Analysis & commentary on America's troubled transition from analog telephone service to digital advanced telecommunications and associated infrastructure deficits.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
The case for local government broadband initiatives
Its premise is the "last mile" of the U.S. telecommunications infrastructure is a broken down highway onramp, clogged with Internet traffic jams of data on their way to the 10,000 lane fiber optic freeway that carries Internet traffic. It posits the best way to clear the backup is to bring fiber optic cable to all homes, which Daggett notes unlike copper-based DSL has a built in future growth capacity for decades to come. Currently the overall carrying capacity of the Internet in the U.S. is quite low because of the traffic jam on this critical "last mile." The Internet is only as strong as its weakest link, Daggett observes, and it's pretty weak in the United States.
The privately owned cable/telephone company duopoly that provides nearly all Americans their Internet access isn't likely to upgrade to fiber for the foreseeable and under current regulations has no business incentive to offer universal broadband access.
Daggett asserts that high speed Internet should be treated like other critical public infrastructure such as highways and municipal utilities like water and sewers. She lays out several scenarios for publicly owned, open access high speed Internet networks that contrary to the fears of telcos and cable companies don't cut them out of the picture. The report includes several case studies of local government open access networks. It also features a very clear and thorough description of various wire line and wireless high speed Internet technologies.
Future of the last mile: Fiber beats out wireless
A research study on behalf comms regulator Ofcom has found that wireless systems cannot compete on technology or cost grounds with optical fibre systems for the provision of broadband services to the user.
A six month research study, carried out by a group led by Plextek for Ofcom, was set up to investigate the use of wireless technology as an alternative for the provision of last mile communications to the home.
The study found that wireless cannot realistically compete with fibre for the provision of future broadband requirements over the whole of the last mile.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Municipal fiber in the heart of Silicon Valley
But as a recent item on this blog showed, that's not necessarily the case. Much to his surprise, BusinessWeek's Silicon Valley bureau chief recently moved to a new home on the wrong side of the digital divide, smack dab in Palo Alto. So it's no wonder the Palo Alto City Council is moving forward with plans to construct a city wide fiber optic system. According to this story, Palo Alto may be the first city in the Golden State to do so.
FCC rules local governments cannot impose build out requirements on telcos
Here's a relevant excerpt from the 109-page order:
32. The record demonstrates that build-out requirements can substantially reduce competitive entry. Numerous commenters urge the Commission to prohibit LFAs from imposing any build-out requirements, and particularly universal build-out requirements. They argue that imposition of such mandates, rather than resulting in the increased service throughout the franchise area that LFAs desire, will cause potential new entrants to simply refrain from entering the market at all. They argue that even build-out provisions that do not require deployment throughout an entire franchise area may prevent a prospective new entrant from offering service.
33. The record contains numerous examples of build-out requirements at the local level that resulted in delayed entry, no entry, or failed entry. A consortium of California communities demanded that Verizon build out to every household in each community before Verizon would be allowed to offer service to any community, even though large parts of the communities fell outside of Verizon’s telephone service area. Furthermore, Qwest has withdrawn franchise applications in eight communities due to build-out requirements. In each case, Qwest determined that entering into a franchise agreement that mandates universal build-out would not be economically feasible.
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Content providers could make a big play for the pipes
When television was a relatively new technology, mass communications theorist Marshall McLuhan predicted it would produce an electronic global village linked together by a medium so powerful that the medium itself would be as important as its content. Thus, McLuhan famously pronounced in his 1964 book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, “the medium is the message.”
If McLuhan were alive today, he’d surely say the same about Internet and with great emphasis. It’s become such a powerful global medium that it’s threatening to reshape TV itself along with other traditional media outlets such as radio and print publications. Because the Internet can transport all forms of communication and do so interactively, it’s arguably McLuhan’s uber medium. It’s no wonder that newspapers, television and radio are paying homage to the Internet, scrambling to get their content on it.
Given the power of this emerging medium, expect to see content providers to take a greater stake in owning Internet infrastructure directly as cable provider Comcast already does. Last year, News Corp. owner Rupert Murdoch complained about the current patchwork state of Internet access, with large numbers of people unable to obtain broadband connections to the Internet. Murdoch and other media titans could end up making plays for telcos and cable companies to speed broadband deployment in order to reach larger audiences for their content.
If they were joined by big Internet content amalgamators Yahoo! and Google, their economic power would be enormous, able to finance a crash program to upgrade the nation’s infrastructure to support near universal broadband access. It’s also quite conceivable that the debate over network neutrality in which the cable and telcos claim they should be able to charge media content providers for access to their systems (net neutrality advocates say they shouldn’t) could provoke media content providers to launch hostile takeovers of big telcos and cable companies. You want to charge us to use your pipes? Forget about it; we want those pipes!
Telcos like Verizon that are putting in fiber optic based systems that offer adequate bandwidth to easily carry all types of Internet content now and in the near future will likely be the most attractive takeover targets. By contrast, AT&T’s strategy utilizing both fiber and its legacy copper cable plant could make it a less attractive target for a media company. But Ma Bell would certainly have to be on the list by virtue of her sheer size and ownership of vast swaths of the nation’s Internet infrastructure.
Friday, March 02, 2007
Silicon Valley startup has big plans for wireless broadband coverage
Wisconsin offers tax incentives for broadband infrastructure investment
California PUC a toothless watchdog on broadband access
While the PUC's support for universal broadband access is laudable, AB 2987 doesn't give it the teeth to be that vigilant watchdog. The big telcos and cable companies aren't required by the legislation to build out their systems in order to offer broadband to all Californians. Instead, they are required to offer broadband to only half or less of their service areas by 2012 -- and there are are loopholes that reduce that requirement. The PUC can bark and snarl, but it has no bite when it comes to bridging California's digital divide, which by the way has little to do with a household's income but rather its location.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Verizon earns analyst plaudits for upgrading copper to fiber
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Fiber optic, New England town hall style
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.
Monday, February 26, 2007
Virginia legislature appropriates $1.6 million for fiber project
California bill would add broadband to lifeline service for low income residences
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.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Digital Deprivation in a Land of Affluence
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Local public/private partnerships are America's best hope to close the digital divide
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.
Friday, February 23, 2007
Half of U.S. homes projected to have 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
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.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Goal of South Carolina resolution: statewide broadband
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.