services
Ethos offers comprehensive network consulting services to interested municipalities, companies, non-profits, and community organizations.
The Ethos Group can help your community plan your broadband services and identify the needs and priorities within your local community. Ethos can aid you with the development of contracts and requests for proposals, and provides legal assistance on all aspects of community broadband initiatives. Ethos can provide educational materials and trainings and our expertise extends to policy analysis at all levels of government, to antenna design and on-the-ground implementation. Our core principles are, "accessibility, accountability, & affordability" and our goal is to empower communities though broadband technologies.
Broadband Business Planning
The Ethos Group will be your guide, helping you develop the broadband network that maximizes the financial and social benefits for your community. Other consultants have predetermined economic biases that favor corporate profit. Ethos Group considers all of the options, from corporate ownership to municipal ownership to supporting community initiatives. We include often-overlooked variables and externalities such as future savings from new technologies and the long term economic benefit of local re-investment. In cities with programs to promote minority-, woman-, and locally-owned businesses, we offer an Economic Opportunity Plan that establishes potential economic impact in those areas and feasible targets for vendor and subcontractor spending.
Community Need Assessments
The Ethos Group works from the ground up, always prioritizing the particular needs of your community. We appreciate both the art and the science of conducting Community Needs Assessments (CNAs), and go beyond statistics and surveys to understand the human relationships that make your community unique and vibrant. The Ethos Group utilizes quantitative and qualitative measures -- creating a hybrid CNA methodology that captures both the breadth of perspectives, as well as the depth of understanding necessary to make highly informed and beneficial decisions. We strongly believe that the most successful broadband networks result from a process that sees people not as a cog in the machine, but as the driving force.
Contract Negotiation and Legal Assistance.
The Ethos Group draws upon dozens of years of legal experience working with communities throughout the United States. Ethos will guide you through the all stages of negotiating a contract with a vendor or network provider, constructing a multi-entity partnership, drafting requests for proposals, creating stakeholder memorandums of understanding, and all other aspects of building community networking infrastructures.
Policy Analysis
The Ethos Group will guide you through the constantly-changing web of local, state, federal, and international regulations, as well as the shifting trends in the private sector. The Group's research reports, blogs, and presentations offer many of the leading sources of independent information and analysis in the fields of municipal wireless networking and community Internet technologies. We can help you assert your own authority to build and benefit from the appropriate communications infrastructure. At Ethos the focus is on empowering communities to understand all of their choices and make an informed decision that fits their needs and priorities.
RFP Development and Issuance.
One of the most important steps in building the best broadband network for your community is knowing how to ask for it. After assessing your assets and goals, the Ethos Group works with your team to formulate a Request For Proposals (RFP) to meeting your needs and priorities. Issuing an RFP is a critical juncture in your network development. Too often, the developer builds the network infrastructure in accordance with its own vision rather than that of the community. With proper guidance and adequate due dilligence, Ethos will help keep your community in control of your digital future. A strong Community Benefits Agreement written into the process ensures that local residents know what to expect from their network and how to explain clearly to vendors and integrators what is expected of them.
Technical & Engineering Expertise
Participants in the Ethos Group have a track record of innovative wireless development that includes everything from hot spot provisioning in Austin, Texas; to open source mesh wireless R&D in Urbana, Illinois; to emergency response systems in New Orleans and throughout Lousiana, after Hurricane Katrina. Our principles of "Accessibility, Accountability, and Affordability" are core to all of our work. Our broad technical expertise allows us to approach your municipality as an opportunity for merging the best available technologies to meet your needs. Ethos treats each community as a unique setting rather than imposing a one-size-fits all solution. We will survey and troubleshoot your existing infrastructure, analyze your geography and topography, and assess your community's needs in order to devise the best solutions.
Wireless and Community Broadband Training
The Ethos Group offers educational presentations and materials to communities seeking to understand wireless and community broadband technologies and how to take full advantage of existing and future networks. Ethos offers everything from single-session introductory workshops for decisionmakers, to resource materials for the genral public and extended trainings for CIOs and systems administrators. all tailored to your local needs.