Satellite Internet fails to live up to expectations

This item is from Jericho, Vermont courtesy of the Burlington Free Press. The satellite Internet service leaves something to be desired and no, it's not been nuked like in the TV series set in Jericho, Kansas.

Kyle Houchens of Jericho runs a design business from his home. He often sends and receives large computer files over his satellite Internet connection, which promised to be fast. However, Houchens has found it slower than he expected and unreliable.
RYAN MERCER, Free Press

Vermont governor proposes state telecom agency

The governor's plan starts with creation of the Vermont Telecommunications Authority, overseen by an executive director and a nine-member board of directors.

The authority isn't looking to get into the business of providing Internet service. It would, however, be able to bond for up to $40 million to help others provide service.

That money would be invested in infrastructure such as fiber-optic cable or small towers to bring broadband and cell phone service to unserved or under-served parts of the state. The bond would be paid back through revenues generated from leasing infrastructure to cellular and Internet service providers.

Geographic market failure, inconsistent regulatory policy stymie U.S. broadband access

The existing large telecommunications providers invest their money where there is maximum return on investment, which results in a patchwork of coverage throughout the U.S. Telecom providers maximize profits and spend millions of dollars lobbying to create laws that decrease competitive challenges, while having little incentive to provide new services to less population-dense areas of the country, or to increase speed and lower costs for those who already do have service. This state of affairs stands in marked contrast to the situation in those nations that are truly broadband leaders.

In the absence of widespread government initiatives and incentives to roll out broadband services in rural areas, telecom providers have made the decision to maximize profits by rolling out service in those areas that have the highest population density and lowest cost of build-out per customer. The free market wins in the short term, quarterly profits are maximized, but the customers in less-profitable geographic areas lose, and the nation as a whole loses out over the long term, falling behind other nations with more farsighted policies.

More "get ready, it's coming" talk on Project Lightspeed

Can Project Lightspeed escape the gravitational inertia of AT&T's many massive broadband black holes? Engine room, get me maximum warp (spin) drive. Here's the latest "get ready, it's coming" promise from AT&T via CEO Edward E. Whitacre Jr.:

Regarding AT&T's Project Lightspeed, which will extend fiber-optic cable into neighborhoods and add video services to telephone and high-speed Internet options, Whitacre said the company plans "a big time ramp up" in the next couple of months. He did not elaborate on the plans for the project, which he acknowledged has been a "little bit behind" in its rollout.

FTC to look into ISP broadband speed claims

About two weeks ago, I predicted that an Australian regulator's concerns over Internet Service Provider claims of providing throughput speeds of "up to" X mbs" when actual connection speeds are far lower would spread to the U.S.

Sure enough, it has. The Federal Trade Commission will be look into the issue in a workshop this week, ars technica reports.

Verizon policy exec calls for federal grants, loans to extend broadband access

Tom Tauke, Verizon's executive vice president for public affairs, policy and communications wants the feds to emulate Kentucky's nonprofit program to expand broadband access to nearly everyone in the state. Tauke also called for federal grants and loans to speed deployment of broadband access and reform the Universal Service Fund to better support high speed Internet service in high cost areas. The U.S. needs to look at broadband incentive programs "sooner rather than later," he said.

Tauke also said the nation needs to come up with a better way to determine exactly where broadband is available and where it's not, suggesting like consumer advocates the FCC's current methodology of using ZIP Codes as measurement units is flawed.

Cooperative research project proposed to study "acute and growing problems facing the Internet" in U.S.

Internet access in the U.S. is at crisis point and researchers say they need more complete and reliable data to point the way forward. The goal of the the COMMONS Project is to gather "substantial real-world data on Internet traffic at the national level ....to raise the intellectual merit of the entire field of Internet science through increased standards of data collection, curating, and sharing in the research community."

On December 12-13, 2006, the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA) held a workshop to discuss and ultimately propose a collaboration among researchers and networks to simultaneously solve three acute and growing problems facing the Internet: a self-reported financial crisis in the Internet infrastructure provider industry that poses a severe threat to broadband growth and U.S. competitiveness; a data acquisition crisis which has deeply stunted the field of network science; and a dilemma within emerging community, municipal, regional, and state networks, who need (additional) broadband connectivity but face severely limited provider, service level, and usage options.

