When does the broadband railroad come to El Dorado County?

According to this telecom industry publication article, telcos are throttling up their network upgrades to support broadband services. When will the tracks be laid in El Dorado County?

"Broadband access network spending has been slowly gaining momentum, like a freight train, and now it is screaming down the track," John Lively, Ovum-RHK’s vice president of forecasting, said in a prepared statement.

GAO Finds Flaws With FCC Broadband Estimates

GAO developed its own model for broadband analysis using the Form 477 data as well as numbers from a private-industry research firm, which seems to suggest the FCC’s conclusions are too optimistic. Among its conclusions, GAO found that only 17 percent of rural households subscribe to broadband services, significantly lower than urban and suburban households. “Our model indicated, however, that when the availability of broadband to households, as well as demographic characteristics, are taken into account, rural households no longer appear less likely than urban households to subscribe to broadband,” GAO said.

The emergence of satellite Internet alternatives to cable modem and DSL is a factor that complicates broadband penetration calculations. “It is not clear how satellite service should be judged in terms of deployment,” the report finds. “Since it is available throughout the entire country, one view could be that broadband is near fully deployed. Alternatively, it could be viewed that satellite broadband—while available in most areas—does not reflect localized deployment of broadband infrastructure and should therefore not be counted as a deployed broadband option at all.”

Item at NRTC Update

This blogger agrees. The California Public Utilities Commission also committed the satellite cop out in its May 2005 legislatively mandated report on broadband access in California wherein the CPUC concluded that "broadband service is available to every Zip Code in the state," although conceding that not every customer who wants it has service and some may be limited to satellite-based service that the CPUC admitted "tends to cost more and can be of lower quality."

Satellite is fine for TV, but it shouldn't been seen as an option (and an expensive one at that) for broadband services except possibly for those who inhabit the most remote areas of the nation.

WISP serves small area near Cameron Park, Shingle Springs

An established El Dorado County Internet Service Provider has become a WISP (Wireless Internet Service Provider) and is currently serving a small, 15 square mile section of the county east of Cameron Park and north of Shingle Springs.

This service is based on an emerging technology that has attempted to plug holes in wire line broadband availability in underserved areas. However, it contends with the same reception problems as radio and TV signals in El Dorado County's hilly topography.

In addition to technical obstacles, WISPs also face business challenges competing with far better capitalized telcos. And since they tend to serve only small geographical areas, they like the wire line telcos leave thousands of homes and businesses without broadband access.

It remains to be seen if WISPs such as this one surmount the formidable challenges facing them and gain market momentum. If they do, they could provide another impetus for AT&T to finally get its act together in El Dorado County and upgrade its system to support broadband access.

April 27 Sac Bee item connects with Eldo readers

Bob Walter, columnist for the El Dorado County section of the Sacramento Bee, reports in today's column his April 27 column on the AT&T "upgrade or divest" petition garnered strong reader interest, demonstrating that quality telecommunications services is an issue of concern to county residents.

This blog is also mentioned...

Fiber is the future

Fiber-connected U.S. homes doubled since October
By Ed Gubbins

Apr 27, 2006 3:15 PM

The number of U.S. homes connected to fiber has doubled in the past six months, according to new data released today from Render Vanderslice and Associates.

Between Sept. 31, 2005, and March 31, 2006, nearly 350,000 U.S. homes were newly connected to fiber, bringing the country’s total to 671,000, a 107% increase.

Fiber is the future. It's time for El Dorado County to embrace it and abandon aging, antiquated copper cable.

An insane and highly ironic commute

Now this is insane, $3 gas or no. And it's highly ironic to see an employee of the world's leading provider of Internet servers drive 186 miles to use a cubicle-bound computer that could just as easily be used in a home office if Mr. Givens has reliable, high speed Internet access, which he likely doesn't.

If you're howling about paying a lot more to fill up these days, thank your lucky nozzle you're not David Givens.

Every weekday, Givens drives 372 miles commuting from Mariposa to his job at Cisco in San Jose.

On Thursday, as prices in California skyrocketed 3 cents more, to a record average of $3.18 a gallon and Exxon Mobil reported a historic first-quarter profit of $8.4 billion, Givens talked with resignation of doling out $40 a day, $200 a week, $800 a month in gas money.

For his daily round-trip journey, Givens won the ``America's Longest Commute'' contest conducted by Midas Muffler, which received nearly 3,000 entries from New York to the Golden State as part of a 50th anniversary celebration. Considering the average one-way commute nationally is 25.5 minutes, you can call Givens a runaway winner.

Story in San Jose Mercury News