BusinessTN

Due to space constraints, the following letters to the editor appear in the April edition in abbreviated form. Printed here are the unedited version of those letters.

Dear Mr. Ruble:

My name is Marty Dickens and I'm President of BellSouth-TN. I have just finished reading Alexei Smirnov's piece in the February, 2006, edition of Business Tennessee entitled The Dark Ages. In my opinion it is obvious that Mr. Smirnov was on a mission to discredit TNII and along with it the state of Tennessee's OIR organization and BellSouth. He either did not gather all the facts or chose not to use them in his overtly biased reporting.

I'll take the liberty of mentioning just a few oversights or deliberate misrepresentations. Mr. Smirnov refers to the OIR facility in the Snodgrass tower as having "the aura of an antiquated Star Wars set, or perhaps a high school computer room from the mid-1990s." He goes on to say the bandwidth available is similarly outdated.

In truth, what he was referring to is the State Internal Help Desk. Apparently he didn’t recognize what he was seeing. Actually, the TNII Network Operations Center resides in Herndon, Virginia. Then there are the Quest Network Operations Center which monitors core links and the Cisco Technical Assistance Center which supports hardware and software. Finally, the BellSouth Business Repair Center monitors all BellSouth Circuits. All of these centers do their jobs 24/7, are comprised of the very latest technology, and are staffed with experts. Star Wars sets are imaginary. These centers are real, unlike Mr. Smirnov's allegations.

With respect to bandwidth availability, BellSouth and its partners are prepared to deliver speeds from 384k to multiple 10Gb. Once again, Mr. Smirnov was either ill informed or chose to ignore the facts. While BellSouth does have a lot of copper in its network, if Mr. Smirnov was on top of his game, he would know that it is the electronics that enable the network, both copper and fiber, to deliver the speeds and capacity that customers need.

It is either terribly disingenuous or ill preparation for Mr. Smirnov to use quotes like, "The current telecommunications model was built on a 100-year-old switch network approach," or to refer to Alexander Graham Bell promoting telephone service a century ago in an attempt to convince your readers that Tennessee is served by an inferior, outdated communications network. I wonder if Mr. Smirnov is aware that BellSouth has a state of the art broadband digital network that includes over 5.2 million miles of fiber, with over 600,000 miles of fiber in Tennessee alone and growing every year. Apparently not, since Mr. Smirnov makes the incredulous statement that "BellSouth and its counterparts in other states chose not to deploy their fiber optic-holdings en masse."

Mr. Smirnov referred to an index released in 2002 that he says did not include Tennessee on the list of the 25 leaders among U.S. states in deployment of broadband technologies. While I could not find any information to substantiate those facts, I wonder if Mr. Smirnov was aware of or just chose to ignore that in 2003, TNII won a National Association of State CIOs award for access. If you want to check it out, please go to www.nascio.org for detailed information. Also, I understand that the Gartner group delivered a detailed review of TNII to the state during the latter part of 2005. Did Mr. Smirnov bother to ask the state if there had been any recent independent reviews of the reliability, adequacy, performance, and costs of TNII. I would bet not since it would not support his agenda.

Just a couple of other points. BellSouth delivered a TNII statewide Internet2 solution over two years ago to higher education. The University of Tennessee never pulled "some of its research centers out of TNII." UT has never provisioned a TNII circuit, although TNII, through BellSouth and its partners, is prepared to meet their needs.

It is apparent that Mr. Smirnov doesn’t think very much of the state's OIR organization or of BellSouth. He is entitled to his opinion. However, credibility in journalism is essential even when the writer is using the article to express his personal opinion. Mr. Smirnov contacted me saying he was just trying to gain an understanding about what was happening related to the upcoming TNII contract renewal. I willingly talked with him and was as honest as I possibly could be about the facts that I knew. It is now apparent to me that Mr. Smirnov already had a "special interest" agenda and people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

Mr. Ruble, I'm sure you’ve heard the old saying "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me." I want you and Mr. Smirnov to know that I will not be fooled twice by Business Tennessee.

Sincerely, Marty Dickens

Dear Mr. Ruble:

We found the recent article titled "The Dark Ages" by Alexei Smirnov in the February, 2006 edition of Business Tennessee troubling on a number of levels. From the outset, the article’s tone and use of inflammatory language made it appear that this was not a work of objective journalism but rather a biased attack on the State’s wide area network. Further, the degree of factual inaccuracy within the article is alarming. It is not possible for us to judge whether this was due to a simple lack of understanding by Mr. Smirnov of the technologies involved, but the result was poor journalism on your part. Whatever the cause, the results do not fairly serve your readership, or the State of Tennessee. Following are examples of significant inaccuracies found within the article:

Smirnov writes: “High up in the William Snodgrass tower in downtown Nashville sits the network operations center of the Tennessee Information Infrastructure. It’s nothing fancy. There are a couple of big monitors on the wall, but overall, the place has the aura of an antiquated Star Trek set, or perhaps a high school computer room from the mid-1990s. Unfortunately, the bandwidth available here-the capacity of a communications channel-is similarly outdated.”

