible products such as Hula. (http://www.hula-project.org) Hula provides email and calendaring capability for city-size deployment and includes hooks to open standard calendar functions and calendar aggregation. Originally developed by Novell, and now in the public domain, technologies like these can be very robust, in addition to being free.
C) Use open source and modular technologies that can be extended; doing so taps into the huge programming resources of our university and commercial talent pool, to provide customization for our unique circumstances.
14) Provide generous amounts of local content that users can select to appear on their home pages: This will help build awareness of local resources and increase interest for users. Users should have easy access to information about local employment, childcare, and housing, educational opportunities, service directories, cultural and arts events, church calendars, and more. Community groups can be encouraged to provide information such as schedules of events, services offered, etc. This also will provide opportunities for individuals within the organizations to take positions of leadership by assuming responsibility for providing and updating this information.
A) Allow users to customize their home pages by choosing which organization’s calendars and links will automatically load when they log in.
B) Design the portal so that neighborhood information (such as neighborhood watches, school calendars, roadwork schedules, etc.) loads automatically according to the area of Lafayette in which the user lives.
C) Encourage individuals to provide information that will be of interest to specific groups, such as open jam sessions or dance events.
D) Develop a “Content of the Day” box to help make users aware of various community web sites and city resources.
E) Institute web broadcasts of local events such as Downtown Alive! and festivals
F) Utilize links to weather sites and on-line hurricane tracking.
F) Encourage teachers to use sites such as Homework.com to post their daily assignments, or develop templates for local teaching situations that students can access from their home computers.
15) Develop network-capable educational facilities: Once an educational facility has been established, a data network will have to be installed to facilitate the classes. Network hardware can be used from donated equipment inventory. Three major components will need to be considered: the type of Internet service available, the hardware needed, and network wiring and connections.
A) Encourage high school and technical college technology classes to design networks, specify equipment, and install networks as a class project, as volunteers, or for class credit.
B) Re-populate classrooms with equipment from the warehouse. A high school or technical college class, offering students experience in installation and testing, could also handle this. These activities could be set up as day trips or could function as a hands-on portion of the class work.
C) At the end of the end user class, each end user would take a PC home and the cycle would begin again.
16) Center initial instruction on the easy-to-use, immediately valuable, activity of e-mail: This will increase the new user’s confidence and demonstrate the value of being connected, while also engaging the user in a productive act. As a user is being introduced to email, the instructor should ask about other interests to determine the next step in instruction, which should be based on the user’s interests, activities, and/or career goals.
A) Assign local e-mail addresses to each subscribing household.
B) Also consider other immediately valuable activities for early lessons, such as eBay, chat rooms, and small business web site templates.
17) Provide many easily visible ways to enter the world of technology. Citizens should find themselves surrounded by doors into the digital realm; this familiarity will increase their interest and reduce anxiety. Libraries, community centers, schools, Internet cafes, meeting spaces, and churches should be equipped for education and easy access. Courses and mini-courses on a wide range of topics, some of general interest and some for special interests, should be available in many locations to engage the largest number of citizens.
A) Offer multiple types of courses at multiple locations.
B) Develop ways to encourage Internet cafe entrepreneurs.
C) Assist institutions with their technology issues.
D) Offer locations for clubs, churches, and institutions to offer their own courses.
18) When it is feasible to do so, provide the maximum available bandwidth to every subscriber when connecting to another subscriber to Lafayette’s network. Any citizen of Lafayette should be able to communicate with any other citizen at the maximum speed that the network will allow without affecting paid services. The relatively small additional cost of doing so would be outweighed by the benefits. Full bandwidth between citizens could eliminate unnecessary differences between citizens’ ability to communicate with each other and with institutions in our community and will be crucial in eliminating the portion of the digital divide that is due to differences in quality of service. Because such a policy will make communication within the Lafayette system richer and faster than communication outside the network, it would encourage the development of rich local content and set up a structural preference for Lafayette interactions. This would at least partially offset the concern that some may have that modern technologies could contribute to a loss of our distinctive local cultures, and it would also help ensure that our new technology would help sustain the distinctiveness of our various communities.
A) Store (host) significant local content and events (such as Festival International) in high-resolution format that would demonstrate the value of high bandwidth within Lafayette when it becomes available.
