AT&T Worldnet founder predicts universal residential wireless broadband by 2012

For those of you wondering when you'll ever get DSL, AT&T Worldnet founder Tom Evslin has a prediction: probably never. The reason: residential land line service will all but disappear by 2012 as telcos abandon the foundation of the U.S. telecommunications system, copper cable.

Rather than wimpy DSL that can't reliably propagate more than three miles from the phone company central office, Evslin prognosticates, homeowners will get broadband via WiFi-enabled mobile phone services. “Trust me, by 2012 we’ll all have wireless hotspots in our homes by one means or another,” Evslin wrote.

Evslin points to the high cost of maintaining copper cable in less densely populated areas and the continuing decline of residential land lines as people migrate to mobile phones as their primary telephone number.

Evslin could be onto something. Just last week, AT&T sent out a market research survey to gauge interest in a potential product called Unify that would combine voice and Internet service and chose either a wireline or wireless broadband connection depending upon the subscriber's location.

The coming broadband traffic jam

Two former assistant secretaries of commerce -- one from the Bush administration and the other from the Clinton administration -- warn of a coming digital deluge that threatens to clog the Internet.

Point well taken. Many Americans get broadband over twisted copper cable designed for the pre-Internet era. Even the relatively bigger pipe offered by the cable providers may max out soon without additional bandwidth. Finally, there are millions of Americans still stuck on the dirt roads of dial up, unable to reach the broadband highway.

"Video competition" is all about broadband access

The failure of AT&T state "video franchise" legislation in Tennessee last week shows a major discrepancy between AT&T spin and perception. While Ma Bell may claim she wants to bring competition for television programming by offering a cable TV alternative called U-Verse using Internet Protocol over Television (IPTV) technology, local governments and consumer advocates correctly see the real issue isn't about a mere cable TV alternative, but more broadly -- pun intended -- broadband access itself since IPTV by definition requires broadband.

Since U-Verse is deployed only in selected areas, large areas will not only go without IPTV but broadband access altogether since these gaping broadband black holes remain on early 1990s dial up technology or a satellite, a costly, crippled poor broadband substitute. Those living in areas fortunate enough to have broadband by today's standards using Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) service may not in as little as 3-5 years as broadband applications and their bandwidth demand continue to grow.

AT&T says that the bill would have increased competition in the pay-TV sector, by presenting viewers with another option aside from cable and satellite providers.

Opponents of the legislation, however, claim that it would have allowed AT&T to cherry-pick high-income neighborhoods for the service, potentially widening the so called “digital divide” between rich and poor.

Federal legislation calls for 9-digit Zip code broadband survey

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii) and four co-sponsors this week introduced the Broadband Data Improvement Act, S. 1492. It would require broadband providers to report broadband availability within 9-digit Zip code areas. That's a better unit of measurement than 5-digit Zip codes and even census tracts since the spotty nature of broadband access leaves holes within 5-digit Zips and as well as census tracts.

“The first step in an improved broadband policy is ensuring that we have better data on which to build our efforts,” said Inouye. “In a digital age, the world will not wait for us. It is imperative that we get our broadband house in order and our communications policy right. But we cannot manage what we do not measure.”

The measure also directs the Census Bureau to assess levels of residential computer use and dial-up versus broadband Internet subscribership and would have the Government Accountability Office (GAO) develop broadband metrics that may be used to provide consumers with broadband availability and cost.

In addition to mapping broadband availability geographically, the bill also sets a capacity standard for “second generation broadband,” which would have to be capable of carrying high-definition video , i.e. about 9mbs. That's more than four times faster than the average broadband connection available to most Americans.

Telco's sluggish DSL deployment produces IPTV skepticism

Denver based telco Qwest wants to deploy broadband-based Internet Protocol TV in Broomfield, Colorado. But it's getting a less than welcome reception from local leaders unimpressed with the telco's slow, selective rollout of digital subscriber line (DSL) and who are concerned of a repeat performance with IPTV that would leave some neighborhoods without service.

This goes to the crux of why telcos and some cable companies have backed state legislation preempting local governments and putting the state in charge of issuing broadband "video franchises." The legislation typically allows franchisees to build out their systems to serve half or less of their service areas, leaving everyone else on the wrong side of the digital divide. Local elected leaders are more sensitive to this digital redlining than state legislators, who are often the recipients of campaign contributions from telco and cable company sources.

Dot com coalition calls on Congress for federal broadband policy

The Open Internet Coalition, in a letter to Congress sent Thursday, said the U.S. government needs to adopt new measures to ensure universal affordable access to broadband, net neutrality and increased competition in the broadband market. The letter is the first step in a concerted effort coalition members will make to push broadband legislation in Congress, members said.

