A Reckless Move by the V.I. Senate by Peter Schultz, Ph.D

Listening to the committee hearing now. They're running down the benefits to all and the financing. It's a no brainer.
Totally sold. Soon Come!

More disinformation from Cruz. I wonder if the motive is to deny surrounding islands the technological advantage StCroix has as the landing point of the Global Crossing cables. That would be consistent with the Crucians In Focus connection.

Here's some information for you DIRECTLY from the VINGN website and was testified to the senate by it's director Julito Francis. Pages 6 and 8 shows the plan for cable between STT and PR. The diagram ALSO shows that the 3 islands are ALREADY intra-connected and connected globally through Global Crossings and AT&T.

http://vingn.com/Julito-A-Francis-March-23rd-Senate-Testimony.PDF

Again, I'm not against expanding broadband on the islands, but it should be done the right way and with FULL DISCLOSURE.

sometimes i think that some things are just so complicated that people oversimplify them in their minds to make them understandable, and then they really think they understand what is going on, but they do not.

In any case, with the feds in such fiscal trouble, is this the best use of $$$? I'm just sayin.

Mr Peter Schultz is currently getting a roasting in the legislature from the senators and it serves him right.

According to the network diagrams the plan incorporates utilizing existing infrastruture (Cruz, "3 islands are ALREADY intra-connected and connected globally through Global Crossings and AT&T.") and add higher speed capacity and redundancy where needed to build out a middle mile network to connect and serve the communities of all the USVI. I see the plan shows adding additional capacity and redundant path to PR. And, deploying fiber across the terrestrial and subsea on/between all the islands which will deliver higher speed and more reliable service to the end user. I like it. Thank you for posting the URL for the document.

IMO the senators are no where near qualified to even understand what's being explained to them.

Exactly right, Hiya.

Cruz objects to the director's salary but he doesn't say that salary is out of line with the industry.

Cruz objects to the technical detail of redundancy within the proposal without any technical basis to his argument.

If there are flaws in the proposed project, then do your homework, learn WTF you are talking about, and bring them to people's attention, don't just slander a good thing because you hate the person who brought it forward.

This is SO TYPICAL of the despicable politics this territory, but St. Croix in particular, has perfected. What I don't understand is why the voters continually fall for the same game over and over. It's as if we invite these bastards to our homes to pee in our cisterns.

I was impressed by their numbers showing how much businesses and the govt currently pay for "broad" band (a fortune), and how that bill will be dramatically cut by this new infrastructure... allowing for things like medical video conferencing, long distance learning, decent download speeds for youtube, videoondemand, skype, video, etc etc etc. Apparently this deal is good for bandwidth resellors as well (broadbandvi). Would like to hear their opinion.

I was impressed by their numbers showing how much businesses and the govt currently pay for "broad" band (a fortune), and how that bill will be dramatically cut by this new infrastructure... allowing for things like medical video conferencing, long distance learning, decent download speeds for youtube, videoondemand, skype, video, etc etc etc. Apparently this deal is good for bandwidth resellors as well (broadbandvi). Would like to hear their opinion.

They're speaking right now to the senate and asking for VINGN to show some justification on just exactly how this new infrastructure would cut costs. The CEO of Choice said that VINGN would be buying bandwidth from the same folks that he is buying from and does not see any cost justification from VINGN on how they would be able to resell to him at a cheaper cost.

Listen here: http://www.mainstreamnetwork.com/listen/player.asp?station=wdhp-am&

Exactly right, Hiya.

Cruz objects to the director's salary but he doesn't say that salary is out of line with the industry.

Cruz objects to the technical detail of redundancy within the proposal without any technical basis to his argument.

If there are flaws in the proposed project, then do your homework, learn WTF you are talking about, and bring them to people's attention, don't just slander a good thing because you hate the person who brought it forward.

This is SO TYPICAL of the despicable politics this territory, but St. Croix in particular, has perfected. What I don't understand is why the voters continually fall for the same game over and over. It's as if we invite these bastards to our homes to pee in our cisterns.

No where did I say anything in regards to the director's salary. So when you come, come good and do your homework.

You're the one that said that I was providing "disinformation" in regards to a STT to PR connection, and thus I provided the details.

