Obama administration's ConnectED program only half a solution

President Calls for High-Speed Broadband in 99% of Schools/Libraries - 2013-06-06 15:21:00 | Broadcasting & Cable: The White House Thursday announced a new initiative to get high-speed broadband to America's schools and libraries.

The so-called ConnectED program has a goal of connecting 99% of students to high-speed wired and wireless broadband (speeds of no less than 100 Mbps and preferably 1 Gbps) within five years. The president called on the FCC and National Telecommunications and Information Administration to "modernize and leverage" its E-rate program to achieve that goal. The E-rate program provides discounted broadband service to schools and libraries through the Universal Service Fund.

The President's plan while laudable is only a partial solution.  Learning now takes place both at school and in the home -- what educators describe as "blended learning."  Jeremy Meyers, superintendent of the El Dorado County (California) Office of Education, wrote about the emerging educational method in which pupils do much of their learning and class projects outside of the classroom via the Internet – arguably the world’s biggest and best stocked library.  Back in the classroom, their teachers review their projects, answer questions and lead discussions.

As Meyers notes, blended learning requires good Internet connectivity both at schools and at students' homes.  However, too many homes in Meyers' district lack even basic Internet service.  "El Dorado County faces a special challenge that is assuming greater urgency each year: How to bring all our households into broadband Internet access in a cost-effective manner," Meyers wrote. "Having large Internet 'dead zones' is not acceptable in today’s world of connectivity. It limits us academically and hurts us economically."

Are you listening, Mr. President?

WISP targets incumbent wireline providers

An El Dorado County, California Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP) is challenging incumbent telephone and cable providers in a small, suburban segment of the county.

Cal.net's "Urban Wireless Internet" is offered at a flat $40 monthly fee with no contractual commitments -- clearly aimed at undercutting the triple play bundle pricing of the incumbents.  The service offering claims asymmetrical connectivity of 15 Mbs down and 3 Mbs up. There's a $95 installation fee.

El Dorado County co-op seeks fiber-optic Internet access

Nice article in today's Sacramento Bee on the telecom consumer coop formed by your blogger...

Sacramento Bee: Internet access still a wish for many in rural areas

The Sacramento Bee is out with a story today that's likely to be familiar to folks all over the United States and not just in the Bee's Northern California circulation area. Your blogger is featured. Click here for the story. As for my recommendations re this issue to the incoming Obama administration, click here.

The difficulty getting good solid broadband Internet access isn't by definition a rural issue given that U.S. residential development isn't confined to only urban and rural areas. For much of Northern California, it's far more "granular" as demographers would say when the exurbs and quasi-rural areas are taken into account. Most of the Sacramento Bee's circulation area is considered part of the Sacramento metropolitan area.

It's also worth noting that some of those who have posted comments on the Bee's Web site at the online version of the story are located relatively close in, including one from Silicon Valley. Broadband black holes like their physical counterparts in space can be found anywhere. See also Silicon Valley’s shameful secret: lousy broadband at MuniWireless.

BTW, the article didn't include the name of my WISP (Wireless Internet Service Provider). For you El Dorado County and Amador County residents looking for service, it's Remotely Located.

Fixed terrestrial wireless supplanting DSL as interim premises broadband technology

When it was widely introduced starting nearly a decade ago, Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) was viewed by telcos as an ideal interim broadband technology on the road to Fiber To The Premises (FTTP) and a means to utilize their existing investment in copper cable plant over the last mile. But since telcos are many years behind where they should be in deploying FTTP, DSL became more of a permanent thoroughfare rather than temporary byway.

The problem is DSL has not been able to adequately fulfill that role due to technological limitations that restrict its range and require the use of near pristine copper that's in increasingly short supply as telcos' decades-old cable plants grow old and frazzled.

Now fixed terrestrial wireless is poised to take the place of DSL as the preferred transitional technology on the way to FTTP, starting in areas where DSL cannot due to its notorious handicaps. Over the past few years, a large number of mom and pop Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs) offering fixed terrestrial wireless via over unlicensed spectrum have sprung up, exploiting DSL's far more limited geographical reach and providing a faster and less costly connectivity than satellite Internet. The big telcos have also incidentally picked up some fixed premises customers with their mobile wireless 3G broadband offerings, but don't represent a threat to the WISPs due to high latencies and bandwidth usage caps.

The proliferation of WISPs as a substitute for DSL is evident in this blogger's area of El Dorado County, California where one, Central Valley Broadband, is offering 3Mbs service to telco neglected SOHOs (Small Office/Home Office) located in telco broadband black holes.*
* (See 1/23/09 update)

Telcos and to some extent cable providers have effectively ceded these areas to the WISPs, leading to increased competition among them. More competition among WISPs is also driving consolidation. Central Valley Broadband announced in October it had acquired two WISPs serving Placer and El Dorado counties.

