WSJ columnist calls on federal government to speed broadband deployment

The Wall Street Journal is America’s flagship newspaper of free markets and free enterprise. It’s not known for advocating regulation and government involvement in business. When it comes to the business of deploying broadband Internet connections, however, a WSJ columnist suggests the business model has failed and can’t be left to its own devices. The federal government should launch an effort to hasten the build out the nation’s telecom system to accommodate more and faster broadband connections on a par with the Eisenhower-era program to build the interstate highway system, WSJ technology columnist Kara Swisher said at a recent Silicon Valley forum. “The government has got to get behind this, like it did with the public highways,” Swisher was quoted as saying.

Another panelist, the WSJ’s Walter Mossberg, a product reviewer and technology columnist, lamented the relatively slow speeds available to U.S. broadband users. “We need real broadband,” Mossberg told the panel, calling American broadband “pathetic” compared to what’s available in other countries.

Tech exec calls for federal universal broadband policy

With regular phone service service nearly universal, the federal government should develop policies to make broadband as accessible as telephones, argues Charles H. Giancarlo, senior vice president and chief development officer of Cisco Systems, in a recent San Francisco Chronicle op-ed piece. Giancarlo is a member of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Broadband Task Force.

655 Tahoe residents petition AT&T for broadband

The Lake Tahoe basin is one of the most massive broadband black holes in El Dorado County. As this blog reported back in the fall, the residents there aren’t happy about it and are petitioning the incumbent local exchange carrier, AT&T, to get moving on a solution and enlisted Fifth District Supervisor Norma Santiago to help press their case with company officials.

A couple of weeks ago, Tahoe activist Patti Handal, who led the door-to-door petition drive, sent off 655 signatures representing 364 households to Ma Bell’s headquarters in San Antonio. That should send a clear message for AT&T to get off the dime in the Tahoe region, where www has been an acronym for wait, wait and wait some more.

BusinessWeek's Silicon Valley bureau honcho falls into broadband black hole -- in Palo Alto

The many El Dorado County residents who are stuck in broadband black holes are by no means alone. Even residents in high tech, upscale Palo Alto can find themselves unwittingly getting too close to a dial up event horizon and falling in, such as Rob Hof, manager of BusinessWeek's Silicon Valley bureau. Read about Hof's recent unfortunate moving experience.

AT&T's MultiMedia Studio: An exercise in irrelevancy

I just received and completed an online survey from AT&T introducing its MultiMedia Studio server resident software. It will allow end users to use it in lieu of PC-based software for photo and video editing, managing music files, blogging, presentations and word processing.

For those of us residing in one of El Dorado County's many broadband black holes, the survey for MultiMedia Studio is an exercise in irrelevancy. That's because without a broadband connection to the Internet, server based software such as being contemplated by AT&T is simply useless.

First things first. AT&T should instead be focusing its resources on upgrading its aged infrastructure so it can make broadband available to those without access. Without it, MultiMedia Studio isn't even in the realm of possibilities.

Where the heck's my broadband?

When almost 200 of you signed the petition started at the beginning of 2006 urging AT&T to step up or get out of the county, AT&T put itself on record in late April in Bob Walter's Sacramento Bee column that it would expand broadband availability in the county by the end of the year.

But don't call up AT&T's high speed Internet department and expect to place an order for service considering that year end is just a couple of weeks away. When I did this week, I was told that was impossible because there's no planned date for rolling out service in my broadband black hole not far from U.S. 50.

Par for the course for Ma Bell despite speedy sounding rhetoric in 2002 "Project Pronto" (It wasn't) and AT&T's latest "get ready, it's coming" hype, "Project Lightspeed."

75% of residences have broadband connections

A study by Nielsen/NetRatings estimates that more than three fourths of American homes have high speed connections to the Internet, according to this Associated Press story via MSNBC.

That number is undoubtedly far lower in El Dorado County, which continues to be plagued by gaping broadband black holes where neither AT&T nor Comcast provide service, leaving residents to choose between the unfeasible -- dial up -- and the undesirable -- satellite.