The U.S. lacks "any stated policy" to bring affordable broadband to more residents, added Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, a digital rights advocacy group and member of the coalition. "The government doesn't have an overarching vision on how to address these problems," she added.

Consultant: AT&T slows DSL buildout

“DSL shipments into North America will continue to decline, due to the slowdown in AT&T’s buildout, Verizon’s shift to FTTH and the absence of alternative service providers,” Dittberner said.

This likely means those who have been waiting for AT&T to deploy DSL to their neighborhoods will probably have to continue waiting indefinitely.

Appalachian broadband summit set

U.S. Rep. Zack Space, the Dover Democrat who represents Ohio’s 18th Congressional District, will hold two one-day broadband summits called "Connect Appalachia" next week in an effort to explore bringing high-speed internet access to rural areas of Appalachia.

"Just as railroads in the 19th century and our interstate system in the 1950s represented revolutionary breakthroughs in transportation infrastructure, broadband represents the breakthrough for our generation. We absolutely need wider access to broadband in order to attract new industries and jobs," Space said in a news release.

Lack of broadband hurts Tahoe property values

It's only a matter of time before properties in broadband black holes began to fetch less than comparable properties that have high speed Internet access. That downside is likely to be exacerbated in the current soft real estate market:

The lack of high speed internet access frustrated both business owners and residents in the area, and also began to take a toll on real estate values. Local real estate agent and petition organizer Brett Williams of Agate Bay Realty had this to say: “It’s starting to affect the values of the properties of the areas that are not serviced by high-speed,” said Williams. “If you are trying to fill a rental property, two that are similar, one with high-speed and one without, its difficult to lease the second property. You have high-tech people who are looking to lease a property for four to five months for a ski lease, and can’t telecommute.”

"White space broadband" could revolutionize Internet access

As the U.S. and much of the world struggles with wire line infrastructure investment shortcomings and regulatory confusion that keeps broadband inaccessible for many, there's a potential technological advance that could completely revolutionize Internet access if it succeeds.

This "killer app" is called white space broadband and would provide wireless broadband at speeds that would blow away DSL and cable high speed Internet offerings and offer throughput comparable to fiber optic connections. It would utilize unused parts of the television broadcast spectrum called "white space."

Eric Bangeman of ars technica reports:

The White Space Coalition is comprised of Dell, EarthLink, Google, HP, Intel, Microsoft, and Philips Electronics. The FCC should conclude its testing of the white space broadband prototypes in July and the first rules governing the use of the spectrum by wireless broadband devices should be released in October 2007. Once that happens, the IEEE will likely begin the work of standardizing the tech. If all goes as planned, white space broadband service could begin in the US as soon as February 2009.

California rural lawmakers back UC request for FCC telemedicine pilot funding

The California Legislative Rural Caucus has lent its support to the University of California’s application for $24 million in funding to the Federal Communication Commission Rural Health Care Pilot Program. According to the caucus, the federal funds would be matched with funds from the California Emerging Technology Fund to speed broadband deployment for telemedicine applications in rural areas of the Golden State.

"Together with an investment from the California Emerging Technology Fund, the FCC’s funds will make quality health care more accessible to Californians living in rural areas," the caucus wrote in a May 15 letter to FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin. "Many of the challenges in rural health arise from limited access to core health care services. Lack of access to healthcare may mean that appropriate treatment is delayed or deferred, causing unnecessary hospitalizations, higher costs, and greater disability and personal suffering. Health information technology (HIT) provides powerful tools to enhance access to comprehensive, quality healthcare services in the most geographically isolated areas. HIT can assist rural providers to better coordinate services for their patients by bridging distances and providing immediate access to clinical knowledge, specialized expertise, and services otherwise unavailable in rural areas."

The letter was sent the same week Blue Shield pulled out of four California counties, complaining medical care costs incurred by state and local government workers and retirees covered through the California Personnel and Retirement System (CalPERS) are signficantly higher in rural parts of the state.

Municipal wireless broadband off to inauspicious start

"I will be surprised if the majority of these are successful and they do not prove to be drains on taxpayers' money," said Michael Balhoff, former telecom equity analyst with Legg Mason Inc. "The government is getting into hotly contested services."

The vendors remain confident despite technical and other problems. Chuck Haas, MetroFi Inc.'s chief executive, said Wi-Fi networks are far cheaper to build than cable and DSL, which is broadband over phone lines.

Demand could grow once more cell phones can make Wi-Fi calls and as city workers improve productivity by reading electric meters remotely, for instance.

Balhoff, however, believes the successful projects are most likely to be in remote places that traditional service providers skip — and fewer and fewer of those areas exist. Cities, he said, should focus on incentives to draw providers.

I think Balhoff's called it right. In more densely populated areas where municipal wireless broadband Internet access is being deployed, residents generally have one or more wireline broadband providers -- telcos and cable companies -- whose speeds and reliability can often exceed those offered by wireless systems.

