Community Technology Task Force

Over 200 Eden Prairie residents responded to an online survey about broadband and Internet services sponsored by the Technology Task Force. Thanks to those who took the time to complete the survey. Here are some of the very interesting results!

• Almost half of respondents have three or more computers in their homes.
• Two-thirds connect via Comcast cable modems; one-quarter use DSL.
• Four of five respondents were satisfied with the reliability of their Internet connection.
• 90% connect to the Internet every day.
• Two-thirds of respondents work from home; 25% have home businesses.
• Kids use the Internet for homework, web surfing, email and social web sites.
• 85% of adults use the Internet to purchase goods and services.
• Almost 60% were dissatisfied with their choices for Internet services, primarily due to the cost and lack of choices.
• When asked about options for city action on broadband, the most popular choices were for an open access fiber network or a municipal telecom utility.
• 82% of respondents saw value in a citywide wireless network.

Those are the results. What do you think?

A key task for Community Technology Advisors is to inventory and analyze the current telecommunications infrastructure and services in Eden Prairie.  We have been interviewing providers and are getting a pretty clear picture.   At our last task force meeting, Comcast and Time Warner Telecom made presentations to the group about their current and planned services.

Time Warner Telecom is a Competitive Local Exchange Carrier serving business clients in Eden Prairie.  They are co-located in the Qwest Eden Prairie Central Office and use their own fiber network and Qwest facilities to reach their end customers.  Time Warner Telecom (not to be confused with the former cable TV company) is working to reach more customers with their own fiber network.  The company shared maps of its fiber network and it reaches a good share of Eden Prairie’s prime business areas.

Comcast offers almost 100 percent coverage of Eden Prairie’s residential areas and talked about its new emphasis on serving business with a more attractive pricing strategy for extending its network to business locations.  Comcast has a fiber to the node network with each node serving between 300 and 600 customers.  They spent a good deal of time talking about new technologies that will enable it to provide Internet speeds of up to 100 Mbps to customers, possibly within the next year.  Comcast gave task force members a peak at its network map but was unwilling to provide many details about what information was displayed there nor were they willing to provide the community with a map to keep and examine.

Task force members had good questions for both providers about their current services and their plans for the future.  It was an interesting meeting.  Qwest is scheduled to present at the next task force meeting in August.

In the last four days, I have seen two articles about the importance of connectivity and economic development. Friday, the Business Journal had an article on Northfield and the community’s plan to leverage a St. Olaf College fiber network for high bandwidth services to technology-dependent companies. You can find this article at http://twincities.bizjournals.com/twincities/stories/2007/06/11/story3.html.

Then today, in a Star Tribune commercial real estate supplement, a story about St. Cloud working with information services firms to locate in its downtown area adjacent to Qwest’s central office where big bandwidth is accessible and affordable. (Sorry, I could not locate this online.)

An outcome of the Technology Task Force will be an enhanced understanding of Eden Prairie’s competitive advantages with telecommunications infrastructure and services and will enable the community to market itself more effectively for business attraction.