FCC broadband data for first half of 2007 show nation plagued by persistent telco broadband black holes

The Federal Communications Commission's semi-annual report on broadband deployment as required by the Telecommunications Act of 1996 covering the first half of 2007 is out and the numbers aren't good. (See Table 14) They show virtually no improvement in the percentage of residences that can get high speed Internet from their telcos during the first half of 2007 compared to all of 2006.

On average, nearly 20 percent of Americans still are unable to get broadband from their incumbent telephone companies. In some states -- notably Vermont, Virginia, New Hampshire and Maine -- the number is even worse, with fully one third of state households cut off from the modern era of telecommunications. No state exceeds the 91 percent availability rate of Georgia, though Nevada and California come close with 90 percent and 89 percent, respectively.

Kentucky's figure of 87 percent also casts doubt on the claim of Connect Kentucky in an Aug. 9, 2007 news release that 94 percent of households in the Blue Grass State can get broadband and no households will be left in digital darkness by the end of 2007. The organization was the subject of a January expose by Public Knowledge's Art Brodsky, who debunked its overblown broadband access claims.

Mapmaking a diversion on the road to full broadband deployment

One of the biggest diversions to filling in America’s many persistent broadband black holes is the idea of geographically mapping broadband availability. It’s been a prominent activity of telco industry backed nonprofits and broadband task forces and working groups established by state governments with the goal of increasing broadband access. Those mapmaking efforts have in turn influenced some in Congress to propose mapping the entire nation.

Unfortunately, too many well intended policymakers and broadband advocates have fallen into the misguided notion that in order increase broadband access, it must first be known where the broadband black holes are.

But rather than speeding broadband deployment, the mapping proposals have slowed it by creating an unnecessary way station on the road to full broadband deployment. They’ve produced disputes among telcos and cable companies who believe the maps will reveal their deployment strategies to competitors. (Not true, but that’s beside the point) Then there are debates among the providers and the mapmakers over the degree of granularity. Should the maps be drawn based on five-digit ZIP Codes, ZIP plus 4 or census tracts?

These mapping exercises are essentially busy work that distracts from the real task at hand: the need to deploy broadband infrastructure to eliminate those areas lacking it as rapidly as possible. Plus they give the telcos and cable companies an excuse to avoid further deployments until the scope of the maps is agreed upon and the maps are drawn up. When they’re completed, we end up with some nice pretty maps to look at but new no actual broadband deployment. Cynics might understandably suggest that’s a stall tactic on the part of the providers.

The maps also create a platform from which the providers can mount more empty promises of broadband deployment like AT&T's bogus Project Pronto. I recall attending a community meeting with AT&T’s predecessor entity SBC Communications in 2002 at which the telco displayed a large wall map showing a goal of broadband deployment to nearly 100 percent of its service areas by 2006. Here it is 2008 and Project Pronto turned out to be Project Punt.

The telcos and cable companies know where they've deployed broadband infrastructure. Public policymakers typically do not. Since local elected officials already represent a given geographical area, it’s very easy for them to poll their constituents on their Web sites, by mail and town hall meetings to ask them if they have broadband. Those living in broadband black holes will give them an earful. No mapping required.

NTIA report on US broadband access blasted

The feds are once again drawing well justified criticism for papering over America's sprawling broadband black holes by relying on an outdated, 12-year-old formula for measuring broadband access. The formula, promulgated by the Federal Communications Commission and adopted in a report on U.S. broadband access released this week by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), simply measures whether anyone -- even just one address -- in a given ZIP Code can obtain broadband, defined in the circa 1996 standard of at least 200kbs in one direction.

One only needs to take a look at two states, California and Tennessee, where large areas are mapped as having no wireline broadband services to see how far off base this federal government report truly is.

One of the FCC's commissioners even took issue with his own agency's data that was used in the NTIA report. "This report relies on widely-discredited data in a strained effort that only distracts us from the real work ahead," Commissioner Jonathan S. Adelstein said in a statement.

Gigi B. Sohn, president and co-founder of Public Knowledge, blasted the NTIA report:

“The NTIA report presents a distorted view of the state of broadband in the U.S. The Administration should not be boasting about our success at a time when consumers here pay more money for slower service with have fewer choices than do consumers in other parts of the world.

“Almost 97 percent of U.S. consumers have a choice only between their cable company and their telephone company. The Administration wiped out the policies that once upon a time allowed competition to flourish here and which now sustain the competition in other countries that consumers enjoy.

“The short-sighted policies cited by the NTIA have put our economic future at risk. The rosy picture the NTIA portrayed should have recognized that reality.”

Nate Anderson of arstechnica.com had this to say:

As broadband continues to be a key driver of economic opportunity and growth, falling behind the rest of the world will have real consequences for US high-tech leadership. Instead of addressing that crucial question, though, the report is an unabashed celebration of free-market, deregulatory policies. So enamored with their own economic theories are the authors that they resort to dogmatic lecturing throughout the paper.

Study warns "last mile" congestion will bog down Internet connectivity

If you're mired in a broadband black hole and relegated to slow dial up or sluggish satellite connections, everyone else could be dealing with slow speeds in as little as three years.

