Technet bears up with the times

The online pioneer hopes to meet market changes -- and its New Mexico mission -- with for-profit Oso Grande Technologies

By Dan Mayfield Tribune reporter

Y2K was a nonevent for most Internet service providers but not for New Mexico Technet. That's because the state's pioneer service chose Jan. 1 to launch Oso Grande Technologies Inc., its for-profit subsidiary.

After operating for almost 20 years as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit company, Technet is poised to compete with Internet service providers and Internet companies statewide through Oso Grande, which means "big bear" in Spanish. It will operate all of Technet's commercial business.

Profits will go partly to running, and growing, Oso Grande, but management stresses that profits will also support Technet's original nonprofit mission.

With the new subsidiary, Technet is hoping to open a new chapter on its long history. Technet jump-started the Internet revolution in New Mexico. Now it's hoping to become the premier Internet backbone company in the state.

Technet wants to provide more commercial services, such as digital subscriber lines (or DSL), wireless transmissions and other services.

However, privately operated ISPs complain privately that Technet will use its nonprofit status to gain a competitive advantage. Technet management counters that its core mission is still education and economic development.

"My desire," President Marlin Coffee said, "is to help facilitate the greatest level of connectivity."

He said Technet will focus on bringing businesses together and on bringing dial-up service to rural areas.

"We've got to teach the public to use this technology more effectively," said Terry Boulanger, chief operating officer. "Bandwidth is finite. We want to teach people to use the Internet more efficiently."

In the beginning

New Mexico Technet began life in 1983, before the Internet and before e-mail -- before most people even knew how important computers would be.

Boulanger, who has been with Technet since its earliest days, says it was a rough beginning, marked by insufficient funds, lack of direction and conflicting studies.

At that time Congress had passed enabling legislation to stimulate technology transfer.

In 1983, U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, who is still an ex-officio member of Technet's board, former New Mexico Gov. Bruce King and then-Gov. Toney Anaya helped secure financing for a study that asked what the state could do to take advantage of the tech- transfer legislation, Boulanger recalls.

The conclusion was that a statewide computer connection linking the labs and research universities in the state would foster tech transfer.

"Based on that study, Technet was founded," Boulanger says.

Seeded with $2 million from the Legislature and $1 million from the U.S. Department of Energy, Technet promised to become self-supporting in three years. It did.

The survey proposed a network from Las Cruces to Las Alamos that would allow non-military-related research to be shared electronically. But in 1983 there was no way to transmit data between New Mexico State University and Los Alamos.

In 1984 Mountain Bell (now US West) was asked if it had any plans to lay fiber optic cable in the near future. "They didn't have any plans until the early 1990s," Boulanger said. "We were behind."

After Domenici secured $1.3 million for the project, fiber was laid in 1986, Boulanger says. But the funds only covered construction, not maintenance or service.

With a DOE grant, Technet was designated to administer the network. "That grant was our start-up money," Boulanger says.

Technet began offering Internet access years before the term "information superhighway" was coined.

The DOE issued a study grant to determine the feasibility of the corridor. The results were disappointing; Research at the labs was so sensitive that the data couldn't be shared, no matter how sophisticated the system. "Which was the dilemma, you see," Boulanger says.

"Now what the hell do we do?" was the question everybody asked, said Carroll Cagle of Cagle & Associates Inc., who was working in public relations at Technet at the time.

"We didn't go back for more money" from the Legislature, Boulanger says. "We then looked at what we can do to benefit economic development and education."

Branching out

Technet began finding ways to offer services to companies and universities along the corridor. It became the first to offer e-mail. Then it branched out, offering access to state Motor Vehicle Division records, listing services for real estate agents and brokers, and services for banks, the oil and gas industry and insurers.

In 1989, through Technet, New Mexico became the first state with an electronic-filing system for personal income taxes.

"We had to look at what we could do to generate funds," Boulanger says.

They persuaded insurance agencies and car companies to use the services to speed up the registration process and check drivers' records.

That's how Marlin Coffee became familiar with Technet. As manager of the former Ed Black's Chevrolet in Albuquerque, Coffee used Technet to register new cars. Boulanger recalls that Coffee's eyes glazed when he listened to Boulanger's first pitch, but Coffee recalls the system spared customers a long wait in line at the MVD.