VINGN is the one that needs to justify the "redundancy" within their proposal in order to get it approved; not me.

Again, when yoh come, come good, or don't come at all. Don't just say that you're selling us a good product, without providing any evidence or justification for what you're selling.

The legislature should NEVER be a rubber stamp!

I completely agree that the legislature should never be a rubber stamp. Neither should they be completely corrupt and useless, which is what we have.

Cruz referenced the CIF article whose principle complaint, parroting the legislature, is the director's salary.

Cruz, again, feels that redundancy, in an infrastructure system, is a waste, when even the notoriously wasteful WAPA services most feeders in the territory via at least two routes.

Again, if there are technical criticisms to be made then he should make them intelligently and rebut them. As it stands he takes us for fools, selling us his own personal agenda. Despicable.

Cruz referenced the CIF article whose principle complaint, parroting the legislature, is the director's salary.

Cruz, again, feels that redundancy, in an infrastructure system, is a waste, when even the notoriously wasteful WAPA services most feeders in the territory via at least two routes.

Again, if there are technical criticisms to be made then he should make them intelligently and rebut them. As it stands he takes us for fools, selling us his own personal agenda. Despicable.

*-) yes, we should follow the great example of WAPA....smh.

If you have nothing sensible to say, then just be quiet and stop trying to be disagreeable.

None of your posts have added any knowledge, facts, or new information to this thread.

Calling out ignorance and alterior motives is always worthwhile.

I'm laughing now; the testifiers are explaining the difference between a kilobit, megabit and gigabit bandwidth. Wow.

Fact: $68m grant from the federal government is available
Fact: $29m has to be matched by the USVI for the above fact to happen
Fact: that is a cost of $263 per USVI resident
Fact: redundancy is necessary for any major type of infrastructure
Fact: increased bandwidth is always a "good thing"
Fact: they are going to build (if everything to do with the money is followed) 51 public computer centers for everyone in the USVI to use
Fact: the USVI is already a central point for major fiber optic communications in this hemisphere
Fact: you sit there on a slow and spotty service Internet connection, even with all this bandwidth going in and out of St. Croix and St. Thomas, and still think wireless is great

I am sure quite a few of you have cable TV, or at least the coaxial wire coming into your home, down there. Unfortunately, Prosser raped the Innovative TV company, and you have to deal with crappy wireless service, because there is no real competition, when you could easily have 26Mb cable Internet service, like I do.

Fact: if you are not for this, well...

Interesting article:

St. Thomas Source article: Broadband Funding Stalls In Committee

"Today’s action, or better yet inaction, by the Senate Committee on Economic Development, Technology and Agriculture represented another misstep by the Legislature when it comes to bringing reliable and affordable telecommunications and broadband access to all of the people of the Virgin Islands," Government House spokesman Jean P. Greaux Jr. said in a statement released after the hearing finished late Tuesday night.

"The fact is that the entire territory is either unserved, or underserved, by current access to broadband, and after 14 hours of testimony Tuesday we still have not seen any action, or leadership taken by this Legislature to avoid losing nearly $70 million dollars in federal funding," Greaux said.

In any case, with the feds in such fiscal trouble, is this the best use of $$$? I'm just sayin.

indeed i believe that it is. even 5 years from now we will be even more behind in terms of our ability to communicate. systems and tools are being developed at an exponential rate. our banking industry, legal profession, cottage industries, and telecommuting will all benefit.

redundancy is now the standard, not a luxury. as information transmittal becomes more and more important, 99% uptime is to be considered de rigueur; intermittent outages and failures, with resultant data loss, errors, delays in processing and lost productivity past.

at last we are prioritizing properly, but so much has gone before that people are simply seeing it as expenditure and not as investment in the future. we have been lagging for so long, so very long.

the local IT community, businesses and end users like myself who keep up with what is going on in digital communications realize the true benefits of this, and it is money well spent.

this conversation is good, because it is getting people to go to the site, download the documents, read for themselves, and tune in as the lawmakers discuss. a lot of them need education in this too, as it is not the everyday for everyone.

If they screw this up..................I've been emailing our fine senators (small s) daily with support for this with 0 response.

Exactly right, Hiya.

