Canandaigua, New York -- Ontario County
Broadband
Economic Development
History
Canandaigua, is derived from the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) word for "Chosen Spot." To the City's direct South is Canandaigua Lake, one of the Finger Lakes in "Upstate" New York. Canandaigua was established in 1796 as a land grant office for much of the territory in Western New York State. The County of Ontario once stretched from the Pre-Emption line to the Western edge of the State of New York To its North was Lake Ontario and to its South was Pennsylvania. Over the centuries, some preposterous sounding ideas have arisen from our citizens, expatriates or guests: such as the Erie Canal, early sections of the New York State Thruway, Willys-Overland (later, Jeep), and more.
The most recent idea was to create a local development authority to specify the rights of way for a redundant fiber optic ring. The development authority will not provide telecommunications services. Brought forth and supported from an idea proposed by Senator Hillary Clinton, the Canandaigua Chamber of Commerce Broadband Committee began an ambitious quest to develop two fiber optic rings (designed by a vendor-neutral planner). Future participation by other counties is anticipated by proposed network paths, but such development is outside the scope of the development authority.
The Committee and adjunct Broadband Coalition meetings have resulted in a Local Development Authority seeded with money from Ontario County. Through traffic and existing service maps, we have managed to develop a proposal for a redundant fiber optic ring to provide telecommunications services throughout Ontario County. In addition to traditional fiber optic services for carriers, the rings can be used for private customers, disaster preparedness systems, digital divide solutions, and also should be robust enough to accommodate advanced research and commercial networks.
Ontario and other area counties must have interoperable communications for its own disaster plans as well as proposed multi-jurisdictional all hazard plans. The Broadband Committee has examined several types of disaster plans, relying on fiber when operational and other services in the event of service interruption. One system was meant to transport text messages across a number of platforms.
A Chicago / Upstate group of companies proposed developing a framework for disaster preparedness which would allow for the development of a comprehensive system of best practices. A 2003 template of a less densely populated region (the Finger Lakes) was proposed for several reasons.
- Extremely dense populated regions may have secondary disaster planning issues caused by an evacuation.
- Extremely dense populated regions will have a greater number of service agencies to coordinate.
- Extremely dense populated regions are not a underserved as less densely populated regions.
- In terms of land mass, there are a greater number of less densely populated regions.
See, "All Hazard" Disaster Preparedness Framework and Disaster Preparedness
Canandaigua is positioned at the edge of a rather significant digital divide. Just miles to the north, the New York State Thruway contains fiber optic lines. The City of Rochester and the surrounding region boast a wealth of telecommunications and cable access. However, the south of Route 5 & 20, access to high speed communications is limited. Part of one of the Ontario County rings would enter Yates County. Yates and other Finger Lakes Counties may have the least amount of telecommunications and cable access in New York State.
One of the most ambitious research networks is the National Lambda Rail www.nlr.net which was consolidated with Internet 2 ( http://www.internet2.edu ), in June of 2005. The addition of I2 makes it more likely that Ontario County may be able to connect to the National Lambda Rail even if it is not a direct connection. Suggestions include providing connection from Cornell's Agricultural Park in Geneva to Infotonics in Canandiagua.
See,“Will There be a High Speed Depot Upstate?”
What is Lambda Networking and a LambdaGrid?
Lambda networking is essentially about using different 'colours' or wavelengths of (laser) light in fibres for separate connections. Each wavelength is called a 'lambda'. In lambda networking, the goal is to achieve ultimate Quality of Service by giving applications and user communities their own sets of lambdas on a shared fibre infrastructure, thus isolating the different communities from each other.
The implementation requires Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) to accommodate many wavelengths on a fibre, optical switches, and other optical networking equipment. Initially, Grid computing and other Grid applications have made use of best-effort, shared TCP/IP networks. In other words, the network is simply the glue that holds the middleware-enabled computational resources together.
In contrast, GLIF is interested in developing "application-empowered" networks, in which the networks themselves are schedulable Grid resources. These application-empowered deterministic networks, or "LambdaGrids", complement the conventional networks, which provide a general infrastructure with a common set of services to the broader research and education community.
A LambdaGrid requires the interconnectivity of optical links, each carrying one or more lambdas, or wavelengths, of data, to form on-demand, end-to-end 'light paths', in order to meet the needs of very demanding e-science applications.
The main application drivers for these new 'application-empowered' networks are high-performance e-science projects. E-science consists of very large-scale applications - such as high-energy physics, astronomy, earth science, bio-informatics and the environmental sciences - that study very complex micro- to macro-scale problems over time and space. In the future, these networks will conceivably also be taken up in other application domains, including education, emergency services, health services and commerce.
