by Erin Johnson
Thisweek Newspapers

What began as an effort to study Eagan's own technology infrastructure has grown into a statewide effort seeking faster Internet access for all of Minnesota in the next eight years.

The Eagan Technology Working Group, made up of local businesses, residents and technology experts, has been studying local broadband issues since 2004. Over the past year, the group focused on how broadband speeds available in Eagan and Minnesota compare to the rest of the world.

What they found is that the United States is lagging on a global scale.

"The U.S. is falling significantly behind in this race to deliver high-speed Internet speeds," said Rep. Sandra Masin, DFL-Eagan. "And Minnesota has no comprehensive plan to catch up."

Masin recently introduced a bill in the House that sets a definitive goal of achieving one-gigabit access for the entire state by 2015. A companion bill was introduced in the Senate.

The Eagan City Council passed a resolution in support of the bill at its March 20 meeting.

The bill was prompted by the Gig Group, which was formed when Eagan business, technology and city leaders brought other business leaders, public policy experts, government and industry representatives together last fall to explore the need for a statewide broadband policy.

Having a statewide policy is necessary, said Eagan Director of Communications Tom Garrison.

"Our bill is not asking for any spending at the moment," he said. "We're saying we do not have a vision, we do not have a policy goal, and the state ought to have one."

To put one gigabit in perspective, consider this: downloading an eight-gigabit instructional video using dial-up technology would take 13 days.

It would be faster to deliver the video from New York to California via the Pony Express than to download with dial-up, experts say.

DSL and cable aren't much better. The video would take 12 hours to download using DSL, and three hours using a cable modem.

The numbers for uploading are even worse.

But with one-gigabit capability, the video could be downloaded in one minute.

California has already adopted a similar bill, with a goal of one-gigabit access by 2010. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has appointed a broadband task force and plans to spend $460 million on broadband infrastructure to achieve the goal.

Garrison and several Eagan business representatives recently testified before the House Telecommunications Regulation and Infrastructure Committee in support of the Minnesota bill.

Ruthe Batulis, president of the Northern Dakota Chambers of Commerce (NDC), pointed out that Eagan is home to major corporations at the forefront of technology, such as Ecolab, Lockheed Martin, Northwest Airlines and Thomson West, which is the largest software developer in Minnesota.

Faster Internet speeds are crucial for such companies to stay competitive globally.

But the economic benefit of faster speeds would extend far beyond large corporations, said Eagan resident Jim Moeller. They would "go all the way down to small businesses and residences," he said.

Moeller, a member of the Eagan Technology Working Group, runs a private technology consulting business out of his home.

"You could even argue the economic benefit for (smaller businesses and residences) is even bigger than for the large corporations," he said. "Most large companies can go off and arrange their own communications services to fit their needs. That's not true for the rest of us."

It's important to have a global perspective on this issue, Moeller said, because local businesses are competing with others around the world.

And much of the world fares better than the U.S. when it comes to Internet speeds.

Parts of Asia and Europe, for instance, enjoy far faster internet speeds than the United States, with capabilities of at least 100 megabits.

With the current technology being used in Minnesota, 100-megabit speeds are not possible, said Garrison.

"If you've ever had a milkshake that had too small of a straw, you know what the problem is here," he said.

Steve Chavez, a member of both the Eagan and Dakota County planning commissions, likens the issue to a bottle of ketchup.

"You've got all kinds of material you want to push through, but you can't because of the bottleneck –– the design of the system," he said.

Chavez is an international lawyer who practices from his home in Eagan.

He challenged the House committee to take the opportunity to "assume a world-class role as an innovator" by passing the bill.

The committee ultimately halted the bill until the first of the year, but supporters are hopeful.

This effort is unique, Garrison said, because it is being driven by users.

"For the first time, it's users saying what they want, versus providers saying what services they want to offer," he said.

Erin Johnson is at eagan.thisweek@ecm-inc.com.

Comment from Wanda Ballentine, 4/13/07

If this article is referring to Wi-Fi, there are a small number of people who would be severely affected by city- or statewide installation - those who suffer from extreme sensitivity to electro- magnetic fields. While the reality of this condition is controversial in this country, it isn't in Europe, and has been recognized by WHO as an accepted condition.

I happen to have two friends who are severely afflicted and already very limited in their activities in such a wired society. One recently attended a concert in St. Paul, to which she has had season tickets for years. As she approached the concert hall, she began to feel the effects of EMF and knew that there must be a powerful source around. The situation was unbearable when she entered the hall, and she knew it was Wi-Fi. She had to leave and has since returned her season tickets.

In Europe, there are hundreds of "building biologists" who assess the electromagnetic fields of buildings and homes of EMF sensitives and figure out ways to minimize the effects. There are only 70 such professionals in the U.S., but we are fortunate to have one in Minneapolis, Oram Miller. He retrofitted my friend's house, and her situation is greatly improved.

You can learn more about EMFs at his website, www.createhealthyhomes.com/emf_research.php
There is also testimony Oram gave about Wi-Fi - www.createhealthyhomes.com/wifi.php.

I don't know what the answer is on this, but making life unbearable for even a small number of people doesn't seem right, and I suspect that they're the canaries in the mine and that we're all being affected to some degree, especially as the society gets more wired and as we age.