Friday, January 11, 2019

Texas Hill Country: Where the "rural broadband" descriptor and comparisons to electric power in 1930s fail

Broadband Communities – News & Views / GVTC Launches New Fiber Internet Tier Structure in Texas: SMITHSON VALLEY, TX — GVTC, a fiber communications provider internet, digital cable TV, phone and interactive home security monitoring to residential and business customers in far north San Antonio, the Texas Hill Country and South Central Texas, is simplifying its fiber-to-the-home offerings with a new fiber internet tier structure. GVTC launched brand new fiber internet plans that feature standard download speeds of 250 Mbps in its fiber-to-the-home areas. In addition, upgrades to 500 Mbps and 1 Gbps are offered, all three plans featuring 250 Mbps upload speeds as well. New plans are available to both new and existing customers.
Despite the availability of fiber to the premise advanced telecom service in these areas, there is a continued misleading and overly broad description of America's telecom infrastructure deficiencies as a "rural broadband" issue. They've also been inaccurately compared to the lack of electric power infrastructure in the early 20th century when these same areas were completely unwired and left in the dark. Electric power infrastructure was truly a rural problem then because it didn't exist outside urbanized areas. Advanced telecom infrastructure by contrast is deployed in a far more granular manner by investor owned providers that cherry pick nominally rural neighborhoods where they believe they can earn the fastest return on investment and redline the rest.

Wednesday, January 09, 2019

Oregon opens broadband office to connect rural residents

Oregon opens broadband office to connect rural residents: Spokesmen from the governor’s office told StateScoop the office would essentially serve as a policy and planning hub, responsible for coordinating a statewide strategy and securing funding to ensure everyone in the state has access to high-speed internet. In Oregon, some communities in urban areas have less broadband access than others, but the issue primarily affects rural communities outside of the state’s more populous western cities.

Given the above mission statement, the office would have to include a major federal lobbying function to secure the billions needed to achieve universal advanced telecom service. And especially considering the state's budget allocates just $5 million for infrastructure projects, an amount that won't go very far statewide.