Local governments and universities cooperate to expand broadband telecom services: The Broadband Regional Affiliation for Managed Planning (B-RAMP) and the Michigan State University Site for Information and Telecommunication Experimentation (M-SITE)

摘要

The most interesting aspect of the B-RAMP project is the public/public relationship that M-SITE and NEMCOG share. Modern telecommunication research has typically been private/public, but instead in this case, two distinct public entities are cooperating to accomplish tasks that are typically handled by the private sector. The recent trend of governments has been to turn to the private sector for informational requests and research, unlike the past when governments turned to public facilities like universities for research and information. Many counties around the state of Michigan have received state grants to undertake research on issues to those that MSU and NEMCOG are to explore. While other counties use private contractors to collect their information, NEMCOG is turning to a public educational facility to complete those same tasks. The NEMCOG/M-SITE partnership gives public education the chance to prove that once again, governments can turn to educational facilities for thorough research assistance and project planning. Michigan State University, one of the pioneering land grant schools, has already developed a research track record arising from the successes of Agricultural Stations located throughout the state of Michigan. M-SITE's intent is to continue the tradition of land grant universities assisting rural development and to build upon these successes by creating a new role for state universities in advancing rural telecommunication development. M-SITE also intends to provide a model for other government and educational institutions to follow in efforts to address rural telecommunication needs.