Showing posts with label north carolina. Show all posts
Showing posts with label north carolina. Show all posts

Thursday, September 28, 2023

North Carolina homes in "digital distress" reliant on mobile access

The map below shows the percentage of homes that rely on mobile devices only or have no devices and either have no internet access or cellular data only.

 


 Source: STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA BEAD Program Five-Year Plan.

Tuesday, August 20, 2019

Push back on public option fiber based on fallacious argument utility infrastructure a competitive market

North Carolina considers loosening municipal broadband regulations: In May, Gov. Roy Cooper announced $9.8 million for broadband expansion to rural areas as part of a $35 million initiative to improve internet access across the entire state. Municipal broadband, however, has a troubled history in North Carolina and beyond.The bill cleared the North Carolina House State and Local Government Committee on Wednesday and will move to the chamber’s Finance Committee for a second vote, but industry officials are opposed. Spectrum’s senior director of government relations, Brian Gregory, said the increased competition from public entities would backfire.

“It’s especially troubling for us because our employees and our companies are going to be taxed to have competition against us, and that competition on top of that is also our regulator,” Gregory told WRAL, the NBC affiliate in Raleigh.

The thing is, advanced telecom infrastructure is NOT a competitive market. In fact, it's arguably a failed market because so many people who want better landline connections to their homes and small businesses and are willing to pay for them aren't able to buy them. Investor owned telephone and cable companies must also deal with inherent limitations on what they can invest in modernizing their infrastructures to fiber to the premise. Investors naturally push back when it comes to sacrificing profits and dividends to capital expenditures.

Sunday, May 09, 2010

Economic development goals pit local goverments against legacy telcos, cable companies

Local government economic development agendas are clashing with investor-owed legacy telcos and cable companies in North Carolina as the Associated Press reports in this item appearing in The Daily Reflector.

The locals want fiber optic-based infrastructure to attract employers and create jobs. The business models of the incumbent telco and cable companies preclude them from profitably providing it. But rather than accept that business reality and seek more profitable business ventures, they've engaged in disinformation by declaring telecom infrastructure -- a natural monopoly -- as a competitive market. Therefore, they've argued to North Carolina lawmakers, local governments should get voter approval before issuing bonds to cover the cost of municipally owned telecom infrastructure in order to level the "competitive" playing field.

That sounds reasonable on its face. But the incumbent agenda isn't driven by public interest by ensuring prudent expenditure of public funds. It's a self interested one aimed at introducing delay. Unfortunately for the incumbent investor-owned providers, that merely adds costs and does nothing to increase profits. That could depress their share values and potentially leave them open to shareholder lawsuits.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

From Wilson, North Carolina to Washington: Broadband access a growing issue

Here's an exhausive, well written feature article by Fiona Morgan at INDYWeek.com replete with photos on the issue of broadband Internet access and how the North Carolina municipality of Wilson concluded broadband is an essential public utility and took matters into its own hands and built its own fiber optic based infratructure.

The story explains the reasons for America's incomplete telecommunications infrastructure and how policymakers are addressing the issue from Wilson city hall to Congress. Speaking of the latter, the story notes that lack of broadband is the top constitutent complaint for North Carolina Rep. Bill Faison, a House Democrat representing Orange and Caswell counties.

"I can't go to a public meeting anywhere in Orange or Caswell without someone coming up to me and saying, 'We've got a problem with Internet and here's what it is,'" Faison is quoted as saying. "No one comes up and says, 'We've got a problem with Medicaid,' or 'We've got a problem with the wildlife commission.' No one complains about the Department of Transportation not fixing a road in front of their house. They all show up and want high-speed Internet.'"

Monday, June 09, 2008

Editor: Incomplete, inadequate telecom infrastructure requires state government to step into the gap

Broadband is essential as roads and like roads, it can't be left to the private sector alone, writes Charlotte Observer Associate Editor Mary C. Schulken.

Schulken cites a 2007 report by the North Carolina s
e-NC Authority showing in four counties -- Jones, Greene, Warren and Gates -- less than 50 percent of the households can obtain access to high speed Internet services, while in 21 more than 30 percent are mired in broadband black holes.

"Access to high-speed Internet is as basic today as being connected by a good road -- and offers the same public benefit," Schulken writes. "Yet the private sector will not pay to put it within reach of every household and every community in North Carolina. The state needs to step up and invest in connecting the last mile."

Too bad this is AT&T territory. Up north in Massachusetts, a Verizon spokesman says the company is deploying its FiOS fiber optic plant without regard to population density and particular in areas where the old cable plant needs replacement.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

North Carolina municipalities attack proposed state franchise bill as uncompetitive

Where the private sector telco/cable duopoly won't provide broadband Internet access, local governments that have long been in the utility business want to step up. But local government officials complain duopoly-backed legislation, the Local Government Fair Competition Act, is really protectionist and would result in less competition and less densely populated areas being cut off from broadband access.


Mooresville Mayor Bill Thunburg agreed. "Folks, this bill is a pig with lipstick on," he said. "The whole notion of this being a Fair Competition Act is really absurd."

Mooresville entered the broadband Internet business after years of struggle with private industry. Town leaders haven't been able to convince Time Warner to launch cable modem Internet service—the company couldn't make enough profit, they were told.

"This is why we get into that business," Thunburg said. "Private sector's not going to build out into rural communities or poor neighborhoods because there's no money in it for them. Municipalities serve those folks, and we can serve them better than private industry can because we can be sure that they've got fiber to the home." He urged the legislators to consider the need for economic development.

"You don't do that by slamming the door in the face of the poor people or rural people, and that's what this bill does," he said. "One thing's for sure: If municipalities are in the broadband business, big businesses have competition. Right now, in Mooresville, they don't have any competition."

For legislators representing rural areas, Mooresville's dilemma has a familiar ring. Rep. Angela Bryant (D-Halifax, Nash), who sits on the public utilities committee, says Nash County has had a similar experience.

"Technology's moving so fast, some of my cities and counties say that as far as they're concerned, broadband service is almost like electricity, water and natural gas in terms of how essential it would be for citizens to have it and how much of a deprivation it would be not to, just because private industry won't do it," she says. She'd like to find some balance between the concerns of the industry and needs of local communities. As it stands, she says, the bill "is putting us too much at the mercy of the private businesses."