More underpowered, bass ackwards state telecom infrastructure planning

Charleston Gazette-Mail | Broadband council prepares for expanded role: The council will have three different maps for showing internet access: service areas below 6 mbps, service areas between 6 to 25 mbps and service areas with speeds above 25 mbps. Twenty-five mbps is considered the minimum standard for broadband by the Federal Communication Commission. “Having these maps can help us determine where the fiber is and where it isn’t,” Hinton said.

If the United States had built roads and highways and other critical infrastructure like this -- by first mapping where the infrastructure is missing instead of planning where to build it -- much of the nation would have been driving on dirt roads well into the late 20th century.

Telecommunications infrastructure is by nature a broad reaching network. It can't just be "plopped down" in discrete locales and neighborhoods as one AT&T representative correctly explained about a decade ago. It must be built out on a widespread basis and as quickly as possible given the nation is already a generation behind where it should be when it comes to constructing it. It's too big of a job to be left to small states like West Virginia that can't begin to devote the billions of dollars needed. Only the federal government is up to the task.

West Virginia telecom infrastructure initiative embodies 3 fatal public policy flaws

Charleston Gazette-Mail | Groups push for broadband expansion in WV: Senate President Mitch Carmichael, R-Jackson, said Tuesday that at least two broadband-related bills are in the works, and lawmakers expect to introduce legislation in the coming days. The Senate bill would offer tax credits for companies to help recoup costs of bringing internet to remote areas, said Carmichael, an executive with internet provider Frontier Communications. The bill also may authorize the state to provide loan guarantees to internet firms that plan to expand broadband service. Carmichael said some internet providers want legislation designed to bring internet service to households that don’t currently have it, while other companies support measures that would increase internet speeds.

“We want to [encourage] competition,” Carmichael said. “If we’re going to do investment of any type, it should go to the areas that have no service.” Generation West Virginia, AARP West Virginia and the state Broadband Enhancement Council held a press conference at the state Capitol Tuesday to raise awareness about the importance of high-speed internet service and to unveil a plan — called Gig Ready — to bolster support for broadband expansion.

This West Virginia effort although well intended contains three fatal flaws that are unfortunately frequently embraced by other states and by federal policymakers.

1. Offering loan guarantees and tax credits to legacy telephone and cable companies to invest in advanced telecommunications infrastructure in the belief that will help achieve universal service. It will not. The incumbents' short term business models are designed to extract maximum cash flow from current assets and do not allow them to make significant long term capital investments in new infrastructure. Tax credits and loan guarantees can't overcome that hard economic reality.
2. The belief that the role of government vis telecommunications infrastructure is to promote market competition. Telecom infrastructure is a natural monopoly and cannot and never will be a competitive market. Promoting market competition in telecom infrastructure is like promoting water skiing in the arctic.
3. Sloganeering. Call it Game of Gigs or Gig Ready, slogans can't construct telecom infrastructure. They are not so much aspirations for the future but rather reflect a poverty of action and commitment (harder) relative to a surplus of talk (far easier).

Why state and local government are ill equipped to modernize U.S. telecom infrastructure

West Virginia Broadband Enhancement Council Chairman Seeks Gigabit Internet Statewide: (TNS) -- The new chairman of a governor-appointed panel wants to set a lofty goal for broadband speeds in West Virginia: Make gigabit internet service available statewide.

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“I applaud your thought, but I think, at this point, it’s a very unrealistic goal,” said council member Robert Cole, adding that the 1-gigabit service would require extensive excavation work to install large high-speed fiber lines. “If we scare [internet providers] off, they’re going to put up a wall. Getting their cooperation is key.

This exchange encapsulates the challenge confronting state and local governments eager to modernize their telecommunications infrastructures to universally available fiber to the premise (FTTP) as an economic development strategy. There is currently no viable business model to finance it in either the private or public sectors.

The amount of investment capital needed is too high and the ROI too long for private investment capital. That's why investor-owned telecom providers have only sparingly deployed FTTP -- in discrete, compact neighborhoods they believe will generate sufficient revenue to offset construction and maintenance costs.

On the public side, state and local governments struggle with their existing obligations including maintaining roads and highways and water and sewer systems as well as accumulated public pension obligations. That reality leaves states like West Virginia here to engage in a pointless debate over "broadband speeds" which isn't really relevant when it comes to FTTP given the technology's enormous capacity compared to legacy metallic telephone and cable networks.