B) Encourage the development of materials that celebrate the cultures of Acadiana by sponsoring contests to reward people and institutions who develop such content.
C) Support programs at local schools and nonprofit community centers that develop the skills that are needed to produce rich local content.
19) Deliver donated or low-cost computers with an easy to use interface already installed. The goal is that, from first start-up, the computer will seem non-threatening and easy to use. Additionally, CD-ROMs containing a user-friendly, open-source package of software could be produced at low cost and distributed throughout the community to help with computer training and encourage use.
Make computer education widely available and free of cost to all Lafayette residents, with the understanding that this strategy will hold more benefits for those presently on the far side of the digital divide. Educational activities can take place at schools and colleges, but educational efforts should not be restricted to formal classes held in traditional institutions of learning. Instead, formal and informal learning should be available in all sorts of places across the service area. Mobile classrooms, peer teaching, and broadcast media all have a significant role in the education process.
A) Institute formal classes at Louisiana Technical College, Goodwill training centers, and community centers throughout the parish.
B) Develop “we’ll come to you!” classes modeled after the Boys and Girls Club mobile technology centers to teach classes to church and neighborhood groups, clubs, etc. throughout the city.
C) Develop “each-one-teach-one” viral education mode, where each generation of tutors is encouraged to deliver an easy-to-use standard curriculum to friends, family, and neighbors.
D) Broadcast lessons in computer and Internet use over AOC.
E) Make broadcast lessons available as downloads to be used at a time that is convenient for the student.
F) Encourage “hothouse” learning environments for new users working side by side, where learners can share what they learn and more advanced new learners can serve as tutors, by designating special times for these activities in community centers.
G) Start a “get involved” training corps modeled on the one used by VITA (Volunteer Instructors Teaching Adults) and other organizations, in which teachers receive training and agree to tutor for at least one year.
H) Acknowledge successful completion of coursework or mentoring of peers, helping create a corps of learner-tutors who will keep on teaching
20) Provide web-based programs. Develop internet-based programs for basic types of activities, which would be offered at no additional charge to everyone who purchases web access to keep costs low for users while making more engaging and productive computer and Internet use possible. Software costs are as high as hardware costs in many cases and outdated software will become a greater barrier to participation as users become more sophisticated in their computer use. Having a set of common tools will help with educational efforts, especially the informal friend-to-friend and neighbor-to-neighbor learning that is the basis for most adult learning. The list of essential programs should include e-mail, web page templates, personal calendars, word processing, spreadsheets, and security applications. Other specialized programs, similarly based, could spur the participation of diverse groups of users if they are carefully targeted. Templates and special classes in the use of these programs would provide points of entry into the networked world for people whose first interest is not technology itself but, for instance, making a living or serving their church.
A) Develop templates for web-based programs for use by community groups to post information on-line.
B) Develop templates that would help micro-businesses develop and people market their services and products locally (for example, a simple form-based ordering page with easy links to Paypal).
C) Develop templates for resumes.
D) Locate special interests, the pursuit of which would draw in underserved groups, such as a geneology program aimed at seniors or an online photo album for families.
E) Hold special intensive classes to encourage specialized groups of people to use technology to further encourage community interaction and learning.
21) Provide CD-based free software for offline use and to bridge users to the use of commercial software. A great deal of quality software is available without charge due to the open software and shareware movements. Many of the inexpensive and second-hand computers will not come with legal software and buying licenses for them would be expensive. High quality, open source operating systems (OS) and applications are widely available. The chief barrier to use for new users is in achieving a clean, integrated “build” on particular classes of computers. This complexity can be largely overcome by developing CDs which contain already integrated OS and application sets.
A) Provide a Linux Operating System disk that contains an open-source office suite such as Open Office.
B) Provide “interest” disks that, in addition to the basic setup, would also provide open-source programs that would be useful to the user, such as the image manipulation program GIMP for photographers and artists.
C) Give preference to open-source programs that run on multiple platforms (as do many Java-based open-source projects) to facilitate one-on-one learning across the barriers of different platforms and different operating system generations.