A study by Nemertes Research warns unless another $42 billion to $55 billion is spent on U.S. telecommunications infrastructure above and beyond the $72 billion service providers are already planning to invest in the next three to five years, there will be a developing capacity problem.

“This groundbreaking analysis identifies a critical issue facing the Internet – that we must take the necessary steps to build out network capacity or potentially face Internet gridlock that could wreak havoc on Internet services,” said Larry Irving, co-chairman of the Internet Innovation Alliance. “It’s important to note that even if we make the investment necessary between now and 2010, we still might not be prepared for the next killer application or new internet-dependent business like Google or YouTube. The Nemertes study is evidence the exaflood is coming.”

The choke points will occur on the so-called last mile or so that connects businesses and residences to the fast fiber backbone of the Internet. Current in much of the U.S., the last mile infrastructure cannot support any type of broadband connections let alone the coming "exaflood."

Why competition suffers in the broadband market

One of the biggest debates is over how much broadband telecommunications should be regulated. That debate is in turn fueled by another over the fundamental nature of the market. Is it a competitive market and will competitive pressures force the market to provide broadband to those who want it at reasonable prices? Or is it an uncompetitive market as Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, described it at a conference today in San Francisco.

Atkinson like your blogger and many other observers tend to see it as a monopoly or duopoly with broadband provided by just a telco, a cable company or in all too many cases, neither, leading to the formation of broadband black holes stretching across the landscape. The reason, Atkinson explains, is the high cost of becoming broadband provider and deploying the necessary infrastructure.

Atkinson's right. By way of illustration, if another high cost infrastructure such as roads and highways was left to private market providers who would charge tolls for access, there would only be a small number of road builders and plenty of places where roads -- like broadband -- don't go. That's why roads in the vast majority of places are provided by the public sector.

Despite the substantial financial heft of the big telcos and cable companies and their ability to raise money on Wall Street, they simply can't put up the money themselves to build out their infrastructures to provide broadband to nearly every one who wants it. They'd have to take on billions more of bond debt and sacrifice near term earnings --something their investors wouldn't tolerate.

Increasingly, it appears only a partnership of both the private and public sectors can eliminate America's numerous broadband black holes and close the digital divide.

FCC delays report on broadband access

For the past several years, the Federal Communications Commission each January and June has released data on the number of high speed telco and cable connections to the Internet. The most recent report was issued Jan. 31, 2007. As your blogger reported in early February, it revealed that local telephone companies failed to provide DSL in more than 20 percent of their service areas as of June 30, 2006.

The FCC report covering the last half of 2006 was due out in June. But it's been inexplicably delayed. An FCC spokesman assured me in a July 20, 2007 email that it would be released "soon" but it's still MIA nearly two months later. A likely explanation is the FCC is delaying the report's release at the behest of the telcos since it's likely to show that telcos have made little if any progress shrinking their massive broadband black holes during the last six months of 2006.

Mass. telecom czar: Broadband black holes "unacceptable"

Q You just took the helm of the new Department of Telecommunications and Cable. What is the plan?

A I have three hot priorities, one of which is broadband. The idea that in the 21st century we still have communities with no broadband is just unacceptable, and we have to fix it.

FCC Commissioner: "We need to make broadband the dial tone of the 21st Century."

Kudos to Federal Communications Commissioner Jonathan S. Adelstein for these remarks excerpted from his written testimony to the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. It's refreshing to hear a positive, let's get it done attitude in contrast to the pathetic, defeatist whining and foot dragging from the telco/cable duopoly:

We need to make broadband the dial-tone of the 21st Century.

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Some have argued that the reason we have fallen so far in the international broadband rankings is that we are a more rural country than many of those ahead of us. Even if that is the case, and since geography is destiny and we cannot change ours, rather than merely curse the difficulty of addressing rural communications challenges, we should redouble our efforts and get down to the business of addressing and overcoming them.

I am concerned that the lack of a comprehensive broadband communications deployment plan is one of the reasons that the U.S. is increasingly falling further behind our global competitors. Virtually every other developed country has implemented a national broadband strategy. This must become a greater national priority for America than it is now.

Welcome to my neighborhood, a broadband black hole

The typical explanations for broadband black holes tend to fall along geographic or demographic lines. Homeowners are either located too far from existing telecommunications infrastructure or telcos and cable companies don't like their income levels, figuring they won't spring for more profitable premium and bundled broadband services.

Apparently my neighborhood is an exception to both rules and I wonder if perhaps there are others like it. It's just two miles from a major U.S. highway where both DSL and cable services are available.

The demographics are don't fit the usual rationale for digital redlining either. One nearby property owner is building two residences and a home office (and large pool complex) on his land. Just up the road, another property has just been listed for more than $1 million. Seems like the kind of demographics the nearby telco (AT&T) and cable company (Comcast) would like. Can't blame low density either. Several of my neighbors are within 100 feet of my home.

Apparently broadband black holes are like the physical black holes in space to the incumbent telco and cable providers. It's as if they don't exist and no information about them can escape.