In the coming decade, e-science will require distributed petaops computing, exabyte storage, and terabit networks.
See, Global Lambda Integrated Facility See, http://www.glif.is/about/
Unlike other sections of Upstate, New York, Ontario County is growing. Jobs creation in Ontario County lags the growth rate and the population growth is not evenly distributed. Telecommunications services vary from high speed in the northern section of the County, to less services south of Routes 5 & 20 which connects the North ends of the Finger Lakes (based on an Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) trail called the "Ambassador's Trail").
As 5 & 20 represents the edge of a digital divide, it is also near the edge of an economic production divide. Corporate presence is more highly represented in the Northern section of the County. Eastview Mall, on the Northwest edge of the County is a major retail center. However, the number of residences near the Finger Lakes (South of 5 & 20) represents some of the most expensive land in the country. Although largely rural, the wealth base within the digital divide is represented by a significant group of full time and summer residents. The rural base does include Mennonite and Amish communities that are less likely to participate in advanced telecommunications services themselves, but who may work with companies that do -- in order to sell their goods.
Also South of 5 & 20, is the Finger Lakes Wine Region. A 2005 ruling has opened the door for New York Wine growers to sell their products directly outside of the State of New York. 2005 may also be a vintage year for Finger Lakes Wineries. The New York Wine & Culinary Center will open in 2006, to promote wines of several New York wine producing regions.
Ontario County will be the home for a New York Centers of Excellence and the Cornell Agriculture & Food Technology Park.
The lake resort town of Canandaigua, New York is expected to emerge as one of New York's Centers of Excellence in fiber optics and MEMs technology. New York State, Ontario County, private companies, institutions of higher learning and others plan to work together to create business synergy. Canandaigua's Infotonics will be a leader in investigating, helping to secure funding and participating in manufacture of innovative products.
The Infotonics Technology Center Inc. (Infotonics) is a not-for-profit corporation that operates New York State 's Center of Excellence in Photonics and Microsystems. Infotonics is structured as a consortium whose founding participants include Corning, Inc., Eastman Kodak Company, and Xerox Corporation. Academic participants include some 20 New York State colleges and universities. Infotonics' goal is to establish a unique, world-class research and development facility to enable rapid commercialization of new products. This initiative will provide major benefits to the region, including creation of jobs and attraction of new companies and investment revenue.
The mission for Infotonics is to create 5,000 new jobs. At somewhat under 50 employees in 2005, it has a significant amount of work left to be done. Infotonics tenant, Javelin Associates, Inc. has provided significant growth opportunities in helping the labs to partner with National and International Laboratories. Javelin Associates, Inc. also holds meetings of the Rochester Federal Subcontracting Initiative at Infotonics.
The lake resort town of Geneva, New York is expected to complete the Cornell Agriculture & Food Technology Park. At the 2004 groundbreaking, Governor Pataki stated that the Center will "secure the economic future of Geneva and the Finger Lakes region and become a driving force in attracting new high-tech and biotech jobs." Construction is proceeding on the first of many buildings that will eventually settle in the Cornell Ag & Food Technology Park (CAFTP), a 72-acre site adjacent to the New York State Experiment Station in Geneva. The initial structure is a Flex Technology building which will provide space for several firms that are expected to create opportunities for up to 80 new jobs. Ultimately the park is expected to generate several hundred new jobs over the next decade.
Like many other counties in Upstate, New York, there are a number of development offices in Ontario County, some of the cities and villages. Unlike other counties, Ontario County is beginning to privatize in order to be able to provide development assistance and to break free of some civil service restrictions. Population growth and a healthy tax base give some promise that Economic Development is likely, but the promise of growth as not been matched to keep pace with investment. Incentives and modernization away from traditional manufacturing loans may help these agencies accomplish their mission.
In preparing a report for the Ontario
County Office of Economic Development, Peter Fairweather, of "Fairweather
Consulting, noted that the presence of these new research and development
centers in Ontario County will require new approaches to economic development,
which he has identified." (See http://www.ontariocountydev.org/ontario/publish/Mike_s_Message_10_03.shtml
)
"According to Fairweather, the update of the economic development strategy
comes down to one question: "What must Ontario County do to harvest the new
opportunities so that industries stay and grow in Ontario County, rather than
drifting to existing high-tech locations elsewhere." It is a question he
addresses through a five-step process:
(1) a review of conditions that are benchmarked against other technology-led centers,
(2) an assessment of the County and its economic development efforts,
(3) the recommendation of a strategic position for the County to take in competing in this new arena, including the industries it should target for attraction, retention and expansion,
(4) identification of the programmatic elements that should be involved in that response,
(5) options for structuring the County's ED programs."
