Old Wires, New Tricks

The television set in the boardroom at Vernon Telephone Cooperative in Westby, Wisconsin, displays a bright, crisp picture as legislators and other co-op guests watch the boys from nearby Seneca High School triumph over Northwood in the state basketball tournament. Not long after, there's drama of a very different kind: live images of huge explosions rocking Baghdad, delivered by a 24-hour news network as Allied aircraft and cruise missiles open a new phase of a war guaranteed to change the world.
In fact, the very means of our viewing the conflict signifies a changing world—thanks to one little twist that makes the situation in the boardroom nearly unique in the whole vast reach of the telecommunications industry. The pictures coming to us from the other side of the world and from the Kohl Center—about a hundred miles away in Madison—are not being captured by a rooftop antenna or even being fed through a coaxial TV cable. They're coming in through the copper-wire telephone line.

Innovation, Country-style

Vernon Telephone Cooperative is by no means the only rural telecommunications provider breaking into the new world of television over the phone lines—called digital video by those in the know—but it's fair to say this co-op and several others participating with it in joint ventures are on the cutting edge in deploying the emerging technology.
Vernon is one of several small cooperatives clustered in southwestern Wisconsin that somehow never got the message about how you have to be big or move to the East or West Coast before you can do important new things.
That was amply demonstrated several years ago with the creation of Midwest Tel Net.
It was founded in the 1990s and includes Cochrane Cooperative Telephone Company, La Valle Telephone Co-op, Richland–Grant Telephone Cooperative, Vernon Telephone Co-op, and neighboring electric cooperatives Oakdale Electric, Richland Electric, and Scenic Rivers Energy Cooperative, along with the privately owned Coon Valley Farmers, Hillsboro, and Lemonweir Valley Telephone Companies. Midwest is a consortium providing local Internet access in much of southwest Wisconsin. As of this spring, the combined telephone providers were serving about 22,000 lines.
By the end of the ’90s and with the telecommunications business in a state of rapid change, "It was time to have something new and offer other things," says Rod Olson, Vernon Telephone's manager. "One idea was that our members wanted an alternative to the cable television providers."
Midwest Tel Net, or MWT, was seen as the ideal vehicle to serve that member need by delivering television over its phone lines. And though it isn't alone in doing that, it is the first and so far only provider in the United States to be offering that service as a totally standards-based ethernet network using Internet Protocol or "IP."
Olson explains that MWT's Internet protocol is a new technology allowing every telephone, every computer, every box on top of a television set that's connected to the system to be identified by its own Internet-type address.
"It's not part of the worldwide web; we're building our own network entirely separate from the worldwide web. It's our own internal worldwide web for video," he says.
Just outside Westby is MWT's "head end" facility where satellite dishes collect signals and feed them into a compact, squeaky-clean building where they're processed for distribution through the wires. Inside, along with the processing equipment, there's an individual computer server for each of MWT's participating companies. They store all the information necessary to send the customers what they're paying for, and give each company control over its individual services and the ability to customize the look and feel of its product.
What's available from the system right now, in addition to TV, is voice communication (or as we used to say, telephone) and high-speed Internet service, all through the same phone line. Each service can be used simultaneously without interfering with the others.
During an early spring visit, five big dishes were in place and operating, with seven more scheduled to arrive by early last month. Video operations began in June 2002 and at the time of the visit, nearly 200 customers were connected to the service, and 120 channels were being received at the head end.
Once the customer base grows to 1,000, Olson says, it will become economically possible to offer on-demand video rentals with unlimited play during the 24-hour rental period and the ability to stop, pause, and restart, as if the customer were using his or her own videocassette player.
The system already can deliver Internet service through the television monitor. Using a wireless keyboard, it's possible to send and receive e-mail without a computer.

Meanings Large and Small

Big ideas can mean big changes, regardless of the size of the community. In small communities, some of the changes get noticed a little sooner.
One of the most direct and positive changes resulting from MWT's video operations is the hiring of five new employees—five brand-new jobs that never existed before in the community, Olson explains.
Another new thing being planned is a school network to offer coverage of area high school football and basketball games and to feature programming produced by local students.
The basic product now on offer is a digital fiber optic signal over about 200 miles of line with no "line loss," or deterioration over distance from the source. In the future, the same system could be used to read electric or water meters. Olson says some members have asked about using the system to conduct video monitoring for security purposes, and that could be coming as well. Virtually any device that can use IP addressing can be utilized over the network.
These capabilities haven't gone unnoticed outside the local area. Olson says companies as far away as Chicago are interested in the service provided by MWT.
Because each company that's part of MWT can offer its own local package, including its own unique lineup of television channels, how long the list of available services will be is something the members will pretty much determine for themselves.
The great significance of using the telephone line as the basic means of conveyance is that virtually anyone who wants MWT's growing array of services already has most of what's needed to receive them. That means a relatively rapid expansion of choices, in some cases for areas where historically the biggest concern hasn't been picking which way to obtain a service, but wondering when it would become available at all.
Rod Olson explains to the observers gathered in his boardroom that with their larger customer base and the purchasing power that goes with it, cable companies have lower programming costs, "but they charge more and they're raising their rates."
"They think we're just a little bump in the road for them," Olson says.
To which the most tech-savvy legislator in the room responds: "The market will hit them in the head."—Dave Hoopman