Broadband will determine outcome of cable vs. telco market share struggle

The key determinant whether telcos such as AT&T or cable companies like Comcast come to dominate in El Dorado County and elsewhere is what each offers in the way of high speed Internet.

"That battle that is going on in the marketplace is really focused around the broadband connection," Oren Shaffer, telco Qwest's chief financial officer, told MarketWatch in this article that appeared today.

That's doubly true in much of "dark" El Dorado County where neither AT&T nor Comcast offers broadband connections. The first to enter these areas with a robust broadband product will over the short term have the market to themselves to sell bundled services and set the stage to develop long term loyalty among residents who have waited far too long for high speed Internet access.

Caught flat footed by Internet, telcos ponder their future

America's telcos were caught flat footed by the rapid rise of the Internet that has left them pondering what business they are in, according to this Reuters article appearing in VAR Business:

A decade into the Internet era, it is becoming clear to former telecommunications monopolies that they may not have what it takes to operate at Internet speed.

"The integrated telco model is broken. All innovation is coming from the edge of the Internet. It's coming from companies other than telecom companies, from the likes of Google, Amazon," said James Enck, an analyst at Daiwa Securities in London.

Schwarzenegger names 21 to California Broadband Task Force

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today announced the appointment of Ellis Berns, Rachelle Chong, William Geppert, Charles Giancarlo, Paul Hernandez, William Huber, Christine Kehoe, Wendy Lazarus, Lloyd Levine, Michael Liang, Bryan Martin, Timothy McCallion, Sunne Wright McPeak, Milo Medin, Peter Pardee, Peter Pennekamp, Debra Richardson, Rollin Richmond, Larry Smarr, Jonathan Taplin and Emy Tseng to the Broadband Task Force.

Click here for news release.

Under the executive order Schwarzenegger signed to create the Broadband Task Force, it is to provide the governor a preliminary report by the end of January, 2007 that identifies "administrative actions that can result in immediate promotion of broadband access and usage within California."

Apparently the governor has opted to appoint a blue ribbon commission to examine the issue. What's missing however is the consumer perspective and particularly the consumer point of view from outside California's urban centers where broadband availability leaves much to be desired.

All dressed up with nothing to sell

Some of you may have noticed that I've opened Eldo Telecom to advertisers. The ads you see are not placed by human beings, but by Google's so-called "ad bots" that seek out blogs that accept advertising based on automatic key words searches. Ads you see appearing here aren't chosen by me and don't necessarily represent an endorsement of what's being advertised -- and certainly no guarantee it's even available.

Take for example Comcast's pitch for its high speed Internet services that has appeared today. Many El Dorado County residents clicking on the link are likely to find Comcast has no such service to sell them. That's because Comcast's marketing is also on automatic, run by cyber robots. Going to Comcast's Web site and typing in Camino's ZIP Code, 95709, for example, will produce a message that Comcast's TV programming and high speed Internet service are available in 95709. Not necessarily true. It's only available in parts of the ZIP Code.

Both Comcast and AT&T advertise as if they can deliver broadband to all of El Dorado County when in fact both cover only limited parts of the county. It's not exactly a formula to win the hearts of minds of consumers and violates the maxim of marketing experts to avoid creating customer expectations that cannot be fulfilled.

WISP “inundated” with service requests

Shingle Springs-based Direct Connect, one of El Dorado County’s first homegrown Internet Service Providers, reports overwhelming demand for its wireless Internet service.

Since becoming a Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP) in addition to its established wire line-based services earlier this year, the company has been “inundated” by requests for its terrestrial fixed wireless service, Direct Connect President & CEO Ken Garnett reported in a letter to potential subscribers this week. The WISP's service area is growing beyond the small 15-square mile area initially served earlier this year, now reaching to the western edges of Placerville and into Diamond Springs.