Legacy incumbents circle the wagons against WV telecom infrastucture initiative

Charleston Gazette-Mail | Senate OKs creating state-owned broadband network: The West Virginia Senate approved legislation Thursday that would create a state-owned broadband Internet network, but Frontier Communications and cable companies already are lobbying members of the House of Delegates to kill the bill. State senators voted 29-5 to build a fiber-optic network “zone by zone” across West Virginia, using money borrowed through the Water Development Authority, one of the few state agencies authorized to issue bonds.

The legislation (SB 315) aims to expand high-speed Internet in rural areas, drive down prices and bolster Internet speeds.“This bill is one that can really promote West Virginia and move our state forward,” said Sen. Chris Walters, R-Putnam. “Without this type of infrastructure, we aren't giving the people the opportunity to succeed.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch Carmichael, a Frontier executive, sharply criticized the legislation on the Senate floor, saying the bill would discourage Internet providers from expanding existing broadband networks or building new ones. “The capital allocations are chilled when they know the government is going to be competing,” said Carmichael, R-Jackson. “The best way to deliver broadband is through the private sector. We don't have to always turn to government to solve technological issues.

If it were only a technological issue as Mr. Carmichael wrongly frames it, it would merely need a technological solution the private sector could provide. In fact, it's a market issue. The state is attempting to address private market failure to construct telecommunications infrastructure needed for the 21st century. In that regard, it's also not about market competition. By definition, competitive markets are not failed markets.

Major fail: West Virginia Internet infrastructure policy

The Charleston Gazette | W.Va. broadband panel to get new duties, but no funds: Roper’s group supported the broadband expansion bill, arguing the project would help improve education and healthcare, and spur entrepreneurship in West Virginia.

“If we solely depend on private industry, we’ll just stay at the status quo,” Roper said. “If students can’t access textbooks online at home, and if doctors can’t access electronic health records, we’re in trouble. [Broadband] is like good roads and water lines. It’s everything.”

This sums up the situation well, but the state's plan is to essentially pass the buck (and the hat) while continuing the useless exercise of mapping and comparing "broadband speeds" -- the do nothing approach favored by all too many state and local governments that won't build needed infrastructure:

The new legislation, which Tomblin is expected to sign into law, creates a “broadband enhancement fund,” but state lawmakers didn’t set aside any money for the fund. The bill, however, seems to  allow outside groups to donate to the fund. The panel also will receive any  money remaining from the former Broadband Deployment Council’s account, but the  council announced last year that it planned to spend all leftover funds on  final reports and audits. At the outset, the new broadband  council is expected to gather data about residential and business customers’  Internet speeds – and compare speeds to those advertised by broadband  providers. The new council also will be asked to examine existing  broadband networks.

Frontier Faces Lawsuit in West Virginia Alleging False Advertising, Undisclosed DSL Speed Throttling • Stop the Cap!

Frontier Communications customers in West Virginia are part of a filed class-action lawsuit alleging the phone company has violated the state’s Consumer Credit and Protection Act for failing to deliver the high-speed Internet service it promises.

The lawsuit, filed in Lincoln County Circuit Court, claims Frontier is advertising fast Internet speeds up to 12Mbps, but often delivers far less than that, especially in rural areas where the company is  accused of throttling broadband speeds to less than 1Mbps. The suit also alleges Frontier’s broadband service is highly unreliable.

Frontier Faces Lawsuit in West Virginia Alleging False Advertising, Undisclosed DSL Speed Throttling • Stop the Cap!

Another exhibit in the case demonstrating how the United States has thoroughly bungled telecom infrastructure deployment and regulation under the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations, creating lack of access and uncertainty. It also illustrates the moral hazard associated with excessive (and lazy) policymaker reliance on telecom provider promises relative to service availability and quality.

Instead of devoting resources to litigating how many bits and bytes constitute "broadband," we should be developing plans to construct fiber to every American home and place of business -- work that should have been started two decades ago.

Open access fiber telecom infrastructure funded in West Virginia over telco's objections

Competition in telecommunications infrastructure isn't really among major telcos and cable companies. They operate in market that due to the high cost barriers to entry functions as a natural monopoly or at best, a duopoly where service is available from just two landline providers: the phone company or the cable company. In much of the United States, the choice is only one of the two or sadly, neither because they have redlined parts of their service territories.

