Analysis & commentary on America's troubled transition from analog telephone service to digital advanced telecommunications and associated infrastructure deficits.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
It's time to halt the "digital literacy" baloney and build fiber
For example, this Texas Broadband Summit "designed to engage, educate, and equip technology providers and Texas communities with the resources and partnerships necessary to improve broadband access, adoption, and use," noting that "lack of digital literacy and the digital divide remain real issues in Texas."
What does "digital literacy" have to do with getting IPTV, VOIP and other Internet protocol-based services over fiber? Nothing, because people have been watching TV and making phone calls for decades. In that regard, they are already digitally literate. And the web and email have been around for two decades and most people currently use these common services.
It's time to stop the PR baloney and work on alternative ways of building fiber to the premise -- such as community cooperatives and municipal fiber -- to fill in the gaps that investor owned telco and cable TV providers are unable to fill.
Saturday, May 05, 2012
Demand aggregation won't attract investor-owned providers
A consultant asked Genesee County lawmakers Wednesday if they wanted to join a regional coalition to try to get broadband Internet service to rural communities and homes.
Evhen Tupis of Clarendon said he’s been working on getting high-speed broadband for unserved areas of Orleans County and Niagara County. The sparsely populated parts of the two counties don’t have a provider because it isn’t financially feasible for companies such as Time Warner and Verizon.
The coalition would issue a request for proposals to broadband service providers “with 100 percent coverage,” he said.
Tupis’ proposed Inclusive Internet Initiative would pool together the region’s counties to make it more attractive to communications companies. He estimated the cost to provide broadband to most or all of Genesee County at $150,000, the same as it would in Niagara.
Yet another misguided notion that investor-owned telecommunications infrastructure providers can be convinced to serve an area that is insufficiently profitable for them by aggregating demand. Demand aggregation does not solve the underlying economics that make deployment impractical for these providers. If businesses and residents want modern Internet access, they will have to provide it themselves with municipal fiber or a consumer cooperative.
Copper culprits hasten obsolescence of twisted pair
Check out this Fresno Bee story that reports that the crooks have gotten so brazen they are toppling utility poles in order to get at AT&T's cables.
Saturday, April 21, 2012
SB 1161 doesn't touch California's real telecom problem
SB 1161 would neither help nor hinder that goal. California's real problem is incomplete Internet infrastructure that leaves millions of Californians disconnected from the Internet. Since telecommunications services tend to be a natural monopoly market, the fears of consumer groups of any form of reduced regulatory oversight are understandable. However, their concerns would make more sense if all Californians had fiber connections to the Internet via a monopolistic provider. They don't. California's telecommunications market suffers from market failure because the high cost business models of the incumbent telcos (and cable companies) don't allow them to achieve that level of service. Accordingly, the CPUC should do a better job of assisting alternative, lower cost business models emerge -- such as consumer-owned telecom cooperatives -- take root and thrive. So far, the CPUC has failed to do so.
Saturday, April 07, 2012
Drop DSL and go suck our sooper dooper satellite!
Satellite Internet providers that serve a captive market of those who are off the Internet grid because of a lack of terrestrial infrastructure now hope to attract DSL subscribers by offering higher speeds. But as this USA Today article points out, converting DSL customers won't be easy since they have to buy the dish and installation. Not to mention they'd be getting much higher latency, hardly worth the trade off for higher speeds.
Satellite providers are a national embarrassment that point up how just how much of the United States remains a backward Internet backwater. The service should only be available in the Alaskan wilderness and places like Buford, Wyoming (Pop. 1).
Sunday, April 01, 2012
Why America needs lower cost, coop business models to complete Internet infrastructure
FiOS is Verizon's attempt to solve this problem by replacing its slow telephone cables with fiber-optic connections capable of offering speed that can compete with Comcast's. But in 2010, Verizon announced that it was winding down its FiOS installation efforts. Verizon plans for the network to reach around 18 million households, but not in some major metropolitan areas, including a few (like Boston) at the heart of its service area. News reports cited the high costs of the project as a reason why it was not being extended to all homes in Verizon's territory. Meanwhile, AT&T's project to partially replace its copper network with fiber, "U-Verse," is also being hampered by high costs. U-Verse service is faster than a traditional DSL line, but it is significantly slower than Verizon's and Comcast's high-speed networks, and it will not reach all households in AT&T's service territory. This might explain why, in the third quarter of 2011, Comcast added more than twice as many subscribers as did the seven largest telephone incumbents combined.