D) Encourage people to develop micro-businesses that install and maintain these open-source systems
Assessing the effectiveness of the program will be crucial to making sure that Lafayette’s different communities continue to advance together. Assessment is most useful when it is closely tied to the purposes shared by the people who participate and focuses on the expected results of the program itself. Where there are multiple purposes, multiple assessment tools are needed. Examining the data in different ways will result in greater confidence in our final conclusions about such issues as the diversity of users, changes in literacy, improved confidence in using technology, and community integration of information technology. We recommend four tools to explore different types of data, establish a basis for tracking our progress over time and comparing ourselves to other communities.
22) Develop and periodically run a survey containing standardized questions. Surveys are particularly good tools to measure outcomes that we expect to remain comparable regardless of differences in time and location. Some questions will be unique to our community, assessing locally unique factors that change over time. Others will echo the questions contained in standard, national surveys of Internet usage that will help us compare our progress to that made in other communities.
A) Run this survey once before the fiber optic network is built.
B) Run the survey yearly, and combine it with other feedback suggested here.
23) Assemble “Assess and Advise” panels. While survey data is particularly good at getting at stable information, panels are useful for assessing inherently changing conditions. Because the fiber optic network project is intended to change our community, we anticipate that the changes it brings, which are relatively unpredictable by nature, will need to be tracked and evaluated to make sure that we travel in the desired direction. A large part of the task of the digital divide initiative is to change Lafayette for the better, and this is a task that can be guided but cannot be easily predicted. Panels can be charged with remaining aware of the principles of the project and then asked to provide ongoing feedback on how well our goals are being met as conditions in Lafayette change. Panels with members from our differing ethnic, institutional and business communities can provide ongoing assessment and advice that is difficult to provide in other ways. These panels would be relatively small (6-10), and ongoing. As members drop out new members from the same community would be added. Assess and Advise panels would be in the best possible position to track how successfully we’ve met our goals and to suggest new strategies as conditions change. Such panels would make regular, public reports and would serve to inform their communities about available technological services.
A) Develop committees with members from differing communities such as ethnic, neighborhood, cultural, age, economic and/or others with distinctive interests in seeing Lafayette advance as one.
B) While this report deals with underserved communities, the use of panels may prove to be a worthwhile strategy to use with other groups with unique interests that LUS wishes to serve. One such group, whose membership would overlap with the groups served by this report, would be micro businesses.
24) Gather publicly available objective data on a timely basis for comparisons. Some recommendations of this report can be measured through publicly available data such as prices and services offered by LUS and its competitors.
A) Gather price data from LUS’ footprint periodically, including “specials” that may become, over time, baseline prices.
B) Gather regional data about prices and services which may change due to price competition in Lafayette.
C) Gather national averages for services similar to those offered both by LUS and its competitors.
25) Conduct periodic community assessments. Although panels are useful for tracking changes in communities, individuals, and relationships, their data is likely to be fragmented. There is also a need for a full community assessment to track Lafayette’s overall progress and the degree of integration with technology here. This function is most valuably fulfilled if the charge to the community assessment teams includes tracking both aspects that make Lafayette unique and aspects that allow us to compare ourselves with other communities. Community assessments generally require large, specialized datasets about what is generally or on average true in the community. Developing partnerships with local institutions that have access to the experience of business, educational and governmental communities will be necessary to do a good and consistent job.
A) Consider adopting a widely used format such as the Telecommunications Readiness Inventory or the CSPP Readiness Guide to compare Lafayette to other communities.
B) Before using these tools, analyze the data to be gathered with an eye to adding questions about the integration of technology into the community that reflect issues relevant to our specific community.
C) Conduct these assessments periodically and coordinate them with other assessments to produce regular, broadly based snapshots of how Lafayette is benefiting from its fiber optic network.
The construction of a powerful, ubiquitous fiber-optic network in Lafayette will not only give the city an unparalleled opportunity to improve the quality of life of all its citizens and to fuel economic growth, but it also holds the potential, if we act wisely, to substantially narrow the digital divide that exists in our community and to shape future development to minimize the possibility that such a divide will open again in the future. The basic purpose for building a fiber optic network in Lafayette is to benefit her people. Grasping the potential of this project to bring the peoples of Lafayette together is crucial to that purpose. We offer the principles contained in this document as a guide to how that might be successfully accomplished.