Going forward, I expect WISPs to continue to provide a more flexible and robust pre-FTTP premises broadband option than DSL. Since it will likely be many years before most all premises have fiber optic connections, the WISPs appear set for a good long run.

Virginia local governments endeavor to get broadband infrastructure in place

“People are tired of us saying it’s coming, it’s coming - they want results,” said Corum, the director of economic development and tourism in Nelson, on whose lap the responsibility for coming up with a solution to the county’s broadband problem has fallen.

Broadband for far too many in Virginia and other states is merely an unfulfilled promise. Kudos to Nelson County Virginia Economic Development Director Maureen Corum and other Virginia economic development directors who are working to bring broadband to their counties. They like and their counterparts like El Dorado County, California Economic Development Director Sam Driggers wisely see the issue as vital infrastructure linked to the economic health of their counties.

Local governments play critical role in ending digital divide

Illinois IT consultant Jim Carlini reports representatives of communities outside urban regions throughout the US who attended this month's Rural Telecon Conference in Springfield, Illinois are developing an increasing sense urgency as they continue to remain mired on the wrong side of the digital divide by the telco/cable duopoly. They realize they cannot count on the telcos and cable companies to build out their infrastructures to provide advanced telecommunications services like broadband and need alternatives.

Carlini suggests they turn to their local elected officials. "If your municipality isn’t looking at creative ways to develop new strategies that include having a state-of-the-art network infrastructure to support economic growth and development, they will be stagnating your property value and quality of life in your area," Carlini writes at MidwestBusiness.com.

"Simply put, the three most important words in real estate (“location, location, location”) have turned into “location, location, connectivity” in urban, suburban and rural America. Corporate site selection committees have included broadband connectivity as one of the top three criteria they are looking for when researching locations for corporate facilities. If your community does not have a good platform for broadband connectivity, it will simply be passed over in favor for one that does."

El Dorado County, California, while located in the Sacramento metro area, is like many other areas of the country, plagued by spotty and inferior broadband access. County Economic Development Director Sam Driggers conveyed Carlini's point recently to the El Dorado County Board of Supervisors.

Your blogger agrees with Carlini that local governments must take a proactive role in ensuring their telecommunications infrastructures can support the current and future needs of their residents and businesses. In that spirit, I've drafted petitions to El Dorado County Board of Supervisors and the El Dorado Irrigation District urging those local government entities to partner with private fiber optic telecommunications providers to lay fiber in their rights of way to build a fiber to the neighborhood network as the foundation for a badly needed upgrade to the county's telecommunications infrastructure.

El Dorado County economic development chief calls Internet access key

Sam Driggers, installed earlier this year as El Dorado County's economic development director, told county supervisors this week that having good Internet access is key to the county's economic health. Moreover, Driggers suggested, a higher quality of life that can be had outside urban areas should not mean going without broadband:

Driggers said El Dorado County appeals to people who want to get away from the hustle and bustle of more urban regions.

"People want to live in quality-of-life areas, but they also want to work. It's in tandem," he said, and Internet access is key. "If you don't have broadband, you don't have access to the world."

Your blogger and El Dorado County home-based business operator is heartened by Driggers' remarks to the board and hopes the supes give them the serious consideration they deserve.

To underscore Driggers' efforts to get his bosses to view the county's telecommunications infrastructure as being as vital as highways, water and power when it comes to the county's economic health, I urge county residents to sign this petition. It calls on the supervisors to direct county staff and retain necessary outside consultants to establish a public private partnership with fiber optic telecommunications vendors to utilize county rights to way to construct open access fiber to the node/neighborhood (FTTN) infrastructure to serve the current and future telecommunications needs of residents and businesses situated within unincorporated El Dorado County.

WISPs endeavor to provide needed broadband "third pipe" in El Dorado County

The pathetic state of wireline broadband Internet access in El Dorado County, California has spawned locally based Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs) to provide a much needed "third pipe" for county residents and small businesses who have been stiff armed for years by AT&T and Comcast.

Startup Remotely Located run by Jason and Jennifer Wilson is deploying Wi-Fi based service using both directional and non-directional transmission technology. Remotely Located is serving areas deprived of wireline broadband service in the Mosquito/Swansboro Country area and has recently expanded into West Camino and your blogger's neighborhood.

Sierra Advantage emerged out of the bankruptcy earlier this year of one of El Dorado County's first ISPs, Direct Connect. According to the WISP's service area map, it covers my area. Not quite yet, according to Brett Patterson, director of sales for Shingle Springs-based Sierra Advantage. "We continue to build out our network and get closer each week to offering you service," Patterson wrote in an email yesterday. "Soon we will have additional equipment up in your area. There are some very exciting, positive changes coming for us regarding our Internet services."

My hat's off to these WISPs. Providing fixed terrestrial wireless Internet access in El Dorado County's rugged terrain where steep canyons and tall trees create obstacles for wireless signals is no easy feat.

