Vermont House approves formation of state telecom authority

The state has set a goal of getting reliable cellular telephone service and high-speed computer service known as broadband into every area of the state by 2010. Now, wide swaths of Vermont get no cell signals and computer users must use much slower dial-up service.

The Telecommunications Authority would have the power to float state-backed bonds valued at $40 million to build the poles, towers and other parts of the basic network. It then would lease space on the network to companies that would sell their service to consumers.

The House Commerce Committee was the lead panel in crafting the legislation, which won overwhelming support. Chairman Warren Kitzmiller, D-Montpelier, said the bill "has as much important to Vermont as did the Rural Electrification Act of the 1930s. This bill can have profound impact on every citizen of the state and its economic impact is huge."

Broadband black holes in the Big Apple?

In much of America, market failure and lack of competition have cut off millions from broadband Internet access. It's typically in areas outside of more densely populated urban areas and most acutely felt in rural parts of the nation.

But in New York City, the nation's largest and most densely populated urban center? How can that be? It's apparently so according to this Newsday story that cites aging infrastructure and lack of competition in Big Apple boroughs where the telco/cable duopoly holds the cards.

Broadband over TV spectrum would dramatically alter Internet access

This is the biggest broadband development of the year so far: the potential of using frequencies in the television broadcast spectrum to carry broadband two years from now.

As Eric Bangeman of Ars Technica writes, should tests of the technology being pursued by Microsoft, Intel, Dell and Google succeed, the broadband landscape would be dramatically altered when it comes on the market in early 2009.

"Wireless networks using the spectrum should be relatively easy to deploy, and would provide residents of rural areas easy access to broadband while giving everyone else a third alternative to DSL and cable," Bangeman writes.

AT&T chief's words at odds with company's pathetic broadband deployment efforts

In a recent meeting with AT&T employees in Atlanta, AT&T Chairman and CEO Edward E. Whitacre Jr. admonished them to go the extra mile to serve customers.

“I’m asking you, I’m pleading, don’t let them go until they’re happy,” The New York Times quoted Whitacre as telling AT&T employees. “You just can’t let them go. Hang on till it’s done.”

But rather than hanging in with customers, AT&T has hung out large numbers of them to dry, letting them go years without broadband services and without any meaningful hope of getting broadband anytime soon.

They may be only a mile from existing broadband infrastructure, but Ma Bell won't go the extra mile to provide service as Whitacre as exhorts his workers. Instead, customers are told the system cannot provide broadband because they're too far from a central office, their loop's too long, there's no neighborhood DSL gateway and any number of "no can do" excuses.

While Whitacre may insist AT&T can't "just can’t let them go," that's exactly what it's doing with a sizable segment of its residential customer base.

Analysts question AT&T broadband strategy

Analysts aren't the only ones questioning Ma Bell's broadband strategy, one that can't deliver any broadband services at all let alone IPTV to large portions of her service area.

But there is potential downside for AT&T too, analysts said, particularly when it comes to its closely linked broadband and television strategies. Some analysts assert that AT&T has set itself up poorly to compete in those areas, which are considered essential to the telecommunications product bundle.

In the case of TV, the strategy is called Uverse, and it entails delivering programming over the Internet, called IPTV. But the service has been plagued by delays and glitches and, even now, takes on average more than six hours to install in a home.

"If it cannot be called a complete failure, it's at least struggling," said Phillip Swan, president of TVPredictions.com, a Web site that tracks the television technology industry. He said that if things did not pick up soon, AT&T might have to get back into the acquisition game to buy a TV distributor, like a satellite or cable company.

Newspaper stories suggest AT&T contributions to Schwarzenegger committees linked to AB 2987

The Los Angeles Times and the Sacramento Bee published stories this week suggesting that Ma Bell lavished love on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to the tune of $540,000 for the governor's approval last fall of AB 2987, the Digital Infrastructure and Video Competition Act.

The Times reported AT&T gave a cool half million dollars to Schwarzenegger's After-School All-Stars, a tax-exempt group founded by Schwarzenegger in the early 1990s to provide tutoring, recreation and other programs to poor children.

The Bee reported today in a page one story that eight high level AT&T executives gave $5,000 each to Schwarzenegger's reelection campaign committee in recent weeks.

Both stories contained strenuous denials from the governor's office and AT&T that the cash contributions had anything to do with Schwarzenegger's signature on AB 2987 last October.

The stories put the donations in the context of AB 2987's allowing AT&T to provide television programming and bypassing local governments by putting the California Public Utilities Commission in charge of issuing video franchises. It should be noted however that the cable TV industry also supported AB 2987.

The real issue isn't AT&T's ability to sell television programming since its aged copper cable-based infrastructure cannot reliably transmit Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) service to the vast majority of California households and won't be able to anytime soon. Rather, it's AB 2987's limited build out requirements that allow the telco/cable duopoly to leave vast areas of the state -- ironically many of them inland counties inhabited by Schwarzenegger's fellow Republicans -- without any broadband services whatsoever.

State franchise laws codify the digital divide, consumer advocate argues

A push by the telco/cable duopoly to enact state laws putting states in charge of granting broadband video franchises rather than expanding broadband availability as backers claim will have the opposite effect, a consumer advocate argues.

Ben Scott, policy director of the advocacy group Free Press, told the National Journal's Technology Daily that by allowing telcos and cable companies to pick and choose areas where broadband will be offered, state franchising laws "unfortunately, are going to write the digital divide into law."