The real competition is between the business models for premise Internet connectivity: open access Internet infrastructure such as employed by the Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency that regards it as a public asset like roads and highways or the proprietary, closed access infrastructure model of investor-owned telephone and cable companies.

This week in West Virginia, the debate tipped in favor of open access after the West Virginia Broadband Deployment Council voted 3-2 to provide $690,000 in funding to the West Virginia Network, a state agency that provides Internet service to schools, universities and other public facilities. The deciding factor was the state wanting more control over the infrastructure and not being subject to the whims of a monopoly provider.

“Frontier is the only provider in the region, and there is no open access to that infrastructure,” one of the council members noted. “You can’t really connect any of the dots [communities] together . . . . We can hopefully connect those rings and enable broadband expansion in the area.”

This is a notable development because it signals that public policy is shifting towards viewing Internet infrastructure as essential as public thoroughfares and thus not best controlled and operated as a hodge podge of private toll roads with high tolls and serving only some areas while leaving others disconnected from the Internet.

Click here for the story.

West Virginia Broadband Deployment Council voted 3-2 to award the money to West Virginia Network, or WVNET, a state agency that provides Internet service to schools, universities and other public facilities. WVNET would own the three-segment fiber network that would connect Snowshoe to Cass, Valley Head to Mill Creek, and Durbin to Green Bank. - See more at: http://www.wvgazette.com/article/20140723/GZ01/140729675/1419#sthash.ldOg1t7a.dpuf

West Virginia Broadband Deployment Council voted 3-2 to award the money to West Virginia Network, or WVNET, a state agency that provides Internet service to schools, universities and other public facilities. WVNET would own the three-segment fiber network that would connect Snowshoe to Cass, Valley Head to Mill Creek, and Durbin to Green Bank. - See more at: http://www.wvgazette.com/article/20140723/GZ01/140729675/1419#sthash.ldOg1t7a.dpuf

West Virginia Broadband Deployment Council voted 3-2 to award the money to West Virginia Network, or WVNET, a state agency that provides Internet service to schools, universities and other public facilities. WVNET would own the three-segment fiber network that would connect Snowshoe to Cass, Valley Head to Mill Creek, and Durbin to Green Bank. - See more at: http://www.wvgazette.com/article/20140723/GZ01/140729675/1419#sthash.ldOg1t7a.dpuf

West Virginia Broadband Deployment Council voted 3-2 to award the money to West Virginia Network, or WVNET, a state agency that provides Internet service to schools, universities and other public facilities. WVNET would own the three-segment fiber network that would connect Snowshoe to Cass, Valley Head to Mill Creek, and Durbin to Green Bank. - See more at: http://www.wvgazette.com/article/20140723/GZ01/140729675/1419#sthash.ldOg1t7a.dpuf

Broadband delayed again� - News - The Charleston Gazette - West Virginia News and Sports -

Broadband delayed again� - News - The Charleston Gazette - West Virginia News and Sports -

This sickening story highlights the pathetic, on the cheap state of today's U.S. telecommunications infrastructure. Providers battle over subsidies that would be better invested in fiber to the premise infrastructure rather than stopgap, obsolescence-prone DSL and terrestrial wireless.

And the DSL provider (Frontier) has the temerity to suggest since it offers its West Virginia customers satellite Internet service -- a national disgrace that should only be serving locales north of the Arctic Circle -- it is therefore providing sufficient service.

Cisco working with West VA gov on broadband solution

West Virginia remains one of America's darkest broadband black holes. The Associated Press reports Gov. Joe Manchin is working with Silicon Valley-based router powerhouse Cisco on a plan to provide broadband to all West Virginia residents by 2010.

Manchin recently vetoed legislation that would have mapped which areas in the state aren't wired for broadband service and allowed nonprofits to offer broadband service throughout the state.

While the efforts of Cisco CEO John Chambers to light up this infamous broadband black hole are laudable, I hope he doesn't neglect Cisco's own back yard in Silicon Valley and California. As reported last year, Rob Hof, manager of BusinessWeek's Silicon Valley bureau, inadvertently found himself mired on the wrong side of the digital divide Palo Alto when he moved to a new home in the city.