Aside from overcoming these technological hurdles and providing reliable service at advertised throughput speeds, a key challenge as they add customers will be obtaining sufficient backhaul connections to the Internet -- wireline circuits capable of providing large amounts of bandwidth -- to accomodate the growth. Subscribers won't be pleased if a bandwidth traffic jam at the backhaul makes their speeds slow to a crawl and drag with the high latency that afflicts substandard satellite-based Internet access.

Readers who subscribe to services offered by these WISPS are invited to share their experiences and satisfaction with them by posting comments to this post.

El Dorado County satisfaction survey omits broadband

El Dorado County, California officials have released the results of a telephone poll of 600 county residents in April assessing their satisfaction with living in the county.

The 331-page El Dorado County Resident Satisfaction Survey contains a major design flaw. While it asked those polled if they had Internet access and subcategorized residents who have it, the survey failed to ask residents if they have broadband Internet access. If it had, it would have likely found high levels of dissatisfaction with the lack thereof in much of the county where residents are forced to use early 1990s era dialup or sub-optimal satellite Internet connections.

A quick perusual of this petition to AT&T signed by more than 200 county residents and their accompanying comments shows had the survey included broadband access, it would have likely borne out high levels of resident dissatisfaction.

At best, county officials dropped the ball by permitting the omission of this question from the survey. At worst, they've chosen to sweep this vital infrastructure issue under the rug by deliberately leaving it out.

How Comcast perpetuates broadband black holes

Even though it’s now free to expand its service area and apply for a statewide franchise from the California Public Utilities Commission, so far cable provider Comcast has not. It could be because it prefers to remain under existing franchises issued by local governments that impose no future build out requirements. California’s Digital Infrastructure and Video Competition Act of 2006 (AB 2987), signed into law last year by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, allows cable providers to do so if they choose.

In El Dorado County, for example, county supervisors sold out their constituents’ interests by allowing Comcast to operate under an urban gridline model. That component of the franchise agreement between Comcast and the county requires service only be provided only in areas where a large number of homes exist as measured by linear road mile.

The problem is El Dorado County isn’t laid out that way. There are many curved roads that measured linearly are longer than relatively straight roads with too few homes to meet the minimum under the franchise agreement. They connect neighborhoods that might otherwise qualify for service since they have same approximate density of homes as those situated along relatively straight thoroughfares.

Comcast could extend service to these cut off areas, but declines to make the investment necessary to reach them. It insists on sticking with an urban gridline model that’s inappropriate for a place like El Dorado County and only serves to perpetuate the many broadband black holes that exist there.

Another WISP entering El Dorado County

NuTel Broadband Corporation, a broadband wireless managed services provider based in Cranbury, NJ, announced it plans to deploy wireless "mesh" broadband networks in Sacramento, Chico, San Jose and El Dorado County as part of a 14-state rollout.

The rollout is targeting underserved suburban and rural subscribers and small-to-medium sized businesses in regions where broadband wireless network services have been limited or generally unavailable, according to NuTel.

NuTel CEO Joe Fiero says unlike most wireless broadband systems that utilize a copper cable-based data line to connect them to the Internet, NuTel uses fiber optic cable as the system "backhaul," providing a minimum throughput of 45 Mbps, offering plenty of bandwidth for future growth. It will also offer proprietary network VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) that allows subscribers to make digital voice telephone calls over the system.

Fiero says NuTel expects to offer 192/192 kbps Internet connectivity for $14.99 a month, 1.5/1.5 mbps for $34.99, and a bundled Internet and unlimited digital voice calling product at $59.99 per month.

In hilly terrains like El Dorado County, wireless faces a major technological challenge since it requires a clear, unobstructed line of sight to reach end users. Not NuTel's "mesh" system it's deploying in conjuction with Santa Clara-based SkyPilot Networks, which Fiero says is based on a "close spaced node topology that gives us the ability to saturate the coverage area."

Given the many underserved areas of El Dorado that are clearly within NuTel's stated target market such as parts of Placerville, Garden Valley, Camino, Pollock Pines, Pleasant Valley and Mosquito, I asked Fiero when NuTel would be deploying in these areas. Unfortunately despite their starkly underserved status with no broadband services, Fiero didn't have good news.

Turns out parts of Folsom and El Dorado Hills are running short of DSL connections from AT&T (AT&T isn't confirming this) and NuTel will roll out there first, eventually making its way east up Highway 50. Fiber optic cable is also more readily available in Folsom and EDH at this time, Fiero explains.

Memo to Mr. Fiero: fiber is also available farther up the hill. Those who have been stuck on the wrong side of the digital divide surrounding Placerville will surely be watching with interest to see if NuTel can get its system off the ground on the western edge of the county during this initial deployment and if it lives up to its stated mission of providing service in underserved areas where broadband is not available.