Qwest follows dubious AT&T strategy of video over copper via DSL

Western telco Qwest is considering offering IPTV services, the Rocky Mountain News reports. Analysts are skeptical since Qwest faces some of the same challenges as AT&T, which is opting for a similar strategy: Delivering video over a copper-based DSL that can't deliver broadband whatsoever to about a fifth of their multi-state service areas and at sub-video speeds in large segments where service is available.

Fiber may be the future, but copper is now for cable rustlers

Fiber may be the future for telecommunications but for meth-addicted thieves, copper is now:

Verizon spokesman Jon Davies said the company had lost $297,795 in copper since 2006 in California alone, not including money spent on work to replace the wire or loss of service to customers.

"This is a national problem," he said. "We try to keep our cables high on the poles to make it harder to get, but the people who do this are highly motivated, and they have the equipment to get at it."

BPL technical standards announced

For many rural residents, the acronym for Broadband over Power Lines, BPL, might as well stand for Broadband over Propane Lines. Neither is delivering broadband as an alternative to wire line broadband offered (or frequently not) by cable companies and telcos.

Illustrating the still nascent state of BPL is a news release issued today by the IEEE Standards Association that establishes technical standards for BPL.

Tech coalition wants to use TV airwaves for broadband

The Washington Post reports Microsoft, Google Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Intel and Philips are pursuing an alternative fixed terrestrial route for wireless broadband using unused TV channels. The companies must first demonstrate the technology is feasible using a prototype device being developed by Microsoft and persuade the Federal Communications Commission the service won't interfere with existing broadcasts, The Post reported.

"Broadband drought" in the land down under

A first step is to build fibre-to-the-node (FTTN), extending optical fibre from telephone exchanges to street-corner nodes from where houses would be served by their telephone connections.

Telstra has offered to invest $4.2 billion in FTTN but has it on hold because the regulatory environment does not suit it.

Meanwhile, it is pursuing persuasion and public relations. "We have a broadband drought in this country, there's no question of that," Dr Burgess says. "This week the Government announced a broadband program at 256 kilobits per second, at almost the same time as Singapore announced a program to bring 100 megabits per second to 95 per cent of its population."

Comcast chief: DSL becoming the new dial up

Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts told the recent Bear Stearns 20th Annual Media Conference that given cable's broadband speed advantage over DSL, cable is to DSL what DSL is to dial up. Therefore, Roberts declared, DSL is the "new dial up."

Roberts' remarks reported in The Motley Fool would certainly give indigestion to lots of folks in places like El Dorado County who are stuck with dial up, unable to get DSL and often located only a mile or two -- or less -- from existing Comcast cable. Adding insult to injury, Comcast's Web site will inform visitors that cable is available in their ZIP codes when in fact it's not.

Telco/cable duopoly kills proposed legislation requiring disclosure of broadband deployments

This item comes from Art Brodsky of Public Knowledge, reporting on the successful lobbying efforts by the telco/cable duopoly to kill proposed Maryland legislation that would have required broadband providers report to the state on their deployments.

Apparently the telco/cable duopoly fears embarrassment and potential regulatory directives to expand broadband deployments if Maryland residents were able to determine the location of these companies' broadband black holes.

AT&T/Yahoo! High Speed Internet partnership in flux

AT&T is negotiating with Yahoo! over the future of its six-year-old partnership that features Yahoo! Web ads for AT&T's residential DSL service, The Wall Street Journal reports according to this Reuters story today.

One likely reason is AT&T has tapped out the Yahoo! market for its DSL services and lacks the necessary infrastructure to sell additional DSL connections to Yahoo! clickers such as your blogger who are constantly greeted with the message "AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet is not yet available" for their home phone number.

Additionally, given AT&T's promo rate of its lowest speed DSL service for $14.99 a month, there may not be enough money in the deal to justify continuing its partnership with Yahoo!

Wireless in America's heartland

Wireless broadband is best suited to America's heartland where line of sight radio signals travel relatively unimpeded over flat terrain. It's a natural interim alternative to more costly fiber wire-line based systems in places like Altus, Oklahoma. The city is entering negotiations for a citywide wireless broadband utility that will bring not only provide high speed Internet, but also bring money into the city's coffers.

Fiber consortium calls for national broadband policy

The Fiber to the Home Council, which describes itself as nonprofit consortium of telecommunications and networking companies as well as utilities and municipalities promoting the deployment of Fiber To The Home (FTTH), is calling on Congress to promulgate a national policy objective of providing next-generation (fiber versus metal wire based) broadband networks to a majority of Americans by 2010 with universal access by 2015. "To ensure that consumers can both receive and transmit video and other high-speed services, applications, and content, these networks should have transmission speeds in excess of 100 Mbps and symmetrical access capabilities," the FTTH Council said.

The FTTH Council is also urging Congress to enact legislation providing tax incentives for next-generation broadband deployment, preempting state laws barring local governments from building broadband infrastructure, reauthorizing the Rural Utility Service Loan Guarantee Program for next-generation broadband networks, permitting the Universal Service Fund to be used for next-generation broadband network deployment and earmarking $500 million in USF funds for broadband deployment in rural areas. In addition, the Federal Communications Commission should be required to issue annual reports on next-generation broadband network deployments and include recommendations on additional policies that would accelerate the deployment of next-generation broadband networks, the FTTH Council said.