Communications
Complement
Editorial by Perry Baird

When it comes to magazine articles, we’ve found readers’ memories tend to be quite selective. They’ll remember facts in obscure detail from a story they’ve read, but frequently they can’t recall when they read it.
With shelves of bound volumes stretching from floor to ceiling in my office, the archived Wisconsin Energy Cooperative News and its predecessor publications (Wisconsin REA News and Wisconsin R.E.C. News) hold a wealth of words and images dating back almost 63 years. A week seldom passes where someone doesn’t call or write to get information about a story of photo seen on our publication’s pages.
“I think it was maybe a year and a half or perhaps two years ago that I read it,” a caller tells me, seeking a copy of some article. From experience, I know that can mean the reader saw it up to at least five years ago.

Archive Minding and Mining

My memory of when we ran something can usually place the item within a year or two back as far as the mid-1980s, narrowing searches a bit. But since each individual co-op prepares certain pages of its own for each issue, there’s always the possibility that the reader may be recalling something from those pages—where my memory gets hazy (and is getting worse with passing years). A comprehensive index would be nice, but we’ve never had the necessary time to devote.
But the wonders of cyber-technology are now making our archive explorations both quicker and more readily available to magazine readers.
Peppered throughout this month’s edition at page bottoms and in various stories and graphics is a brand-new Internet web address: www.wecnmagazine.com. It’s our official site, just launched within the past few weeks. Among other features, it contains a searchable archive of materials printed since February 2002.

Digital Derivatives

That month is significant in that it’s when we began totally producing our magazine using digital imaging technology—essentially generating finished pages in computer programs. The jump to that process put the materials in a form that can be put more easily on a web site, and that’s what precisely what we’ve done. The whole magazine is not on the web site, just the principal features and editorial, calendar of events, recipes (in an indexed archive), and selected information from the pages prepared by local electric co-ops.
Besides archiving, another advantage of the site is to make available some additional information to our readers. For instance, where space in the magazine may not permit full details of a particular story, cluster of recipes, monthly events calendar, or other item of interest, that extra material may be put on www.wecnmagazine.com. Plus, updates on developing issues of importance can be posted on a web site with more immediacy than is possible with a monthly magazine.
In short, it’s a new and useful supplement to the magazine that we want to continue developing, upgrading, packing with interesting content, and talking with you about. Your ideas and participation are welcome.

What Makes Mama Happy

A good friend of mine has this sign posted on his family’s refrigerator door: “When Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy!” For maximum happiness this May 11, think beyond the traditional Mother’s Day brunch or dinner. Instead, why not treat Mama to a day-long outing that includes her very favorite activities, as well as the traditional special meal? For many moms nationwide, those favorite pastimes include shopping, attending a special event or entertainment, or visiting a particularly interesting or beautiful site.
The shopping part is easy. Most Wisconsinites are within easy driving distance of a mall, but the whole family might find it more pleasant to stroll through one of our many towns that have unique shops and galleries, historic sites, and special eating establishments. For instance, take a drive to Mineral Point, where you can shop the antique shops and artisans’ studios. Pick up a one-of-a-kind treasure for Mom’s special-day gift, then stroll through Shakerag Alley, with buildings from the town’s mining past, and top your day off with a pasty from a Cornish restaurant. Other good towns for shopping, strolling, and munching include Bayfield, Hayward, Columbus, Augusta, Cedarburg, Wisconsin Dells, and Cambridge.
If Mama likes the arts, there’s an art fair in Marshfield on Mother’s Day, and several theater presentations are scheduled: a Groovy ’70s Review at Frank’s Dinner Theater in De Pere; The Odd Couple at the Hollywood Theatre Live, La Crosse; and The New Odd Couple at Eau Claire’s Fanny Hill Dinner Theatre, where both brunch and dinner performances are planned.
Some Wisconsin Historical Society sites will be open in time for Mother’s Day. Mama should love visiting the opulent Villa Louis in Prairie du Chien or the culturally diverse Old World Wisconsin near Eagle. The family with young children should especially enjoy the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, where the full summer program, including the big-top circus, swings into gear just in time for Mom’s holiday.
Most mothers love flowers, and beautiful displays are available at such showplaces as Janesville’s Rotary Gardens, the Green Bay Botanical Garden, the Boerner Botanical Gardens in Hales Corners, and Madison’s University of Wisconsin Arboretum and the Olbrich Botanical Gardens. As an added attraction, Olbrich features a Mother’s Day concert. No public gardens nearby? No problem! Take Mama to tour your area’s largest greenhouse, which should be bursting with color in mid-May. Then buy Mama some of her favorite blooms—and don’t forget to plant them for her when you get home!—Linda Hilton