A network of small, local Internet providers could start up here, each one responsible with delivering service to their specific neighborhood. Tapping into the power of Montgomery’s nearly two-year-old Internet exchange — which hit 100-gig capacity earlier this year — could mean low prices at blazing speeds.
That’s one plan being proposed by Netelysis owner Boyd Stephens, one of the engineers of the area’s burgeoning tech and startup scene. The exchange known as MGMix has added capacity, partners and traffic at breakneck speed so far, but local consumers haven’t seen much of an impact. Stephens said that’s because service providers would have to connect under a peering agreement and then pass along any savings to their customers.
So he’s taking a DIY approach, bringing in experts to train entrepreneurs on the technology behind fixed wireless Internet — the kind of tech that AT&T recently deployed to parts of rural Montgomery. That technology and others could empower “a citizen-owned ISP,” he said.
“Maybe in my neighborhood I’m responsible for keeping that leg working,” Stephens said. “Then the citizen price point really drops. Now you have a situation where I can beat you in price, I can match you in performance, and I really care because these are my neighbors.”
“The only thing large businesses understand in the telecommunications industry is when you take their customers.”
Stephens has plenty of room to hold the training classes at the new CoWerx46 building on Commerce Street downtown. It’s a building with a few tenants but plenty of empty space, where most of the work that’s been done is out of sight, in the wires under the floor or in the server behind a wall.
It’s a fitting new home base for someone who’s become a Pied Piper of the tech scene and its potential. During the past few years he has led startup classes and helped organize the HackMGM group of local techies, which fed into an open city data initiative and the area’s first Code for America Brigade.
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Now, the Brigade is led by a tech-savvy serviceman from the nearby Air Force base and Stephens has moved on to other things.
“My mentors always taught me that your measure of success is your grandchildren,” Stephens said. “What I’m able to do now is to step back and watch others, and help others through the process, and I’m having a ball.”
These days, Stephens spends a lot of time speaking to kids in schools and colleges around the area to spread the word about the opportunities and how to take advantage of them. That includes a speech to a group of about 800 high schoolers at an event associated with the Air Force Information Technology Conference this summer.
His message to them: The tools are out there, and they’re usually free. “Maybe instead of spending four hours on Facebook a night, maybe you need to be spending four hours on how Facebook works,” Stephens said.
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He’s also talked to elementary and middle school-aged kids. Their parents often ask him what kind of computer to get their kid in order to prepare them for a tech career. Get a book instead, he said.
“They don’t need a computer,” Stephens said. “They’re going to get exposure to technology just by living in this world.
“(Tech knowledge) is all written down somewhere in a book. My greatest challenge is teaching a 20-year-old to have enough patience to sit down and read a book. You can’t teach that to a 20-year-old. You teach that to a 5-year-old.”
Still, he sees a lot of talent out there. He and others are trying to nurture it by spreading the word on where to get resources, or hands-on education programs such as teaching computer science concepts with flash cards. He doesn’t get excited talking about a new server, but he does when he talks about teaching 9- to 12-year-olds in Tuskegee out to count in other base numbering systems.
And he understands that some people may be upset that the city has not yet been transformed into an Austin-style tech haven.
“It’s like farming,” Stephens said. “If you’re looking for some fruit, you don’t see that for a long time if you’re the consumer. The farmer understands you’ve got to plow, and plant and you’ve got to have germination. He can’t become upset if the consumer becomes a naysayer.”
©2017 the Montgomery Advertiser (Montgomery, Ala.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
