U.S. senator secures federal funding for Vermont open access fiber network

Designed by Northern Enterprises, the network will be "vendor neutral," meaning private companies offering high-speed Internet access, telephone service or other telecommunications services will be able to use it for a fee, instead of building their own infrastructure, officials said.

Leahy, D-Vt., helped secure $500,000 in federal funding for the first phase of the project and $3 million in economic development grants for the network.

Broadband "number one" priority for FCC, Chairman Martin tells forum

"I think broadband is the number one priority for the commission and the additional deployment of it," said Martin. Broadband technology can drive economic growth and impacts areas such as health care delivery and education, he said. The FCC has done work to try to foster additional infrastructure investment and some increased competition in broadband, he said.

Sorry, wrong number: AT&T tells would be residential broadband customers to go suck a satellite

If you're an AT&T residential customer who's been waiting for years for broadband, indications are you're going to have to continue to wait some more. Hapless residential customers who visit AT&T's Web site to check on the availability of AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet get this message if it isn't:

AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet

	Our system indicates that our DSL service, AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet, is not available at your location. However, let's see if we have another solution for you: You may qualify for satellite broadband from AT&T.Learn More If DSL becomes available at my location, Contact Me

The satellite service is from satellite Internet provider WildBlue. AT&T entered into a reseller deal with WildBlue about a year ago to sell the inferior (compared to what AT&T could offer if it chose to seriously invest in its wire line infrastructure), costly satellite service in areas it has written off over the foreseeable for wire line broadband.

Keep in mind this is from the same AT&T that boasts "Your world delivered" and actually believes it can provide television service over the same tired copper cable-based system that can't even support DSL let alone IPTV.

Qwest holds off IPTV in favor of residential high speed Internet access

Qwest CEO Richard Notebaert tells Bloomberg his company is holding off offering video over phone lines, concentrating instead on accelerating residential broadband Internet access.

It's a wise move on Notebaert's part. Residential customers need high speed Internet access first and foremost. Telcos like Qwest should be prioritizing it and speeding deployment considering they didn’t offer DSL in more than 20 percent of their service areas as of mid 2006, according to the Federal Communications Commission.

If and when Qwest wants to offer wire line-based TV service, it would be well advised to follow Verizon and utilize fiber optic cable rather than a hybrid fiber/copper play in the early stages of deployment by AT&T, dubbed Project U-Verse.

High definition TV itself needs about 9Mbs. Getting that much data over twisted copper pair that comprise the last segment of U-Verse that was originally designed to provide plain old telephone service (POTS) packaged with telephone and high speed Internet service could well prove problematic. Notebaert is in a position to watch it fail on someone's else's dime instead of investing his own shareholders' money.

Broadband boondoggle: Congressional committee peeved over misdirection of USDA funding

Members of the House Agriculture Committee are unhappy with the administration of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service after learning the program to expand broadband Internet services to rural communities has missed many unserved areas while channeling millions to broadband providers in places where service already exists.

The Washington Post has been looking into the program, which provides grants, loans and loan guarantees to expand housing, small business, water and sewer, electricity and telecommunications services in rural areas.

Cisco working with West VA gov on broadband solution

West Virginia remains one of America's darkest broadband black holes. The Associated Press reports Gov. Joe Manchin is working with Silicon Valley-based router powerhouse Cisco on a plan to provide broadband to all West Virginia residents by 2010.

Manchin recently vetoed legislation that would have mapped which areas in the state aren't wired for broadband service and allowed nonprofits to offer broadband service throughout the state.

While the efforts of Cisco CEO John Chambers to light up this infamous broadband black hole are laudable, I hope he doesn't neglect Cisco's own back yard in Silicon Valley and California. As reported last year, Rob Hof, manager of BusinessWeek's Silicon Valley bureau, inadvertently found himself mired on the wrong side of the digital divide Palo Alto when he moved to a new home in the city.

Concerns raised over Florida broadband franchise bill

The bill bans the government from forcing utilities to build out their infrastructure to offer services to all neighborhoods. But it also names the attorney general as the agent responsible for enforcing antidiscrimination rules, giving the office the power to fine utilities not in compliance.

The antidiscrimination provision seems to be open to some interpretation, with the antibuildout language giving companies accused of discriminating a strong leg to stand on.

Brad Ashwell, consumer advocate for Florida Public Interest Research Group, said that while rates may drop initially, he expects gradual increases over time. "This bill doesn't guarantee that everyone is going to be served or enjoy the benefits of 21st century technology."

