Showing posts with label ARRA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ARRA. Show all posts

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Cruel irony of incomplete telecom infrastructure plays near Wisconsin state capital

One of the cruelest ironies of America's incomplete telecommunications infrastructure is playing out not far from Madison, the capital of Wisconsin. The town of Berry, population 1,124, isn't large enough to attract investor owned providers. But at the same time, the incumbent provider, TDS Telecommunications, claims the federal government declined its request for subsidies for infrastructure improvements through funding earmarked for this purpose in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 because the town -- located just 20 miles from the capital -- isn't considered underserved, according to TDS Telecommunications.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports Berry is has filed a complaint with the Wisconsin Public Utilities Commission saying TDS Telecommunications is failing to provide required service to the community. Community residents contend the poor level of service is making it difficult to work remotely from home and is making their properties less marketable.

The good people of Berry and their town leaders would be well advised to take matters into their own hands and begin working on a Plan B that could get them improved service faster than their PUC complaint, which could end up in the courts and take years to resolve even if they prevail. They should begin planning today to build publicly (or if that's not feasible cooperatively) owned fiber to the premises infrastructure.

Friday, June 04, 2010

Incumbents mount new challenges of proposed ARRA telecom infrastructure projects

The Obama administration's policy to support build out of Internet Protocol telecommunications infrastructure with grants and low cost loans is once again running into stiff resistance from legacy incumbent telephone and cable companies.

As they did in a previous round for funding requests for $4.2 billion set aside for this purpose in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), the incumbents are challenging numerous projects proposed for funding under the current funding round of USDA's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP). The challenges are permitted under provisions of the Act that allow incumbents to delay or block proposed projects in their service areas by claiming they already provide advanced telecom services. A searchable list of BIP applicants and incumbent challenges is posted here.

Unlike in the first round of ARRA funding last year, the RUS has not posted details of the challenges. Listed are only the service areas of the proposed projects and the name of the challenging incumbent provider. Incumbent challenges of ARRA telecom infrastructure projects administered by the National Telecommunications and Information Agency's (NTIA) Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) have not yet been posted by the NTIA.

Friday, February 12, 2010

Google's fiber to the premise "experiment" a would be broadband game changer

Nearly three years ago, I predicted Internet-protocol content providers and aggregators fed up with trying to pump their product over legacy telecommunications infrastructure dominated by telcos and cable companies would acquire or build their own infrastructure to reach consumers. It's an expected outcome of a conflict between the content providers' needs for ever increasing bandwidth and the telco/cable companies' need to conserve capital expenditures and place incremental limits on bandwidth consistent with their service offerings in which consumers pay increasingly higher rates for more bandwidth. The content providers want unlimited bandwidth delivered over big pipes. But the business model of the telco/cable duopoly is based on making bandwidth a restricted scarce commodity delivered over little pipes.

So it was no surprise when Google -- which has reportedly been quietly buying up fiber left dark after the dot com bust of a decade ago -- announced this week it would build an experimental alternative business model that would bring advanced telecommunications to consumers over a really big pipe: fiber optic infrastructure to the premises capable of throughput of 1 gigabyte per second.

Google is also clearly holding itself as an alternative to the Obama administration's program to build out open access broadband infrastructure subsidized by more than $4 billion set aside in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) President Obama signed into law nearly one year ago.

The timing of Google's announcement of its fiber infrastructure test program is also worth noting and shows the company is looking to make a statement. The window for applications for the second round of ARRA broadband infrastructure subsidies opens less than a week after Google's announcement. The deadline set by Google for local governments and communities to nominate themselves for Google's experimental fiber build closes the week after the ARRA funding round application window closes as well the deadline for the Federal Communications Commission to submit a plan to Congress to achieve universal U.S. broadband access as required by the ARRA.

While the federal agencies that will hand out the ARRA infrastructure subsidies have made assurances the money will soon begin flowing in earnest, doubts have emerged due to numerous challenges filed against proposed projects by the same incumbent providers Google wants to go around. Google likely figured amid that uncertainty, the timing was right to make its announcement.

With its self described "experimental" fiber to the premises model, Google may also be trying to debunk skeptics who believe fiber to the premises simply costs too much to deploy. That high cost has been cited as the main impediment standing in the way of investment in the fiber to the premises infrastructure that was to have been at the doorstep of every American home by 2006. If Google can show the cost assumptions upon which the business models of the incumbent legacy providers are based are wrong, then the entire game is changed overnight. That potentially puts America on course to catch up to where it should have been four years ago and where it needs to be for the future.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

California PUC approves $7.9 million supplemental broadband stimulus funding for 9,000 square mile Central Valley wireless project

The California Public Utilities Commission today conditionally approved a resolution providing $7.9 million in supplemental funding for a major wireless broadband project requesting federal funding via broadband infrastructure subsidies allocated in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The supplemental funding allocated from California PUCs' California Advanced Services Fund covers half of a 20 percent recipient match required under the National Telecommunications and Information Administration's (NTIA) Broadband Technology Opportunities Program and is contingent on federal funding approval.

The California Valley Broadband (CVB) project, proposed by a the consortium of Moreno Trenching Ltd, Mika Telecom Group and MT2 Telecom, LP, plans to build wireless infrastructure that will serve about 77,195 households in Fresno, Madera, Merced, Sacramento, San Joaquin, Solano, and Stanislaus counties. The consortium claims it will deliver Internet connectivity and VoIP over nearly 9,000 square miles at speeds of up to 20 Mbs on the download side and up to 6 Mbs uploads using two unregulated (WiFi) frequencies and one licensed (WiMAX) frequency "to accommodate range, terrain, tree and other interference issues."

The CVB project faced multiple challenges from incumbent telco and cable companies who claimed they already serve census block groups in the proposed CVB footprint. But PUC staff rejected the bulk of the challenged census block groups finding the incumbents didn't offer broadband as the California PUC defines it: at least 3 Mbs for downloads and 1 Mbs on the upload side.

It remains to be seen however how the NTIA will respond to protests the incumbents lodged against CVB's proposed project that is pending approval for the 80 percent BTOP subsidy.

In allowing incumbents to contest proposed broadband infrastructure projects in the first round of stimulus funding that closed last summer, both the NTIA and the Rural Utilities Services of the U.S. Department of Agriculture -- which is also distributing a portion of the broadband stimulus funds -- set the stage for an adversarial process that by implication would require the agencies to adjudicate contested applications. However, it's likely they are less able than the California PUC to carry out that function since the PUC can reference the state's broadband availability maps and has dedicated staff evaluating comparatively far fewer proposed projects.

Since putting in place a process to resolve applications contested by the incumbents and make findings of fact regarding whether the area of a proposed infrastructure project is underserved or unserved requires substantial time and resources, my guess is the two federal agencies simply put contested applications into a "hold" file while trying to figure out how to square the applications with incumbent telco/cable objections. That would explain why so many now impatient applicants haven't heard anything whatsoever after rushing to get their applications in by the first round funding deadline in mid-August of 2009 after having been initially led to believe they'd know by the year end holidays at the latest whether their projects were approved for funding.

This sets the stage for political blow back from federal and state representatives in areas where broadband stimulus projects in their districts are stuck in limbo after hearing from frustrated constituents asking them to expedite approval of their applications. The incumbents couldn't stop the broadband stimulus provisions from becoming law in the rush to enact ARRA one year ago. So they may instead opted to fend off threats to their territorial hegemony (remember, an incumbent telco/cable "service territory" doesn't mean everyone is served) in a "death by a thousand cuts" strategy to vector and shoot down stimulus applications one by one.