1.
“WHAT DO YOU
THINK ABOUT ONCE
YOU DON’T HAVE TO WORRY
ABOUT BANDWIDTH
ANYMORE?”
STRATEGIC PLAN 2016
ROSS WILSON
WISCNET BOARD OF DIRECTORS

2.
January 2011
n behalf of the WiscNet Board of Directors, it is my great pleasure to introduce you to our strategic plan for
the next five years.
A good friend once told me there is nothing that will tire an audience faster than presenting a strategic
plan to them. But this new plan has me excited and energized. It may be the Board’s best-ever direction-setting
effort. So let me grab just a couple of big ideas from the plan and challenge your imagination.
The first big idea is “Growing.” We’ve used the phrase “Grow Smart” for several years, most importantly to describe
our unlimited usage network participation pricing model and to signal our collective challenge to push the network
harder to produce new and innovative results. Our Grow Smart concepts remain in this plan but now Grow Smart
evolves yet again: All of the new plan’s goals push us to grow, grow, grow! We cannot be satisfied with what we have
done and we must keep pushing and go further as our members will need more services, more advanced technology,
and more tools. Grow, grow, grow smart! It is our mantra, our challenge and it really motivates us!
The Board also gave us a new vision statement, “We connect the World to Wisconsin and Wisconsin to the World!,”
which expresses the second big idea that I want to highlight: “Connecting.” The first half of the vision statement
(“…connect the World to Wisconsin …”) challenges us to provide many ways to readily connect our members, regardless
of location, to information from around the world. This is a big challenge but it’s also an important piece of what we
have done for many years. It’s the second half of the vision statement (“…connect…Wisconsin to the World”} however,
that is even more exciting, challenging and amazing. Through it, WiscNet asserts that Wisconsin is a valuable producer
of 21st
century innovations and that the World needs us to connect to our Wisconsin innovators and innovations.
We connect communities in new and innovative ways. We connect major universities with technical colleges, libraries,
and K12 schools, making us a 21st
century education powerhouse. We are actively bridging the divide between the
public-and private sectors. We connect hospitals to public safety experts in new, advanced ways. These are all
wonderful assets and their value goes well beyond Wisconsin’s border.
Our strategic plan sets out new goals for building more networks, connecting more people, and creating more services,
with all these goals directed to supporting our members as you grow and provide new services, new ideas, new
methods of teaching, and as we all serve the world. In short, our attitude towards our members and our common work
is “Grow Smart!”
I do hope that you find time in your busy schedules to read the entire plan, maybe over of a hot cup of tea or a cold
beer, as I am sure you will find things that catch your interest. I do think you will find goals whose pursuit will make
your jobs easier and more exciting. When you do find a goal that really strikes you, please feel free to share your
excitement with your fellow WiscNet Board directors, the folks around you, or with me. We would love to hear from
you.
Growing smarter together,
David J. Lois
Executive Director of Your WiscNet
O

3. STRATEGIC PLAN 2016
page 1
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Our mission is to fortify research, education, and public service with
advanced communication technologies. It is done in partnership.
It is accomplished by strengthening the association, the members, and the
communities to which we belong. It is championing the Wisconsin Idea by
advancing high-performance networks and services that extend member
resources throughout the state and beyond.
We connect the World to Wisconsin and Wisconsin to the World!
WISCNET 2016 GOALS
The goals described in this plan represent an evolutionary path that maintains the critical
components of our success, yet leads our association to grow and work together in new ways.
GROW THE PEOPLE NETWORK
We will connect the people in and around our association and help grow
collaborations that advance research, education and public service in Wisconsin
and beyond.
GROW MORE NETWORKS FOR WISCONSIN
We will continue to grow the advanced network infrastructure that our members
share. We will help our members and community partners grow and connect their
own advanced networks.
GROW SERVICES BEYOND THE NETWORK
We will partner with our members to adapt and grow their innovative solutions
into trusted services that other members will value. We will grow our service
portfolio by rapidly seeding and winnowing new services.
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4. STRATEGIC PLAN 2016
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GROW THE PEOPLE NETWORK
WiscNet connects people. We create opportunities for our community to grow
collaborations and share strategies. We work together to articulate needs and then we
build connections, advance strategies and create services that solve the real-world
problems of our members.
Grow the Value of Membership
During our twenty plus years, we’ve seen at first
hand how a high degree of personal connection can
become the strength needed to drive innovation
and change. It is the WiscNet community that will
advance our mission and we will grow the value of
this asset by creating more opportunities for our
members to connect and work together.
We will connect people and nurture personal
connections through regular interactions that build
trust and camaraderie. We will accelerate
meaningful exchanges by helping the people in our
WiscNet community find and work with trusted
colleagues. Our members will connect through in-
person and over the network meetings, shared
learning opportunities and member-driven
exchanges for ideas and resources.
A well-designed “people network” lets the people
that our members serve and employ make simple
and intuitive use of our most valuable resource:
each other.
Engage Beginners and Experts
Every person brings both expertise and questions to
our table. We will not only provide beginners with
valuable opportunities to learn, but we will also
connect experts with trusted colleagues with whom
to share opinions, best practices and lessons
learned.
Since our people are the continuing source of our
community’s successes, our simple design is to
welcome all people to WiscNet.
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5. STRATEGIC PLAN 2016
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Encourage Members to Innovate
When our community created WiscNet twenty plus
years ago, no one knew then what our members
would come to do now with the Internet. Similarly,
we have little idea now how we will use our
advanced networks in the coming ten to twenty
years.
But we will put the network to new uses. And we
are ready now to encourage and support our
members to continue “changing the game” to meet
their needs by pursuing innovative strategies.
We’re committed to a cycle of community
engagement, innovation, and advancement that
uses our “people network” to create, test and
deploy new services for our members.
Be Human
We appreciate that our membership includes a
wide range of personalities. We’ve learned to talk
directly with people and offer the same practical,
informal assistance that we would offer a neighbor
who asks a question. We know that we don’t know
everything and that no strategy is perfect, however
well-intentioned, but we will offer genuine service
with our members’ best interest in mind.
Good service maintains trust and establishing our
reliability starts with the basics. For example, we
will continue to ask for feedback and act on that
feedback. We’re also committed to regular,
effective, and open communications among our
staff, membership and board of directors.

