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- Focusing on Community Revitalization using the CATV Network as a Backbone Information Grid[1]
Focusing on Community Revitalization using the CATV Network
as a Backbone Information Grid[1]Tsuruga City, Fukui Prefecture
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You won’t see any television antennas on the roofs of houses in Tsuruga City. That’s because the cable television (CATV) subscription rate is a high 97%. CATV service is provided by Reinan cable network Co. Ltd. (RCN), a company the city manages under the third sector system. While working to develop projects such as multi-channel delivery, create community-based programming and provide Internet connection service, RCN also currently manages the regional portal site “menet” through broadcasting and communications cooperation and is addressing interactive communications based on construction of a contents management system (CMS), and planning services using “WiMAX” wireless broadband technology.
Tsuruga City
| ■Location : | Located in the center of Fukui Prefecture. The city opens to Tsuruga Bay to the north, and is enclosed by mountains to the south and southeast and plains in other areas. |
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| ■Area : | 250.74 sq. km. |
| ■Population: | Population: 68,908 people and 27,013 households (As of March 31st, 2007) |
| ■History : | Located in an area enjoying brisk exchange with the Asian continent from ancient times, the city during prospered the Edo Period as a way station for “Kitamaebune” (literally northern-bound ships). In the Meiji Era, the first railway was opened on the Sea of Japan side of Japan, and as regular shipping routes were established to countries such as Russia across the Sea of Japan the city developed as an international port city. Today the city is pursuing an urban development plan that defines the city’s future image as “Tsuruga—port city in touch with the world and an attractive travel destination.” The municipal government system was created in 1937, when Tsuruga Town merged with Matsubara Village to form Tsuruga City. In 1955 Arachi Village, Awano Village, Tougou Village, Nakagou Village and Higashiura Village were incorporated into the municipality as well, forming Tsuruga City as it exists today. |
Focus on Community Public Broadcasting
“RCN’s community-based information programming and portal site were created with the collaboration of many people, including individuals in the local communities, of course, as well as people in the city offices, the prefectural police and firms in the city,” says Mr. Tomohide Ogishi, Chief of RCN’s Engineering Services Section. “That’s because our most important function is to input local information at points where it originates. Even things such as the town bulletin board that can be viewed by data broadcasts are input by the heads of the city wards themselves. RCN’s role is characterized by the fact that activities such as input on the operating side require almost no effort, because we’ve improved usability and security to a very high degree.”
RCN was established in 1986. After putting its infrastructure in place, it launched broadcasting activities for all areas of the city in 1989. On the other hand Tsuruga City, which was promoting a community information plan in cooperation with RCN, declared the “construction of an integrated government information service system” and “expansion of the local information delivery infrastructure” as goals in the “Fifth Tsuruga City Comprehensive Plan” drafted in 1997. The former was intended to achieve an “electronic town hall,” while much of the latter has been achieved in cooperation with RCN.
The city positioned the CATV network as the backbone information grid for community information, and backed up this effort completely. Through efforts such as local briefings to increase CATV penetration, RCN also promoted a multi-channel, high-resolution network and vigorously called for focusing on local public broadcasts, including government information, local information and disaster information utilizing data broadcasting functions.
The first project using the CATV network as infrastructure was an Internet connection service launched in 2000. Since then, RCN has rolled out new services every year, including interconnection with Mikata Cable Network Co., Ltd. (2002), full digitalization of all channels (2003), IP telephone service (2004) and FTTH service (2005).
Based on the “community public broadcasting” promised in the local briefings, in 2006 the city introduced, at an investment of roughly 160 million yen, its unique contents management system (CMS) enabling interactive exchanges of local data. As a result, citizens themselves can become senders of information provided they have registered an ID and password beforehand. Because of the need to observe broadcasting standards, however, an approval function is applied to the information viewers can publish, and the quality of broadcasts is maintained.
With the introduction of this CMS, the volume of data RCN broadcasts has increased to three or four times the volume of a typical CATV station. The specific details are described below, but as a result of increasing the added value of the core cable network through broadcasting and communications cooperation, the cable network subscription rate is currently an extremely high 97%. In addition, RCN holds an 80% market share within the city as an Internet and services provider (ISP).
According to Mr. Ikuo Yoshizawa, Subsection Chief of RCN’s Telecommunications Section, “Promotion of community information is RCN’s major mission. We put greater priority on the public interest than on profitability. That’s the reason we’ll run cable to a single home if a resident wants service, even if it’s deep in the mountains where there’s no way we can recover the capital investment. The issue today, now that infrastructure construction has slowed, is the diffusion of set-top box (STB) boosters so subscribers can watch digital broadcasts.”
For digital broadcasting, that means attractive contents. The service positioned as the primer for the spread of STB is “menet,” a local portal site to link to digital broadcasts that currently is attracting lots of attention. In the following section I’ll introduce the various attractive contents for that site, together with comments from residents who are the site’s users.