How Comcast perpetuates broadband black holes

Even though it’s now free to expand its service area and apply for a statewide franchise from the California Public Utilities Commission, so far cable provider Comcast has not. It could be because it prefers to remain under existing franchises issued by local governments that impose no future build out requirements. California’s Digital Infrastructure and Video Competition Act of 2006 (AB 2987), signed into law last year by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, allows cable providers to do so if they choose.

In El Dorado County, for example, county supervisors sold out their constituents’ interests by allowing Comcast to operate under an urban gridline model. That component of the franchise agreement between Comcast and the county requires service only be provided only in areas where a large number of homes exist as measured by linear road mile.

The problem is El Dorado County isn’t laid out that way. There are many curved roads that measured linearly are longer than relatively straight roads with too few homes to meet the minimum under the franchise agreement. They connect neighborhoods that might otherwise qualify for service since they have same approximate density of homes as those situated along relatively straight thoroughfares.

Comcast could extend service to these cut off areas, but declines to make the investment necessary to reach them. It insists on sticking with an urban gridline model that’s inappropriate for a place like El Dorado County and only serves to perpetuate the many broadband black holes that exist there.

More wishful thinking from CPUC on AB 2987

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has issued what it says is the first statewide broadband franchise to a cable company, Cox Communications.

CPUC President Michael R. Peevey said the franchise allows Cox to serve four relatively small areas adjoining its existing service territory in the San Diego area, marking a rare occurrence of a cable company attempting to gain customers in a competing cable company’s territory.

Peevey predicts legislation (AB 2987) signed into law last year by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that put the state in charge of cable franchises instead of local governments is likely to spur competition among broadband providers. “This is good news for consumers, who will have additional choices of providers not only for video service, but for the broadband and telephone services that typically are offered over the newly-constructed cable facilities,” Peevey said. “The Legislature’s goal was to foster video competition and broadband deployment, and that is exactly what we see beginning to happen.”

I’m not as sanguine as Peevey. The costs of moving into an existing provider’s service area with new infrastructure are quite high. Consequently, telcos and cable companies are concentrating on their existing service areas. They negotiated low build out requirements in AB 2987 that only require them to deploy broadband to less than half of their service areas by 2012. In addition, cable companies are free to operate under the terms of local government franchise agreements that were in effect when AB 2987 became law earlier this year. That allows them to stand pat and not offer service to areas that currently don’t have service — hardly paving the way for an expansion of broadband as trumpeted by the CPUC’s Peevey.

Emerging fault line of the digital divide: new vs. older neighborhoods

The outlines of a new fault line along America's digital divide separating broadband haves from broadband have nots is becoming more and more apparent.

The split is between older, established neighborhoods and newer subdivisions, the latter often governed by a homeowner association. Telcos and cable companies like these developments because they believe new homebuyers will purchase more profitable bundled services such as the so-called "triple play" package of voice, high speed Internet access, and video programming. They can also negotiate exclusive deals with the association that lock out other providers and assure a higher take rate.

This is leaving older neighborhoods currently without broadband with greatly dimished prospects for ever getting broadband as providers effectively redline these areas, concentrating instead on new developments. This is bound to produce a political backlash from homeowners in older neighborhoods who will increasingly turn to their local governments for a solution. That in turn will drive incentives for public-private parterships in which local governments provide public rights of way for the construction of open access broadband telecommunications networks.

Schwarzenegger questioned on how telemedicine funding will expand broadband access

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger received some skeptical questioning from a broadband deprived area of the state at a telemedicine demonstration project held last week in Eureka.

A questioner asked how $200 million earmarked for telemedicine under Proposition 1D, the school construction bond approved by voters last November, would help expand broadband access in Humboldt County. The questioner pointed out the county lacks a University of California campus, implying none of that $200 million would go to expanding broadband in that Northern California county:

Q: In order for something like telemedicine to work effectively, Humboldt County has to have a reliable broadband system, which we do not. What will the broadband initiative do to help us achieve a reliable system? Is the state going to be providing funding for that, or is it essentially going to be removing road blocks, as they say, to allow businesses (Inaudible)

GOVERNOR: Well, both. First of all, with my executive order we eliminated road blocks that were there, because we want to go and build and facilitate every town, every village in California as quickly as possible. That is the idea. So it’s a combination with the private sector and the public sector. That’s why we put the 200 million dollars in there, so that when they start building and increasing the facilities, university facilities. We are saying lets not just build buildings, let us also bring in technology, the latest technology. And so that’s what the 200 million dollars is all for.