6. STRATEGIC PLAN 2016
page 4
GROW MORE NETWORKS FOR WISCONSIN
During our twenty plus years together, our members have grown an advanced network
that moves tens of gigabits per second across Wisconsin and beyond. While we will
continue to grow our shared network, we will also take a thoughtful and strategic step
forward by working to grow other high-performance networks. We want to help our
members and community partners –- public and private -- grow and connect many
networks that will move hundreds of gigabits per second, enabling Wisconsin and our
communities to advance in the 21st
century and beyond.
Grow Community Area Networks
In brief, Community Area Networks are local
economic development opportunities through 21st
century technologies. They create a platform for
community-based services to make the public
sector more efficient and the private sector grow
locally. They connect the community in new and
innovative ways.
We anticipate (and encourage) a growing number
of our members to connect to each other through
advanced Community Area Networks. These
Community Area Networks are locally controlled
and will “scale up” cost-effectively to backbone
speeds that will support diverse organizations,
widespread facilities, and advanced applications.
The success of Community Area Networks will
depend on three factors: building a robust optical
fiber infrastructure for the community’s shared
region, growing a collaborative association of
community partners who will govern the network
and sharing resources in new and innovative ways
within the local public and private sectors.
To assist with these factors and build on WiscNet’s
membership strategy, we will support and offer
services to any Community Area Network
association, to which our members belong, that
wants to share network-based services that benefit
their institutional missions and their shared region.
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7. STRATEGIC PLAN 2016
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Advance the WiscNet Network
Our multi-state backbone network will remain the
foundation for our WiscNet community and the
services we share. We will continue our strategy to
acquire and light optical fiber that allows us to
operate a highly scalable and economical backbone
network.
To meet the advanced needs of our members, we
will continue to augment our backbone network
with new optical paths, examine new technologies
and protocols, and upgrade our deployed
infrastructure.
Accelerate Global Communications
Our members want to push their research,
education and public service activities beyond
community and state borders. Our members also
want to establish global collaborations that draw
together national (and international) experts and
data. The WiscNet backbone network allows for
opportunities like these because it has a robust,
scalable multi-state infrastructure with multiple
international connections.
Our continuing roles in efforts like BOREAS-Net the
Northern Tier Network, the Great Plains Network,
and CIC OmniPoP will serve to strengthen our high-
speed regional, national and international
connections that engage our members globally.
Make U.S. UCAN a Success for
Wisconsin
Funded in 2010 by the Federal Broadband
Technology Opportunities Program, the United
States Unified Community Anchor Network (U.S.
UCAN) will become a nationwide advanced network
infrastructure that, together with state and
regional network partners (including WiscNet), will
enable the connection of America's community
anchor institutions to support advanced
applications not possible with today's typical
Internet service. U.S. UCAN fills a critical gap
linking community anchor institutions together into
a national, open network with next-generation
capabilities, operated with end-to-end
transparency and the highest levels of performance
uniquely suited to the needs of their communities.
As U.S. UCAN’s partner, and because it constitutes
a national endorsement of WiscNet’s model for
providing advanced network services to diverse
anchor institutions, we will serve our members’
strategic interests through influencing the policies
and leveraging the resources that U.S. UCAN will
deploy in Wisconsin and in our multi-state service
region.
Fulfill the National Broadband Plan
For Wisconsin
Twenty plus years ago, we brought the Internet to
Wisconsin by educating, promoting, developing,
and sharing everything we learned about this “new
Internet thing” with our public and private sectors.
The Internet changed the world and WiscNet
changed Wisconsin.
We now must leverage those lessons learned to join
with other statewide and community organizations
to successfully deploy universally available and
affordable advanced broadband to all Wisconsin
communities. Our guide here will be the Federal

