Meetinghouse Internet Implementation Plan 3

#1

I am posting the document Meetinghouse Internet Implementation Plan3 I got from our FM Group who got it from the Church's Physical Facilities Department. It provides all the information associated with the 8 August 2008 .pdf]Broadband Internet Services in Meetinghouses - U.S. and Canadanotice from the Presiding Bishopric.

I have not seen it posted anyplace else and thought it might be useful to someone.

#2

Hey JD, this document is labeled "Confidential".

EDIT: This second version looks better.

#3

I didn't notice that. There is nothing in it that isn't available in other sources. If you want to remove it, go ahead. I can't since you posted to it.

#4

I confirmed that it is not confidential. The copy I had was an internal 6 August FM draft which was two days prior to the official announcement of the 8 August letter. The confidential notation has been removed.

mkmurray · #5

Your document says that the Church-managed firewall is to come out of the "Local Stake Budget"; however, that is not the understanding I have gained from several threads on this forum.

aebrown · #6

mkmurray wrote:Your document says that the Church-managed firewall is to come out of the "Local Stake Budget"; however, that is not the understanding I have gained from several threads on this forum.

Good catch! I can confirm from actual experience that the local stake budget is not charged for the Church-managed firewall.

Also, page 5 of the document says that the Stake President is supposed to call Distribution Customer Relations to order the firewall. We tried to order it by phone, and we were told that absolutely the only way to order it was by using ldscatalog.com (a link to the special order page is provided on the Meetinghouse Internet page on clerk.lds.org). The Note on page 6 gets it mostly right, except there is no link on clerk.lds.org labeled "LDSCatalog".

#7

Implementation plans change. Now we can see what our FM Groups have for information. I passed these differences along to our FM Group Director so he has the latest information.

aebrown · #8

jdlessley wrote:I am posting the document Meetinghouse Internet Implementation Plan3 I got from our FM Group who got it from the Church's Physical Facilities Department.

On Page 7, there is a reference to some policy documents that I have not heard of, but would be helpful for any stake installing an Internet connection:

Internet Use
Internet Access Policy for Department-sponsored Field Office Users
(Type 3 Facilities)
Internet Access Policy for Stakes and Wards
Wireless network Installation and Use at All Church Facilities Policy

The first one may well be the policy included with the Desktop 5.5 instructions, and the second one doesn't seem to apply to stakes. But the third one sounds interesting, and the fourth one is particularly tantalizing, since to date it has seemed that we have received very little official guidance in the area of wireless networks.

Has anyone heard of or seen these last two policies? I'd love to see a copy of them. It seems like they are the kind of document that should be posted at clerk.lds.org.

SheffieldTR · #9

All,

I thought I should address some of these issues that the publication of this internal document has raised. First of all, this was not written to for the general public. It was written for the Facilities Managers and those that work with him. This document that was posted is an older version that does not have the updated information that is on http://clerk.lds.org that gives you a link to the page where you can order the Church-managed firewalls for your buildings. See the site for more details.

Secondly, as pointed out by others it does reference documents that are not public facing which is why you have not heard of them. We have been working on gaining approval to share more “policy” type documents with those who can gain a better understanding of this program but that has not happened yet.

Thirdly, the official location for you to receive information on how and what to do regarding Meetinghouse Internet (MHI) is and will remain to be http://clerk.lds.org These forums are a GREAT tool that can and do assist many in their implementations of MHI.

There are guidelines that have been released and discussed in these forums regarding wireless implementations (use WPA or WPA2 security). One of the reasons that there has not been more information or guidelines, is to allow for local flexibility in installation as much as possible to meet the local needs.

I hope that this has helped in understanding where we are and where we are going with this program.
Thanks for all of your help and expertise in these areas!
Troy Sheffield

#10

tsheffield wrote:All,

I thought I should address some of these issues that the publication of this internal document has raised. First of all, this was not written to for the general public. It was written for the Facilities Managers and those that work with him. This document that was posted is an older version that does not have the updated information that is on http://clerk.lds.org that gives you a link to the page where you can order the Church-managed firewalls for your buildings. See the site for more details.

Secondly, as pointed out by others it does reference documents that are not public facing which is why you have not heard of them. We have been working on gaining approval to share more “policy” type documents with those who can gain a better understanding of this program but that has not happened yet.

Thirdly, the official location for you to receive information on how and what to do regarding Meetinghouse Internet (MHI) is and will remain to be http://clerk.lds.org These forums are a GREAT tool that can and do assist many in their implementations of MHI.

There are guidelines that have been released and discussed in these forums regarding wireless implementations (use WPA or WPA2 security). One of the reasons that there has not been more information or guidelines, is to allow for local flexibility in installation as much as possible to meet the local needs.

I hope that this has helped in understanding where we are and where we are going with this program.
Thanks for all of your help and expertise in these areas!
Troy Sheffield

Thanks Troy for this information. Even with this forum to help there is more than one source of information regarding technology for the Church. In this case an official channel of communications for facilities management has one set of documents and information while there is another source through http://clerk.lds.org. The stake technology specialist gets caught in between trying to ensure he is following two official sources. When facilities management promulgates direction from their end and the FM Group Director insists his direction is the official version, the question gets raised as to what really is official. It would be nice if the information flowing through one conduit looks the same, smells the same, and tastes the same as the information flowing through another. To put out information that was somewhat different from information that had been available to date was the reason for the original post to this thread.