Vermont legislature approves $40 million bond measure to speed universal broadband access

Blogger Tom Evslin reports Vermont legislation that would make the state the nation's first "e-state" featuring universal broadband and wireless coverage by 2010 is on its way to Gov. Jim Douglas. It defines fixed broadband as a symmetrical (same speed for both uploads and downloads) 3Mbs connection.

The bill encourages both public and private provisioning of service. It includes authorization for up to $40 million in revenue bonds by the State to build infrastructure like radio towers and middle-mile fiber. The State is NOT authorized to become a retail ISP but the plan is to encourage private wireless ISPs (WISPs), wireline ISPs, and cellular operators – as well as municipalities – by making infrastructure broadly available at a reasonable cost even in areas where the short term economics are tough. The bonds need to be repaid out of revenues but this will be “patient” money.

The measure also authorizes local governments to engage in municipal broadband projects. As Evslin states in an earlier post on the legislation, implementation of it could prove more difficult than getting the bill into law. I would agree, considering that $40 million likely represents a small portion of the investment that will be needed to bring universal broadband access to Vermont in just three years.

U.S. Dept. of Agriculture revamps rules for funding rural broadband projects

Dorr outlined several key elements of the proposed rules: Promoting deployment to rural areas with little or no service; Ensuring that residents in funded areas get broadband access more quickly; Limiting funding in urban areas and areas where a significant share of the market is served by incumbent providers; Clarifying and streamlining equity and marketing survey requirements; Increasing the transparency of the application process, including legal notice requirements, to make more informed lending/borrowing decisions; Promoting a better understanding of all application requirements, including market survey, competitive analysis, business plan, and system design requirements; and ensuring that projects funding are keeping pace with increasing demand for bandwidth.

Dorr noted that significant progress has been made in facilitating rural broadband deployment since the program began. Over 70 loans have been made totaling $1.2 billion for broadband deployment projects headquartered in 36 states. Through these loans, more than half a million households in more than 1,000 rural communities will receive broadband service. Over 60% of these communities had little or no broadband service at the time.

HD Net's Cuban calls for broadband infrastructure investment

"[T]he reality is that the consumer internet,…has matured, and its future, unless there is significant investment will constrain economic development in this country.”

Colorado video franchise fight reveals true goal of provider "competition," Comcast's hypocrisy

Here's an interesting story from the Rocky Mountain News that illustrates what the real competition between cable companies and telcos is all about. It's not about which can capture the most customers in a given market -- the traditional measure of market competition -- but rather who can force the other guy to provide service to everyone in a given local government jurisdiction.

Cable provider Comcast insists Denver-based telco Qwest be required to provide broadband video service to everyone in the Colorado municipalities it wants to serve, charging Qwest will leave some neighborhoods unserved if local governments don't require it to do so in exchange for granting Qwest a video franchise. (Note however, hypocritical Comcast does exactly what it accuses Qwest of doing, including in my own El Dorado County, California ZIP code where Comcast serves some neighborhoods but refuses to serve others).

If Colorado local governments force Qwest to serve their entire jurisdictions, the Rocky Mountain News reports Qwest may counter by invoking a recently promulgated Federal Communications Commission rule that Qwest sought prohibiting local governments from imposing "unreasonable" build out requirements on telephone companies seeking franchises to offer enhanced broadband-based video services. The rule also requires local governments to make a decision on a video franchise application within 90 days.

If Qwest presses ahead with this reported effort to accelerate local government video franchise applications, it will set the stage for litigation over the meaning of what constitutes an "unreasonable" build out requirement under the FCC rule. Local governments have already gone to federal court to challenge the rule, contending the FCC overstepped its authority.

Qwest's initiative also marks a quick reversal of a strategy announced earlier this month by CEO Richard Notebaert, who told Bloomberg Qwest planned to hold off offering video over phone lines, concentrating instead on accelerating residential broadband Internet access.

California's AB 2987: Market competition in a tightly limited market

I agree in concept with Pacific Research Institute think tanker and TechNewsWorld columnist Sonia Arrison that allowing telcos to compete with cable companies for broadband video services as California's recently enacted Digital Infrastructure and Video Competition Act (AB 2987) provides is good public policy in that it spurs some degree of market competition. "California lawmakers -- and others across the nation -- would do well to learn from the success of cable franchise reform and discard recycled proposals to over-regulate the technology sector," Arrison opines.

The problem is that competition is geographically restricted, playing out in a limited market where both the telco and cable provider have a presence. Consumers not in these proscribed markets don't benefit from the increased competition envisioned by AB 2987.

In California and most states, there exists a de facto duopoly in which the big telcos and cable companies like AT&T and Comcast have the market all to themselves. There are few if any other competitors nipping at their heels and forcing them to provide more and improved services.

Exhibit A is the large number of broadband black holes that exist in California where hapless residents can't get broadband Internet access from their telco (who in AT&T's case tells them to "go suck a satellite") or from the cable provider (upon whose maps these would be customers simply don't exist). Here, AB 2987 fails to spur competition and better services and does nothing to expand broadband services to unserved areas of the Golden State since the legislation allows the telco/cable duopoly to offer services to just half of potential customers by 2012. That effectively locks the providers into the market they presently serve, creating two separate but unequal Californias -- one with broadband Internet access and the other without.

U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller introduces universal broadband resolution

Thanks to Eldo resident Ron Britvich for passing this along this item from ars technica reporting Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) has introduced a Senate resolution calling for 100Mbps broadband for all U.S. residents by 2015, with an interim goal of 10Mbps by 2010.

Rockefeller noted that at the current pace of deployment, "next-generation" broadband networks (which the resolution defines as being capable of 100Mbps) will not be deployed throughout the US for another 20 years. The resolution calls on Congress to work with the President to develop a strategy with the goal of passing legislation by year end, but since a resolution doesn't carry the force of law, there's no guarantee that it will have any tangible results.

Comcast should expand service area as well as access speeds

Roberts went on to demonstrate how wideband can download four gigabytes of data, the entire Encyclopedia Britannica Library--55 million words and more--in just under four minutes. It would take a traditional cable modem about three hours and a dial-up connection two weeks to download the same amount of data, which Roberts said is equivalent to how much the average family consumes online a month.

“It’s kind of mind boggling to think what you’d be able to do with that speed,” said Roberts.

In the short term, Roberts and his fellow cable operators plan to use that speed to continue to hammer away at the competitive threat from both the telcos and satellite with their triple-play offering of video, broadband and voice services.

Satellite Internet with triple play? What planet is Roberts living on? Satellite Internet is crippled broadband, with sluggish connections and high latency that can't even support Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP). As for the telcos, the only real threat is Verizon if it continues to speed deployment of Fiber To The Home (FTTN). If Comcast really wants to compete with the telcos and satellite, it should expand its coverage to those areas where residents are stuck with a Hobson's choice of dial up over aging telco copper cable or satellite.

San Jose Mercury News: Time for action on national broadband policy

The federal government’s lack of leadership in this area is a disgrace. Despite a 2004 promise by President Bush to deliver “universal, affordable access to broadband technology by the year 2007,” his administration has done nothing to advance that goal.

Last month, the Federal Communications Commission, chaired by Bush appointee Kevin Martin, launched yet another study of the sorry state of broadband service in this country.

The U.S. needs action, not another study.