Q: But we don’t have a university (Inaudible)

GOVERNOR: No, no, but I mean so that the private sector will pick it up and then take it to the various different places. So thank you very much. Thank you, everyone, for being here. (Applause)

It bears watching closely how much of the $200 million Schwarzenegger says will ostensibly be granted to private sector telecom vendors results in greater broadband availability in Humboldt County and other areas of California mired on the dark side of the digital divide.

AT&T residential broadband on back burner?

Some observers including your blogger have questioned AT&T's commitment to the residential wire line market in the wake of the company's recent acquisition of BellSouth, giving Ma Bell a 100 percent stake in Cingular Wireless. Indeed, AT&T chief Ed Whitacre told The Wall Street Journal after the deal closed "We're about to become a company with wireless at its heart.'' That likely means investment in AT&T's wire line infrastructure has been bumped down to a lower priority.

A personal experience today reinforces that scenario. I walked by a Cingular store and noticed a sign in the window "AT&T/Yahoo High Speed Internet Sold Here." So I dropped in and asked the manager when it would be available in my neighborhood. He didn't have a clue and suggested I come back in a couple of days and talk to the "techie guy." I headed out the door before he could ask me if I was interested in a wireless phone.

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.

Media think tank faults flawed U.S. telecom regulation for shortcomings in broadband access

U.S. telecommunications regulators operate without a clear overall policy goal and Americans consequently have less access to broadband services than Europeans, a media think tank concludes in a paper issued this week.

[W]hile the European Union has defined its issues focused on their definition at the highest levels of policymaking and seems to be addressing the challenge created by social inequity, Congress is mired in regulating the relationship among the operators. Instead of managing competition it manages the competitors. It perceives the issue as one that arises from the need to allow operators to provide certain services, and as a result the regulator does not deliberate the goals of the policy. Indeed the focus of policy in the United States is on the needs of the industry and not on public service.

According to the Benton Foundation:

America is on the verge of vast new broadband-driven digital transformation that promises to make life more livable, businesses more productive, jobs more plentiful, and the Internet more accessible. However, at the dawn of this digital age, those who could benefit the most from this economically empowering technology are also those most likely to be left without access because of where they live or how much money they make.

As Congress puts universal service reform at the top of its telecom policy agenda, this page will provide a one-stop collection of papers and speeches advancing a new vision for Universal Service -- for making broadband as universal as telephone service is today and a pathway for progress. This effort will embrace the premise that Universal Broadband access is now as important to the advancement of the American ideal of equal opportunity in the 21st century as universal access to education and universal phone service was in the last.

HDTV growth emerges as driver for fiber to the home

While cable companies and telcos are making a play for so-called "triple play" services combining telephone, high speed Internet and video, the rapid growth of high definition TV is likely to require them to upgrade their systems to fiber optic cable, an industry consultant suggests. That's because metal wire-based coaxial and copper cable lack the capacity to carry the estimated 20 Mbps that end users will require in order to get all three services including HDTV. Michael Kennedy explains in Telecommunications Online:

Video services consume most of the bandwidth within the voice, video, and Internet Triple Play portfolio. About 2 Mbps is required to deliver Standard Definition TV and 9 Mbps is required for High Definition TV. Whereas network designers can safely over subscribe bandwidth higher up in the network this cannot be done when allocating bandwidth to a single enterprise establishment, household or local serving area— especially for video service. HDTV sets are already out selling SDTV so HDTV must be taken as the standard offering when planning an Optical Distribution Network. This means that each household must be allocated a minimum of 20 Mbps because several HDTVs are likely to be in use at the same time.

.

Legacy analog copper, cable infrastructure stymies U.S. broadband growth

So said Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska at yesterday's Senate Commerce Committee looking into why the United States is falling behind other nations on broadband connections. And Stevens cautioned those who regard wireless broadband infrastructure as a suitable replacement:

"The problem is basically we can't use the legacy system of cable and wire" for broadband and have to build out across rural areas, Stevens said. "Wireless technology has brought new communication, but it is slower and not adaptable."

U.S. continues to lose ground on broadband connections

The United States continues to lose ground when the number of people with broadband communications connections here is compared to other countries.

U.S. broadband penetration among worldwide industrialized nations dropped from 12th to 15th place, according to broadband rankings released this week by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

In addition, the United States ranks 20th in the 30-member OECD roster in terms of growth rate of broadband penetration in the last year.

"We are failing to bring the benefits of broadband to all our citizens, and the consequences will resonate for generations," said Ben Scott, policy director of Free Press, a national lobbying group whose goals are to reform the media and universal access to communications.