At present, wireless broadband appears most suited to the plains and deserts -- relatively less populated regions in the heartland and the southwest -- where both economics and relatively flat terrain make it a viable option for the relatively near future.

It's only natural: U.S. Supreme Court rejects anti-trust action targeting big telcos

Bloomberg reports the U.S. Supreme Court today tossed out a lawsuit alleging telcos Verizon, AT&T Inc. and Qwest violated anti-trust law by colluding not to compete in each other's service areas.

The high court found there was no evidence of collusion. Rather, the justices ruled 7-2, the fact that the former baby bells hardly ever directly compete is a natural consequence of their business models. "There is no reason to infer that the companies had agreed among themselves to do what was only natural anyway," Justice David Souter wrote for the court.

Maryland county lacks adequate broadband access, report finds

The insufficiency of existing services doesn’t come as news to Ken Decker, chairman of the Carroll Cable Regulatory Commission. Home-based workers in Carroll often need broadband access and can’t get it, he said.

The report recommends the county increase broadband access by exploring partnerships with service providers, conducting a feasibility study of a public broadband network and considering how other infrastructure projects can provide opportunities to add fiber-optic lines.

Arizona state broadband authority backed

According to this item in the East Valley Tribune, the Arizona Telecommunications and Information Council has given its support to the creation of an Arizona Broadband Development Authority that would oversee the implementation of a statewide plan for high-speed Internet service. It would study ways to reduce the cost of extending broadband infrastructure including fiber-optic lines to rural areas and ensuring that local communities play a major role in the process.

The council also proposed a revolving fund under the control of the authority that would be used to help pay for rural broadband projects that could be funded by a 50 cent surcharge on the monthly bills of existing broadband customers, said Michael Keeling, chairman of the council. Implicit in this subsidization scheme is the recognition of broadband as vital as basic telephone, roads and utilities.

Federal measure would map broadband black holes, redefine broadband

Nate Anderson of ars technica reports on draft federal legislation, the Broadband Census of America Act, that would define broadband as 2Mbps and have the National Telecommunications and Information Administration create a searchable, Web-based map census of broadband availability. The cable/telco duopoly has historically resisted such maps since they would show large portions of their service areas don't include broadband access and discredit providers' claims that market dynamics are filling America's broadband black holes.

A broadband census has already been enacted in California as part of that state's Digital Infrastructure and Video Competition Act of 2006, AB 2987. It requires those providers who hold broadband "video franchises" issued by the California Public Utilities Commission to provide the PUC broadband penetration data by census tract each year beginning April 1, 2008.

Tales from the dark side of the digital divide, 95709

Nearly seven years ago, a postcard arrived in the mail from Internet Service provider EarthLink announcing that DSL was available in my El Dorado County, California neighborhood. That turned out to be premature — very premature. Seven years later and two years after a promising community meeting with a regional manager for the incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC), then-SBC Communications and now AT&T, DSL is still not available despite fiber optic cable less than two miles away on a frontage road for a major U.S. highway. Nor is Comcast cable, which recently declined to extend its existing cable plant located a mile and a half away, citing a franchise agreement that allows it to skip neighborhoods that aren’t set up like densely developed common interest developments with zero lot lines.

Today, another postcard — actually the size of a flyer — arrived in the mail. This one from HughesNet satellite Internet and addressed to:

DIAL UP INTERNET USER AT
ADDRESS
CITY, STATE, ZIP

"Been overlooked by DSL and cable?” it asks. “Your high-speed Internet solution has arrived."

Judging from a neighbor’s experience with HughesNet, I hardly think so. It’s maddenly sluggish and not surprisingly so considering each keystroke to load a Web page must make a 46,000 mile round trip up to the HughesNet satellite and back down to the surface. For months, about 20 percent of his inbound email wouldn’t download to his Outlook Express program. So we installed Thunderbird mail as an alternative. The emails came in OK, but nothing would go out.

We spent two hours on the phone with some incompetent HughesNet support guy in Bangalore who couldn't solve the problem. So my neighbor is now relegated to using HughesNet’s crappy Web-based mail program. That’s not all. About a month ago, his granddaughter downloaded a TV program and HughesNet responded by throttling down the throughput to dialup speed as punishment for using too much bandwidth since it has too many ex-dialup desperados trying to cram onto too little HughesNet bandwidth. Many of these ex-dialuggers including my neighbor — large numbers of them seniors simply seeking a viable Internet connection to share pics with the grandkids — have been sucked into signing two-year contracts for what more aptly should be dubbed “MolassesNet” on steroids.

I imagine in another two years, another postcard will arrive in the mail addressed to:

DIAL UP INTERNET USER AT
ADDRESS
CITY, STATE, ZIP