Cruz objects to the director's salary but he doesn't say that salary is out of line with the industry.

Cruz objects to the technical detail of redundancy within the proposal without any technical basis to his argument.

If there are flaws in the proposed project, then do your homework, learn WTF you are talking about, and bring them to people's attention, don't just slander a good thing because you hate the person who brought it forward.

This is SO TYPICAL of the despicable politics this territory, but St. Croix in particular, has perfected. What I don't understand is why the voters continually fall for the same game over and over. It's as if we invite these bastards to our homes to pee in our cisterns.

No where did I say anything in regards to the director's salary. So when you come, come good and do your homework.

You're the one that said that I was providing "disinformation" in regards to a STT to PR connection, and thus I provided the details.

VINGN is the one that needs to justify the "redundancy" within their proposal in order to get it approved; not me.

Again, when yoh come, come good, or don't come at all. Don't just say that you're selling us a good product, without providing any evidence or justification for what you're selling.

The legislature should NEVER be a rubber stamp!

cruz, redundancy is now becoming the standard. in fact, anyone who does not provide it as, say, an internet service provider, is shorting its customer base. co-location of servers is now being replaced with virtualization on farms which provide redundancy. 100% uptime if you can get it!

I don't think anybody opposes expanding broadband capability. I think the issues are who, what, where, and how the proposed expansion will be implemented and the seeming lack of details and transparency. The bonds are backed by gross receipts revenues, and though the plan is to have revenues from the project pay for the debt service, nobody has provided any estimates as to how much revenue is expected, and so far, I haven't seen the business community voicing much support for the project. Even the telecommunications expert said he is "concerned about maintenance of the network and the relationship between the providers and the government network." A little skepticism is good when it comes to government projects, I think.

I don't think anybody opposes expanding broadband capability. I think the issues are who, what, where, and how the proposed expansion will be implemented and the seeming lack of details and transparency. The bonds are backed by gross receipts revenues, and though the plan is to have revenues from the project pay for the debt service, nobody has provided any estimates as to how much revenue is expected, and so far, I haven't seen the business community voicing much support for the project. Even the telecommunications expert said he is "concerned about maintenance of the network and the relationship between the providers and the government network." A little skepticism is good when it comes to government projects, I think.

Exactly! I agree with ms411 again! We're not against this project, but viNGN is lacking in details and transparency in their presentation. The experts brought up a lot of critical issues such as maintenance costs and implementation, in which Julito Francis had no answer for.

The senate did the right thing again buy stalling this bill in order to add amendments to the bill. It will eventually pass, but viNGN should not be given a blank check to do what they please.

I don't think anybody opposes expanding broadband capability. I think the issues are who, what, where, and how the proposed expansion will be implemented and the seeming lack of details and transparency. The bonds are backed by gross receipts revenues, and though the plan is to have revenues from the project pay for the debt service, nobody has provided any estimates as to how much revenue is expected, and so far, I haven't seen the business community voicing much support for the project. Even the telecommunications expert said he is "concerned about maintenance of the network and the relationship between the providers and the government network." A little skepticism is good when it comes to government projects, I think.

the st. thomas/st. john chamber of commerce was submitting an item for the record that is for the project last i spoke with their office on monday.

i say, let the legislature deal with the money, legality, etc., hence sending back for further amendments. that is their job.

but we do need this and should work towards it.

What is the justification of having redundancy the in the USVI when Global Crossings, who provides the fiber that links STX to the WWW, doesn't have it. If the fiber gets cut leaving STX not only does STX have no access to the WWW but South America is also SOL. There is no self healing or redundant loop. Global Crossings does have hot spares and back up power to make their network as reliable as possible

While you could argue that traffic could be routed to other fibers the capacity doesn't exist. Today's traffic volume world wide is so large there is very little excess capacity. Global Crossings is already using most of the tricks available to maximize the traffic on each and every fiber.

Secondly without commitments from all the ISPs on the island to use the new backbone will it pay for itself? Broadband VI and Innovative each have 30% - 40% of the market. I didn't see anything in the paper saying they were interested. Innovative already has fiber and is laying additional fiber to support their initiative for one fiber/cable to the home to support phone, video and data.

Jim