At the direction of the General Assembly, the OSC initiated an objective assessment of the NCIH. In addition to OSC staff, this project involved over 15 individuals across the state with backgrounds in research and evaluation, independent contractors, interviews with key administrators in state and local government, and regional meetings with local officials.

The evaluation process consisted of three major initiatives:

The work of an Evaluation Committee
Interviews with principal players
Regional meetings with local government officials and community-based leaders

The evaluation methodology is described in Appendix C. The results of this evaluation are summarized in this section.

Lessons Learned

Although, the NCIH has been operational for the past 20 months it is important to understand that the technology being used is still a developing technology, and will be for the next 2-3 years. During the initial deployment of the NCIH, much has been learned about planning and implementation of inter- intra agency/department projects, telecommunications technology, support requirements, and benefits of the various applications. This valuable learning experience will enable the state to better focus its resources for future funding and deployment of the NCIH and related technologies. In summary, the primary lessons learned are as follows:

The NCIH was too focused on distance learning and did not include applications for state agencies and departments that would augment or replace existing services with more efficient solutions. This approach would have led to more demonstrable and measurable cost savings.
Consensus building and "buy-in" by the legislature, state agencies, and departments is essential to develop "ownership" and success in the implementation of the NCIH.
The planning of a project of this magnitude should be interwoven with the strategic plans of the state agencies and departments which it is intended to serve.
Startup funding has not been sufficient or consistent. The NCIH should have been viewed as a business investment in a strategic state infrastructure. This approach would have considered the full range of requirements for planning, applications development, training, implementation, and evaluation.
A better and expanded definition of the Information Highway is needed. The NCIH SONET/ATM option represents only the high-end backbone of a range of affordable communications options offered by the state.
There was an over-emphasis on educational video at the expense of data applications. Cost justification is usually more difficult for the video applications.
The lack of completely developed applications needing the high capacity of the NCIH, as well as lack of top-down commitment by central administrative agencies made deployment and support for the NCIH more difficult.
Although it would be difficult to over-emphasize the importance of statewide large bandwidth capability, the initial promises of the NCIH were more than could be delivered.
Alternatives for video should be provided for applications where NCIH quality and capabilities are not required and where high-end video service cannot be justified.
Interoperability between other video networks is not efficiently and centrally available to promote interstate and global video conferencing.
Staff support requirements are now better understood for user sites, especially video sites.
As soon as feasible, IXC bandwidth should be purchased differently. Recent deregulation of telecommunication entities will result in alternative providers at lower costs.
Users need training if they are going to effectively integrate new applications into their organizational practices. State agencies, educational institutions and others should partner to provide appropriate training. There should be a focused initiative to address these needs.
It is still too difficult to schedule a video session. An electronic interface, e-mail capability for coordination, and electronic browse capability for course offerings has to be addressed.
The first nine months of deployment resulted in more technical problems and downtime because of lack of trained support personnel in the local exchange carriers and equipment vendors.
Local exchange carriers should have had more time to test their switching hardware and software before major production deployment. This would have reduced technical and operational startup problems.

Results of Interviews

The interview process involved over 30 individuals consisting of both the NCIH staff and other principal parties representative of the NCIH user community. The purpose of these interviews was to document the successes and the problems associated with the initial deployment of the NCIH, and to get the respondents’ recommendations for future deployment. In addition to a general discussion about the NCIH, ten specific questions were asked of each person. These questions, with the most frequently mentioned comments, are listed below:

1. What are the major strengths/benefits of the NCIH?

High bandwidth was the most frequent response. Other comments included a platform for growth, statewide deployment, offering services that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to provide, and the investment by the telephone companies in a valuable infrastructure for the future.

2. What are the major weaknesses?

Cost (particularly the IXC costs), limited and erratic funding, the initial focus on video, scheduling difficulties, and lack of inter-LATA capacity.

3. How can the weaknesses be corrected?

Buy-in by the General Assembly in a communications infrastructure, addressing the data potential of the highway, the need for lower IXC cost and increased capacity, and building data hubs across the state were cited most often.

4. If we were starting the NCIH project today, what would you recommend that we do differently?

The predominant recommendations were: provide variable bandwidth at affordable prices, focus more on data usage, fund/purchase IXC differently, and do a better job of informing the General Assembly of the NCIH’s potential.

5. What is the major justification for using SONET/ATM technology?

Respondents believed that the technology chosen for the NCIH was the only communications technology that is future-oriented. It provides high quality, wide area scaleable bandwidth, offers the potential for bandwidth-on-demand, and allows connectivity with other networks.

6. If the General Assembly had $10M to spend on the NCIH, how would you recommend they allocate those funds? (For what and why)

The most frequently mentioned funding recommendations were: State funding of the IXC charges, developing regional data concentration hubs, connecting community colleges for regional multi-purpose video centers, and subsidizing existing NCIH sites.

7. How do you think the NCIH will be different in the year 2000?

Most respondents believe the NCIH will be a lower cost, heavily used backbone network with bandwidth on demand capability by the year 2000.

8. What, in your opinion, would make the NCIH cost-effective for your organization?

The most frequent responses to this questions were: Greater utilization of the NCIH sites, elimination of the IXC charges, and using the NCIH to change the way organizations do business.

9. What do you consider prime examples of uses, or planned or potential uses, of communications technology in North Carolina (NCIH or related technology)?

Improving the way organizations do business, providing citizen access to government information and services, improved access and lower cost for medical services, staff development and training at remote sites, and facilitating collaborative local and regional communications initiatives.

10. Are there any other issues that you think are relevant in terms of assessing the NCIH?

Responses to this broad-based question included the following comments:

The emphasis should be on connectivity versus the NCIH (i.e. ability to select the right technology for applications).
We have to deploy the NCIH for the entire state.
The NCIH will bring a knowledge-based economy to North Carolina.
The NCIH promotes data access and community networking.
Participating telephone companies should recognize slower growth, but not back away from their commitment.


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