It’s certainly no surprise county residents are clamoring for the wireless service given the county’s many gaping broadband black holes where residents face a Hobson’s choice of dialup or satellite-based Internet access.

“With such a huge demand, it is extremely difficult to service everyone in a timely fashion,” Garnett writes. “In order to solve this problem, we are actively raising capital in order to accelerate our deployment capabilities…this will enable us to hire more installers and to more rapidly expand our network.” Garnett also notes that even within Direct Connect’s existing wireless service area, there are many locations that lie in a “shadowed” area unable to reliably receive service and in need of “additional backfilling” for complete coverage. “Expanding our network/service area will occur as rapidly as we are able to raise capital and thereby bolster our resources,” Garnett writes.

The balkanized state of U.S. broadband access

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who recently issued an executive order creating a broadband task force to identify and eliminate obstacles to making broadband internet access ubiquitous in the Golden State, sees it as the great equalizer.

But throughout more rural parts of California and the rest of the nation, the broadband infrastructure and available service choices are far less equal to that of more urban areas. Ironically, Information Week writer Richard Hoffman notes in his comprehensive article on the state of U.S. rural broadband access, broadband access tends to be least available in the very areas that can most benefit from it as the U.S. continues into a post suburban, penturbian settlement trend.

DSL reportedly in the works for two Pollock Pines area neighborhoods south of Hwy. 50

A resident of the Gold Ridge Forest subdivision off Sly Park Road and Gold Ridge Trail in Pollock Pines reports AT&T crews are upgrading lines for DSL service to the area. The neighborhood is about a mile south of Highway 50.

In addition, an AT&T lineman advised the resident that DSL service is expected to be offered several miles farther south in the Sierra Springs subdivision after the first of the year.

FCC member Michael Kopps calls tepid U.S. record on broadband expansion an outrage

"The solution to our broadband crisis must ultimately involve public-private initiatives like those that built the railroad, highway and telephone systems. Combined with an overhaul of our universal service system to make sure it is focusing on the needs of broadband, this represents our best chance at recapturing our leadership position.

It seems plain enough that our present policies aren't working. Inattention and muddling through may be the path of least resistance, but they should not and must not represent our national policy on this critical issue."

Full op-ed in today's Washington Post.

Broadband coming for Camino's Rancho del Sol?

One of El Dorado County's many broadband black holes may be gone by early next year. That's according to Dan Gallagher, chair of the Rancho del Sol maintenance committee. Dan tells me AT&T has been installing and testing equipment to bring the community of 160 homes located off Snows Road in Camino that has been stuck with dial up Internet access into the digital age.

Earlier this year, Ma Bell promised to offer a number of broadband options to the county by the end of the year. As this blog exclusively reported, DSL was made available to parts of Grizzly Flat this past summer. Dan's report is encouraging because it's further evidence of concrete action from AT&T following years of unkept promises and more recently, AT&T's direct mail promos suggesting that El Doradans instead turn to ill-favored satellite-based Internet access.

If you are seeing indications that AT&T upgrading its infrastructure in your El Dorado County neighborhood or have recently obtained broadband access that wasn't previously available, please email with the details.

AT&T's Homezone misadventure

This has turkey written all over it right out of the box. The San Francisco Chronicle reports today that AT&T is unveiling a new service that bundles satellite TV from Dish Network with AT&T's DSL service. The idea of the so-called Homezone service is to allow subscribers to send movies, TV shows and music downloaded from the Internet to their TVs. It's supposedly to allow AT&T to better compete with the cable providers. It sounds too jury-rigged and complex to ultimately succeed and gain customer acceptance.

Rather than embark on such misadventures, AT&T should stick to the knitting of telecommunications. Ma Bell should concentrate on upgrading her long neglected wireline infrastructure in places like El Dorado County where AT&T is the incumbent telecom provider. There is plenty of work to do to ensure the delivery of reliable phone service and to eliminate the many broadband black holes that exist in the county. Homezone is a distraction and a misguided diversion of resources.