New Mexico mulls state network needs

A diverse group of New Mexicans from government, private industry and academia gathered today at a summit promoted by Governor Bill Richardson to discuss their state's telecom infrastructure needs and how to fill them.

Speakers expressed a need for higher-capacity, more pervasive broadband throughout the state (whether wired or wireless) and more diverse, redundant high-bandwidth optical networks as catalysts for economic development and new applications such as telemedicine and distance learning. They also debated the respective roles of the public and private sectors in improving the state's telecom networks.

Moira Gerety, the state's former chief information officer, described the state's telecom infrastructure with one word: "underinvested."

Michael Hites, chief information officer for New Mexico State University, suggested the goal of providing at least 1 Mb/s of broadband to the state's residents, at least 10 Mb/s to businesses and at least 1 Gb/s to large businesses and educational institutions. He also recommended broadband deployment efforts be directed throughout the state rather than just along the I-25 corridor running vertically through the state.

Pat Vanderpool, executive director of TechConex, which is dedicated to fostering economic development in New Mexico's small towns, stressed the need to accurately assess the state's broadband needs before committing to action.

"We need to be very careful not to limit 'broadband' to residential broadband or 256 kb/s kinds of broadband," said Marianne Granoff, regional vice president of ZiaNet, an Internet service provider. "We need to look at OC-192 broadband connecting cities in a reliable and redundant manner if we want economic development to continue in this state."

Paul Morris, a representative from Utah's government-backed multi-city fiber project, UTOPIA, promoted his state's model of private competition combined with public ownership of facilities. "The best analogy is an airport," he said. "The city builds the airport but leaves it to the private sector to fly the planes. That's where you get competition and innovation."

Morris got a warm reception from the audience in attendance. When he asked the crowd rhetorically how they thought Utah residents responded when asked if they wanted more than one choice of telecom providers, the crowd answered "yes" in near unison.

The room was somewhat chillier for Qwest Communications regional vice president for policy and law Chuck Ward, who cautioned the audience against the pitfalls of projects such as Utopia. The conference began with the words of Jane Hill, owner of competitive local exchange carrier Cybermesa, who claimed the future of the state's telecom industry depended on "taking a much firmer stance with Qwest and Valor [Communications]."

"Legislators need to wean themselves from Qwest and Valor lobbyists," she said.

The conference took place on the heels of a recently completed investigation by the state's public service commission into nearly $800 million in infrastructure investments promised by Qwest Communications in return for rate increases and looser regulation. One PSC commissioner present at today's conference said the conclusions of that investigation should be released in March.

Bill Garcia, vice president of Valor Communications, pledged to participate more actively with the assembled group in the future. "We [Valor] tend to be a bit risk-averse," he said. "We need to be able to take some calculated risks to ensure that New Mexico is no longer at the bottom of the heap."

"I haven't heard a bad idea here today," Garcia said.