8. STRATEGIC PLAN 2016
page 6
Communications Commission’s National Broadband
Plan.
The National Broadband Plan asserts that
Americans do not have access to universally
available and affordable advanced broadband
services, and hence, we will continue to lose our
local, regional and global competitiveness until and
unless we provide such services.
We believe that the WiscNet community must
contribute our knowledge and resources to press
for the implementation of the National Broadband
Plan in Wisconsin.
Achieve Broadband Success
Through Public/Private Partnerships
A common strategic theme articulated in the
National Broadband Plan and the Federal
Broadband Technology Opportunities Program is
that “comprehensive community broadband
infrastructures” should use public/private
partnerships to meet our advanced broadband
needs.
To fully succeed in achieving our WiscNet
community’s growth strategies, we will develop
relationships with private partners who want to
cooperate on building a shared advanced
broadband infrastructure. Serving the needs of our
community anchor institutions requires access to
optical fiber infrastructure. Whether it's built or
bought, we are eager to work with our private
partners to make innovation happen.
Key to fostering this innovation is embracing the
principles of network openness. The best way to
accomplish our mutual goals is to support networks
owned by communities and build partnerships open
to public and private providers on the same open
infrastructure. As our community roads bear
multiple public and private purposes so too should
our networks.
Build Community Capacity
With Our Members
As Community Area Networks grow in Wisconsin, we
will work with our members to build community
capacity through broadband. We will rely on and
support our members in our common efforts toward
sustainable and widespread community broadband
adoption.
We’re committed to working closely with our
charter member University of Wisconsin-Extension
to use their statewide expertise in economic
development, leadership capacity-building, and
community education to move broadband adoption
forward. During 2011 and 2012, UW-Extension and
WiscNet staff will work with our members in five
Wisconsin regions to develop and demonstrate
models for sustainable community broadband
adoption. We will continue to grow our
relationship with UW-Extension and want to grow
similar strategic partnerships with other WiscNet
members.
We look forward to helping our research and
education members form community partnerships
with our hospital and local government members to
extend and sustain advanced broadband capacity to
Wisconsin communities.

9. STRATEGIC PLAN 2016
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GROW SERVICES BEYOND THE NETWORK
Our members trust our association to deliver and sustain a robust, cost-effective network.
By relying upon and prudently developing this trust among our members, we want to grow
new services that will make full use of an advanced ubiquitous network infrastructure.
While the network will remain a top priority, we will take a fresh analysis of our core
competencies in order to develop new services for and beyond the network.
Extend Foundational Partnerships
WiscNet members are tremendous engines of
productivity, and our association is in the position
to partner with our members to extend their
services beyond their organization. Similar to the
model developed for network services, we will
enable and encourage our members to leverage
WiscNet to provide valuable services to other
WiscNet members.
Take as an example data centers. Many of our
members have robust, well-developed data centers
that their business officers see only as cost centers.
Many of our other members, however, need data
center services like co-location and virtual
services. As a trusted intermediary, we could
provide front and back office services to connect
both people and strategies, satisfying the need for
offsite data center services while providing a
revenue stream to members with data centers.
Evolve Member Services
Recognizing that both failure and success are
opportunities for growth, we will learn from our
failures and embrace our successes in order to
develop WiscNet’s portfolio of services.
After a careful evaluation of our members’ needs,
we will adopt a “fail fast” approach to the creation
of new services. This means we will try many new
services (and some will fail), learn, try more and do
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10. STRATEGIC PLAN 2016
page 8
it fast. We will adopt the “fail fast” approach to
develop four to five new services per year.
Establish Permission to Exit
Our services are expressly designed to provide the
capacity, reliability, robustness, technical support
and exclusive advanced network access that our
member organizations require. Over the years, we
have added and subtracted services. It is in the
best interest of our members that the services
currently in production undergo continuous
evaluation.
To do this, we must give ourselves the permission
to exit a service gracefully.
Each production service should have a value
portfolio and exit strategy updated annually. The
value portfolio will list the service goals and the
benefits of the service to our members, balanced
against the costs of the service. This is the set of
qualitative and quantitative metrics by which the
service’s success is measured. We carry out the
exit strategy when the metrics do not satisfy the
goals.
Explore Services for People
Traditionally, we have offered services to member
organizations. We recognize that one of our core
strengths is connecting people; therefore, WiscNet
will explore services intended specifically for the
people that our members serve and employ.
There are many people in our member
organizations with whom we do not have
relationships that they value. If we look deeper
into each organization there are a number of
researchers, teachers, staff and individuals that are
capable of using WiscNet services. WiscNet
members may wish to consider using our front and
back office to provide services deeper into their
organization.
740 Regent Street
Madison, WI 53715
Phone: 608.265.6761
Fax: 608.262.9085
E-Mail: info@wiscnet.net
Web: www.wiscnet.net