Ontario County has a historical reputation for innovation, even if the innovation does not inure to the benefit of the County. While Ontario County has been the adopted home or birthplace of visionaries, the visions may gain more prominence than the persons who conceived of the visions. So too, may the County may be less the beneficiary of ideas than the Country at large. County History may also highlight cautionary messages for proponents of the County's Broadband Initiative.
Much of Ontario County is West of the Pre-emption Line defined by the 1786 Treaty of Hartford. Further west than the Ft. Stanwix Treaty Line, the Preemption Line represented claims by Massachusetts on lands which are now New York (for negotiation rights with the Haudenosaunee [Iroquois] Nation). A land grant office in Canandaigua was established to sell tracts of land in the new State of New York. Unlike Land Patents issued by the United States Government the land of Upstate was sold by States and / or private citizens.
Oliver Phelps and Nathaniel Gorham, both of Massachusetts purchased Massachusetts rights to 6 million acres for $1 million. All of Western New York was part of the original "Ontario" County. Military lands East of Seneca Lake and a strip between the preemption line on the west and Seneca lake on the east was transferred to Ontario County. The Treaty of Buffalo Creek allowed Phelps and Gorham the land east of the Genesee River and a section called the Mill Yard Tract, west of the Genesee River.
Economic troubles caused Phelps and Gorham to allow the lands west of the Genesee River to revert back to Massachusetts. Massachusetts sold the land to Robert Morris in 1791, who sold part of the land to the Holland Land Company after securing rights to the land in the "Treaty of Big Tree." Morris reserved part of the land for himself. (See, Map). Morris later took over other unsold lands of the Phelps and Gorham purchase east of the Genesee (The Pulteney Purchase). Part of the Morris land eventually became Letchworth State Park.
One of the early jails of Canandaigua the Pitts Hotel is gone and in its place is a park called "The Commons." Oliver Phelps died in one of the early jails, imprisoned for debt. See, http://www.correctionhistory.org/sheriffs/ontario/html/ontariojails_cindysjail01.html (Cindy L. Allen-Tucceri, The History of the Ontario County Jail: 1789 - 1995)
Another famous tenant of the Ontario County jail system was Jessie Hawley, who wrote under the pen name "Hercules." See, http://www.history.rochester.edu/canal/bib/hosack/APP0T1.html Abandoned by his partner, Henry Corl when their flour business failed, Jessie jumped bail. While his eventual return to Canandaigua and surrender to the authorities may have resulted in his advocacy of the ideas for the creation of a canal across New York, it is an event during his escape that may have fueled his fervor for proposing the venture. After his escape to Pittsburgh, PA, Mr. Hawley encountered reports of Jefferson’s second inaugural message.
Mr. Hawley returned to Canandaigua to surrender himself. As fortune would have it, the prison was equipped with Mr. Ellicott's map of the Holland purchase and a representation of the change in elevation from Lake Erie to calculate that the elevation change from Lake Erie to Utica was 450 feet at a distance of 200 miles.
Using maps in the Canandaigua jail, Hawley sketched the route for a man-made waterway, linking Lake Erie to the Hudson River. He wrote fourteen articles detailing the concept, benefits, route, and cost for an idea that many ridiculed as “the effusions of a maniac.”In 1809, a member of the Ontario County legislature took the articles to Albany for investigation. Mayor of New York City, Dewitt Clinton, took up the cause. The canal became his political passion as he became Governor of New York. Ground was broken for the Erie Canal in 1817.
http://www.footprintpress.com/FingerLakes/erie_canal.htm
[John Rutherford], 1760-1840, Facts and observations in relation to the origin and completion of the Erie Canal. New York, N.B. Holmes, 1825.
A whole book about the Erie Canal appears at http://www.history.rochester.edu/canal/bib/rutherford/fact1825.htm
http://www.history.rochester.edu/canal/bib/hosack/APP0T.html
The Thruway was not a brainchild of Ontario County, but it may have been it's testing ground. The Victor to Canandaigua leg of the New York State Thruway was the first section of "Thruway" was opened as a freeway, which was completed in 1948, even though the actual Thruway construction would not begin until the mid 1950s. The 115 mile Lowell to Rochester section was operated as a toll road beginning in 1954.
The Thruway Authority Act of 1950 provided geographical names for each of the Thruway's sections: Southern Westchester, Hudson, Catskill, Mohawk, Ontario, Erie, Berkshire, New England and Niagara. Subsequent legislation also named these sections for old Indian trails: the Iroquois Trail (the mainline between New York City and Buffalo), the Erie Path (the Erie Extension), the Mohican Path (the New England Thruway), the Algonquin Path (the Berkshire Extension) and the Tuscarora Path (the Niagara Extension).