Our Office for Information Resources (OIR) operates the referenced Operations Center, which resembles that of any professionally managed network. The referenced center is actually the help desk for State Agencies and the Tennessee Board of Regents. The network operations center for TNII is located in Herndon, VA and provides support for the TNII portions of the overall state infrastructure. The OIR Network employs multiple management tools to synchronize service delivery monitoring and repair between these two centers. These management tools and practices are state of the art.

Mr. Smirnov writes in his article “…TNII’s service offerings can run as high as 155 megabits per second; in the far corners of the state, it is reduced to dial up speeds far below three megabits per second.”

This is simply not true. The backbone of TNII is fiber and, throughout the State, fiber is extended to sites with bandwidth requirements of 16 Mbps and above. TNII can run as high as 155 Mbps per second anywhere within the state and can grow to 10 gigabits per second. State of Tennessee end sites are provided connectivity at speeds based on their needs. The lowest speed currently provided to any of our end sites is 384 Kbps. Mr. Smirnov received documentation that provided a basis for an understanding of these facts.

In addressing performance Mr. Smirnov notes: “As long as the system works- there have been times when it didn’t- and performance trumps similar networks, in some neighboring states, operators seem content.”

In fact the reliability of the core typically has been 99.999% for the last 5 years. However, performance at 1275 end sites does not always mirror core reliability. Last-mile service is impacted by a number of variables, including twenty-six local exchange carriers required to ensure that connectivity is available to all areas of the state.

Every problem instance, including those of only a few seconds in the middle of the night to a closed office, is addressed. With twenty-four hour a day performance monitoring, OIR staff and our private sector contractors hold themselves accountable to deliver excellent service.

Mr. Smirnov states with reference to a 2002 State Broadband Index which ranks deployment of bandwidth technology, “Tennessee was not on the list.” The next paragraph states, “there should be little satisfaction in the cry “We’re number 40!’”

TNII was recognized as a 2003 NASCIO national award winner and is in fact the only network recognized by NASCIO for best use of Information Technology in State Government. TNII is a highly reliable fiber-based network that meets or exceeds daily end-user service level requirements. Tennessee is one of the first states to implement IP over ATM with MPLS technology. The applications currently running over the network for both state agencies and higher education can easily be managed over the TNII network. Only a handful of institutions within the state of Tennessee have a need for 10-gigabit access, which TNII has proposed to provide to the institutions.

Mr. Smirnov included in his article a quote from Brice Bible, U.T.’s chief information officer, “The current telecommunications model was built on a 100-year-old switch network approach.”

TNII is a custom built, carrier class, private network for the State of Tennessee. The network’s access links and core links are reserved and used only for the TNII customer base. The TNII network uses carrier class MPLS (Multi-Protocol Label Switching) to create multiple logical networks, as required, on the same private infrastructure. By carrier class we mean, extremely reliable, well tested and proven high-speed networks like those of telephone companies, major ISPs and large enterprises. It implies the use of products designed specifically to meet the capacity, performance scalability, availability and network management requirements of network service providers.

The article states: “In fact, the networks are so inadequate that the research-heavy U.T.-Knoxville was forced to pull some of its research centers out of TNII…”

Although there was a commitment by the University of Tennessee to join TNII, this did not occur. The University of Tennessee has never been on the TNII wide area network. Offers to provide the level of networking that UT went out and independently procured have also been rejected for reasons that remain unclear and do not seem to be tied to the capabilities offered.

Mr. Smirnov notes: “Ironically, Tennessee has an ample supply of the very thing needed to make TNII’s past difficulties and present lagging moot. Throughout the state, lying unlit and unused, there are thousands of miles of fiber optic cable…”

While Mr. Smirnov is correct that there are thousands of miles of fiber, he is incorrect about its disuse. Thanks to TNII the state has been making use of this fiber for the past five years.

Mr. Smirnov also notes: “Much to the relief of some of TNII’s critics, the state’s five-year contract for the management of its information network expires in the middle of this year, providing a perfect opportunity to examine other options.”

Much to the relief of TNII supporters, the TNII contract will not expire until April 2007, with the possibility of a transition period at current rates after that. On a daily basis, TNII provides options for state of the art network services to State Government, Education, and the Tennessee business community.

When viewed in total, these inaccuracies seriously undermine the premise of the article. In the future, we would hope that Business Tennessee would exercise the journalistic responsibility to closely review its content to ensure accuracy and bias-free reporting. We understand that bad news may be more interesting to report than good news. Nevertheless, TNII is a good network solution for the State of Tennessee and deserves to be fairly portrayed.

We sincerely appreciate you hearing us out on this matter and look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Bill Ezell CIO, State of Tennessee