Fiber optic, New England town hall style

Residents of the Vermont towns of Jericho, Underhill and Westford will be polled by their selectboard members on whether the towns should take out a lease to expand fiber optic triple play services provided by Burlington Telecom to their communities.

This is an admirable expression of the American spirit -- folks taking control of their telecommunications destiny instead of hoping and waiting the big telco and cable companies will bring them broadband service.

Virginia legislature appropriates $1.6 million for fiber project

Some states are apparently tired of waiting for the private sector to act and are putting their own money on the line as in this project to build out fiber optic-based broadband for Virginia's Eastern Shore.

California bill would add broadband to lifeline service for low income residences

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-San Fernando) has introduced legislation that would require the California Public Utilities Commission to include broadband Internet access in the state's existing lifeline program that provides discounted POTS to low income households.

With telcos like AT&T offering DSL promo rates for residential customers who can get its underpowered DSL service for as little as $13 a month, Padilla's proposal would certainly appear within the realm of possibilities.

However, public policymakers and residential broadband providers should also consider more flexible pricing strategies that allow providers to cover increased deployment costs in less densely populated portions of their service areas outside of urban centers. As things currently stand, too many residences in these areas must choose between cheap but impractically slow dial up and costly services such as satellite -- more appropriate to extremely remote locations of the U.S. -- and T-1 lines which were never intended for residential customers. There's a price point in the middle for fast, reliable wire line broadband and the providers should offer services to meet it.

Digital Deprivation in a Land of Affluence

This story in today's New York Times illustrates that location and not necessarily socioeconomic status defines the digital divide -- this one in relatively affluent Connecticut.

Local public/private partnerships are America's best hope to close the digital divide

America's best hope for the rapid, widespread deployment of fiber optic based telecommunications systems that can serve up a "triple play" array of services -- broadband Internet access, voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) and full motion interactive video -- lies with local governmental entities such as counties, municipalities and utility districts working in partnership with private telecommunications providers to form open access networks. It's already happening in places like Utah with The Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency (UTOPIA) and in rural Southern Oregon. Smart folks in these places realize they won't likely see fiber deployed in these areas for many more years if they wait on the big telco/cable duopoly, which for business reasons must concentrate on densely populated urban regions. They correctly realize they must take matters into their own hands. As UTOPIA's name suggests, the foundation of the private/public arrangement is the systems open infrastructure as contrasted to the wholly privately owned systems of the telco/cable duopoly. That model allows for creative deal making involving valuable public rights of way and the investments of private sector players.

These kinds of public/private partnerships at the local level must be encouraged and supported. Telcos and cable companies should set aside their need for hegemony over their markets and instead of fighting them, find out how they can help them along. They too can come out winners since these public/private fiber projects put in place proven, state of the art fiber optic technology for them, saving them money while opening up a big pipe for them to reach customers with advanced services they currently cannot offer. They might not have total ownership of the fiber infrastructure that results from these public/private partnerships. But access to fiber sooner rather than much later raises all boats, boats that in too many areas of the U.S. remain stuck in the mud without broadband access.

Half of U.S. homes projected to have broadband by year end

Blogger Mark Milliman says the U.S. has a long way to go as a broadband player, citing data released today from Parks Associates projecting that half of the nation's homes will have access to broadband by year end.

A telecommunications industry consultant, Milliman notes independent telephone companies and municipalities are looking for ways to bypass big telcos and cable companies and are building their own broadband systems.

The big duopoly providers are already many years behind where they should be on broadband and fiber optic deployment and will fall further and further behind the broadband demand curve as time goes on, but are too constrained by quarterly earnings pressures to mount a crash program to catch up. It's only natural that more nimble smaller players and local governments are moving to fill in the broadband black holes the big guys have left behind.

Analyst: Telcos are doomed copper dinosaurs

Barron's Online is out with a report today on a broadband market analysis by Sanford Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett, who believes the telephone companies remain too wedded to their copper cable-based infrastructures. Moffett believes their stance dooms them to broadband extinction in the long run, setting the stage for cable companies to walk over their copper carcasses.

Not only that, Moffett opines, the telcos are deploying fiber optic cable in densely populated urban areas where their legacy copper cable plant is in better shape and where DSL's short distance range works best. Good point. I've argued telcos should concentrate on changing out copper with fiber outside urban centers where their copper cable plants are the oldest and most deteriorated and cannot support widespread DSL service as is the case in El Dorado County. The telcos like AT&T and Verizon should reverse their current fiber priorities and put fiber in these areas first. They'll gain customers for broadband services they currently cannot offer there due to the limitations of copper while at the same time be able to continue to derive revenues from urban markets where their copper is newer, more reliable and better able support broadband over the interim until they fully replace copper with fiber throughout their service areas.

Goal of South Carolina resolution: statewide broadband

South Carolina lawmakers have approved a resolution calling for broadband Internet access in all areas of the state. The resolution would create the South Carolina Wireless Technology and Communications Commission. It comes as state governments respond to concerns that large areas of their states are on the wrong side of the digital divide and economically uncompetitive. The resolution follows similar state government initiatives in California, New York, Kentucky, Virginia, Nebraska and Vermont.

The South Carolina proposal pins its hopes for statewide broadband access on still emerging terrestrial wireless broadband technology as the cheapest and fastest way to deploy broadband access.