"It made it very efficient for customers and provided a higher level of customer service," Coffee says.

In 1988, when Technet was finally in the black, the National Science Foundation network, which also used Technet, grew and separated from Technet, leaving Technet as the only link in the state.

"It was the death of distance," Cagle said. "We had a statewide Internet."

The mission

Technet enjoyed better sailing until recent years, growing from six employees to 40.

As its mission statement calls for, it provided timely transfer of information among research labs, educational institutions, state government and the private sector. It supported specialized information needs, including technology transfer and joint research projects. And it extended the communications network and improved the delivery of services.

But as the Internet has grown, many of these services have become the domain of private companies. Even government agencies that once used Technet are finding ways to get on the Web themselves.

"Technet got us off the ground, but now we're doing it ourselves," says Bill Adkins, director of information technology at Computer Information Research and Technology at the University of New Mexico. CIRT maintains computers at UNM.

UNM stopped using Technet as its main provider about eight years ago and now operates on a limited basis with Technet. "They provide extra dial-up lines that we don't have," Adkins said.

The mission of the company has grown from providing a simple conduit for the labs to being an Internet service provider that provides 80 percent of the state's Internet backbone service.

Boulanger says the company fosters economic support by providing Internet service and dial-up connections to areas that don't have it, and by ensuring connectivity into and out of the state.

"Much of the business we have done is unique and different enough to establish our nonprofit status," Boulanger says.

Critics have questioned whether its programs are effective and observed that Technet could do more for schools.

"I think it comes from a lack of understanding," says Brian Harris, Technet's director of education services. "What else can we do? When you ask people to tell us where to redirect our efforts, then the criticism dries up."

Although the company offers free Internet access to any teacher in the state and provides computers through its recycling program, Cagle says, "You can't drive up and leave PCs on schools' doorsteps."

Educators need training and a maintenance budget, Cagle and Boulanger maintain.

"Point of fact, the programs provide tools, not the training," Boulanger says. "Education has to train educators."

Says Harris, "When you ask a teacher who already teaches the volleyball team to become the technology coordinator because he has some word-processing skills, that's not right."

Technet also supervises the New Mexico High School Supercomputing Challenge, a sort of programming Olympics using Los Alamos National Laboratory supercomputers.

And under its Computer Reruns program, you can leave your old IBM PC Junior or 8088 and Technet will rebuild it and give the computer to a needy school. Every year Technet executives travel to Mexico and give computers that are obsolete in New Mexico classrooms to Mexican schools.

"I think they've done yeoman's work on creating support and access," said Pat Vanderpool, Domenici's economic-development specialist. "In terms of helping build demand, Technet serves as an anchor in many communities."

In fact Technet has offered dial-up Internet service in many areas of the state that wouldn't have had it otherwise. "That is part of the economic-development part of our mission," Coffee said.

New chapter

Now as the Internet has become more commercial, the nonprofit that helped start it must also become more commercial, its supporters say.

In 1994 Technet started TFP (Technet for Profit) as a conduit for the company's for-profit business, such as Internet services and Web design.

But the market simply outgrew it, and it couldn't compete on the same playing field. As a nonprofit, it couldn't advertise, Boulanger said.

And the market changed. One of Technet's staples was government information, such as MVD records.

"There weren't any other companies doing that sort of stuff," Boulanger said. "Now, more and more companies are able to do the things we do. As that began to evolve, we needed to bring these services out of the nonprofit."

Coffee and Boulanger said they expect Oso Grande to become a major player in New Mexico.

It will target consumers who've been using other providers and try to offer a higher level of customer service and better connections.

Technet's experienced personnel will be an asset, they say.

Nothing will change for a consumer. If you get Internet service from Technet now, your bills will simply come from Oso Grande.

Mark Costlow, owner of Southwest Cyberport, says: "All of our suppliers have become competitors. It's beneficial for us because they lowered their prices for backbone services."

However, Costlow said, "They're getting aggressive with DSL, and we're going after the same customers."

Technet will also focus on moving technology to rural areas, which may be left behind in the e-commerce arena if they're not connected now, Coffee says.

"It's important, or we've failed in the economic mission in the state," Coffee said. "We don't want the citizens of the state to be passed up."

© The Albuquerque Tribune.

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