Project Lightspeed appears headed on failed course of Project Pronto

Near the start of the current decade, AT&T (then SBC Communications) announced an initiative called Project Pronto. The goal was to speed up the deployment of high speed Internet services — Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) over copper cable and twisted pair — to 80 percent of the phone company’s service area by 2002 and throughout its entire service area by last year. Both deadlines were missed, with about one in five customers still unable to obtain any broadband services from the telco.

AT&T’s latest initiative is dubbed Project Lightspeed. Unlike the failed Project Pronto, Project Lightspeed — AT&T’s scheme to offer a so-called triple play menu of services including telephone, broadband and IPTV (Internet Protocol TV over phone lines) contains no self imposed deadlines. That’s a good thing because it’s moving well below the speed of light, BusinessWeek reports this week.

AT&T wants to make all three digital services run over its existing copper cable, and industry analysts are questioning whether copper — designed to carry low bandwidth analog voice services — can provide enough bandwidth to accommodate the huge bandwidth needs of high definition IPTV. AT&T "competitor" Verizon doesn’t think copper is up to the job and is instead committed to doing triple play over fiber optic cable to the doorstep. By contrast, AT&T finds itself caught between its desire to keep up with Verizon and the cable companies in the market for triple play services and its reluctance to let go of its legacy copper cable plant, a reluctance that ensures an early death for Project Lightspeed and make AT&T an also ran in the triple play game.

In a competitive market — the kind of competitive market envisioned by the federal telecommunications reform legislation enacted in 1996 — the stage would appear to be set for Verizon to eat Ma Bell’s lunch. The problem is there is no true competitive market for residential telecommunications services. Verizon refuses to compete in AT&T’s service area and vice versa. So there’s little pressure on AT&T to upgrade its aging copper cable-based system to fiber. Meanwhile, AT&T residential customers suffer, with large numbers unable to obtain even a “double play” of voice and broadband service promised years ago by the not-so-pronto Project Pronto let alone the triple play of Project Lightspeed.

More than 20 percent of local phone company customers can't get DSL

Local telephone companies didn’t offer DSL in more than 20 percent of their service areas last year, according to recently released data compiled by the Federal Communications Commission. The data are contained in Table 14 of the report, High Speed Services for Internet Access as of June 30, 2006.

States with the highest DSL penetration among incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs) include Florida (88 percent), California (86 percent) and surprisingly, Louisiana with 87 percent. Even less densely populated states such as Nevada and North Dakota exceeded the national average of 79 percent, with 85 percent and 86 percent respectively.

The states with the lowest DSL availability offered by ILECs were New Hampshire with 59 percent; Vermont with 60 percent; Virginia, Arkansas and Michigan with 66 percent; and Maine, 67 percent.

The ILEC measurement provides a more accurate picture of broadband availability than cable modem since telephone service, unlike cable, is available to nearly all U.S. households and businesses. The FCC data also show satellite Internet connections, offered as a last resort option in areas where neither phone nor cable companies provide broadband, remain unpopular with just 495,365 subscribers nationwide.

Finally some common sense on broadband -- courtesy of Nebraska Rep. Lee Terry

Finally, a public policymaker displays some practical common sense and fairness when it comes to filling in America’s many broadband black holes: allow broadband providers to charge customers in areas that cost more to serve higher rates for service.

In addition to ending a federal requirement that high-speed Internet rates be equal regardless of population density, Nebraska Republican Congressman Lee Terry’s draft bill would also require the Universal Service Fund, created to subsidize voice telephone service in higher cost areas, be updated to include broadband, according to this ars technica report.

Terry, a member of the Congressional Rural Caucus, is on the right track policy-wise. Broadband Internet access should be universal and allowing USF funding to help make it so is sound policy. It’s also equitable to allow higher costs to deploy wire line-based broadband to be recovered in the form of higher prices.

Achieving universal broadband access is a high cost proposition and will require multiple funding sources. Terry’s bill strikes a reasonable middle ground that’s vitally needed in finding a way to make broadband universally accessible. Otherwise, everyone living outside of densely populated urban areas will remain stuck in the early 1990s with cheap but impractical dial up Internet access or the costly and undesirable option of satellite, which is best left to television programming.

Australian regulator puts ISPs on notice: honest disclosure of broadband speeds needed

This story is from the land down under. I wouldn't be surprised to see this broadband speed full disclosure sentiment spread to the states. Consumers here aren't likely all that different from their Australian counterparts in not quite understanding that broadband provider speed claims of "Up to X mbs" often mean a connection speed significantly lower than the upper limit.

Cable companies face bandwidth crunch

Cable providers, reluctant to admit their coaxial-based systems that formerly carried only analog television programming, are getting maxed out with the flood of digital and high def TV signals, high speed Internet and most recently, digital telephone service as part of their so-called "triple play" bundles. They're looking for ways to expand their carrying capacity, including following telcos such as Verizon and moving to fiber optic cable. Read about it in Light Reading's Cable Digital News.

Internet 2 spawns customer relations nightmare for telcos, cable companies

Now that the Internet is entering its second stage of popular acceptance and has moved beyond mere email and Web sites to streaming video from the major television networks and amateur video productions via YouTube, it’s likely creating a customer relations nightmare for the big cable and telephone companies.

The reason: In many areas, both still are unable to deliver the Internet at speeds any faster than those that existed in the early to mid-1990s, speeds that are impractical for today’s Internet or even Web surfing. Or in the cable companies’ case, any Internet access whatsoever. Their call center sales representatives are likely getting tired of being asked repeatedly, “When can I get high speed Internet?” and having to tell disappointed would be customers they cannot sell it to them -- and don't know when it will be offered. Ditto repair crews out in the field who find they must double as customer service representatives as well as technicians when they are approached with the same insistent question.

CWA calls for national broadband effort

The Communication Workers of America (CWA) has joined a growing call for a national broadband policy, condemning the status quo as "a hodgepodge of fragmented government programs and uneven private sector responses to changing markets."

The United States should offer all residents and businesses high speed connections of at least 2 mbs down and 1 mbs up by the end of 2007 year and 10 mbs down and 2 mbs uploads by 2010, a CWA policy paper states.

Speed Matters: Affordable High Speed Internet For All calls on the federal government to actively support the creation of public-private partnerships in each state to expand broadband access and a national broadband map to show parts of the nation that remain on the dark side of the digital divide.

All residential and business customers should be protected by basic consumer and service quality protections no matter where they live, which carrier they choose or what technology is used to provide their services. Telecommunications services should meet the highest
standards of quality, reliability, and safety. Quality service depends primarily on sufficient investment in telecommunications infrastructure and adequate staffing provided by trained, well-compensated career employees.

Watchdog group sues FCC to assess broadband competition

After being stonewalled by the Federal Communications Commission, the Center for Public Integrity is going to court to get access to FCC records to determine how much competition for broadband service exists. The CPI wants to know exactly how many broadband land lines the telcos and cable companies provide in a given Zip Code. Under current FCC standards, if they offered a single connection at 200kbs or greater in a given Zip Code, that entire area would be considered being wired for high speed Internet. That standard is highly flawed in most El Dorado County Zip Codes that contain yawning broadband black holes.

Read ars technica reporter Nate Anderson's story on the federal lawsuit. The telco and cable providers are circling the wagons -- most likely because the withheld data would shine a bright light on the dreadful state of poor wireline broadband access that exists across much of the U.S.

Indiana telecom's goal: "No house left behind"

Here's an article about an Indiana telecom that wants to bring service to all parts of the state. It's refreshing to see entrepreneurial boldness and a can-do attitude for a change compared to the bureaucratic, no can do culture that permeates the big telcos and cable companies. I hope it spreads to California.

“Our policy is ‘No House Left Behind,'” Weddell joked Thursday morning at a meeting of the Communications-Technology Committee of Vision In Progress.

Weddell said Cue Connex wants to set up networks to service all of a community's technology needs: high-speed Internet service, Voice-Over-Internet Protocol (VoIP), videoconferencing, Internet-based television, and eventually video services over a wireless network, as well as many other services.

“We're talking about huge (fiber-optic) pipes coming in,” Weddell said, describing the scale of services the company plans for Indiana. Cue Connex is in the process of purchasing a fiber optic company, he said, but cannot release the company's name until the deal is completed.

Telecommuters less likely to be promoted

Here's an interesting article in today's L.A. Times that suggests in order to get ahead in the workplace, one must develop an ability to drive hours in stop and go traffic five days a week in addition to being a competent employee.

It's not telecommuting itself that's the issue but rather how the employer is structured. In recent years, some organizations have abandoned the traditional top down, centralized structure and moved to a horizontal structure organized around projects and teams of workers.